Tessa Arlen, the daughter of a British diplomat had lived in, or visited her parents in: Singapore, Berlin, The Persian Gulf, Beijing, Delhi and Warsaw by the time she was sixteen. She came to the U.S. in 1980 and worked as an H.R. recruiter for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Olympic Games, where she interviewed her future husband in 1983 for a job. She lives in New Mexico.