“Everything related to college admissions gets more challenging over time, which is very difficult for families and even for the counselors in the schools,” Carroll said. “It’s especially confusing for international students. That’s where we come in, because we can specialize in keeping up with that change and making it work for our clients. This is all we do.”

A New Hampshire native with two adult offspring of her own, Carroll has a master’s degree in education with school counseling specialty from Notre Dame College and taught at Landmark College, Keene State College and Park University at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana while also doing school counseling. She started The Coaching Educator in 2009.

“I wanted to be more creative,” Carroll said. “and there are a lot of opportunities to be creative within education. Doing this allows me to fully support schools in the way I want to, because I love the school counseling career.”

The Coaching Educator employs three, including Carroll, plus multiple interns. Though everyone in the firm is a generalist and wears multiple hats, Carroll brings counseling expertise — and the business acumen she acquired as the owner of a barber shop early in her career. IT ace Leigh Delano, a former TCE client, is expert in math and the performing arts — including the hunt for arts scholarships — and Oxford-educated former humanities teacher and corporate ghostwriter Paul Culp is the writing guru.

Carroll said that all three of them are certified in career advising, unlike many consultants who are credentialed in neither career services nor education.

“I’m so lucky to have the team I have,” Carroll said. “I’ve really gone after creative, talented people. We’re a diverse little group, but it adds up to a specialized expertise that helps people take charge of their lives and finances.”

Delano was a National Merit scholar whose parents sought Carroll’s help in maximizing her opportunities. She studied piano performance at the University of Oregon and then transferred to the Franciscan University of Steubenville, graduating with a theology degree in 2013. She joined TCE in 2017.

“It’s really satisfying to be working with families that are trying to improve the lives of their children, especially with education having become so complicated recently,” Delano said. “It’s a privilege to help teens become more confident with what they want to do and who they are.”

For those who want to be scholarship athletes or performing artists, Delano builds the websites that are among TCE’s services.

Carroll said that Delano’s expertise with IT has been crucial to the company’s evolution into a national and international presence.

“We’ve moved quickly in recent years to develop the necessary online tools,” Carroll said. “Our website, our online course offerings, and our podcasts all very much reflect Leigh’s grasp of strategy, tactics, and design.”

Culp has an International Baccalaureate teaching credential in English to go with degrees in theology, history, and political science. He started his career in the family media consulting firm, then made a mid-career transition to teaching, beginning at a Middle Eastern university. After a decade in the classroom, a year in digital news media, and a stint in corporate life that saw his work appear in Forbes and Inc., he reunited with Carroll, whom he’d met when they worked in the same school.

“Rebecca has vision and an encyclopedic knowledge of this field,” Culp said. “She’s put me in a position where I can draw on pretty much everything in my professional and academic history, including the international side.”

Carroll said Culp’s varied background helps TCE considerably. “Paul is a professional communicator, and I saw what he could do in the classroom,” Carroll said. “He’s also acquainted with the educational systems of other countries and has a command of English that works well abroad.”

Technology makes the personal touch possible, with The Coaching Educator team being essentially bicoastal. Delano is in the Washington, D.C., area, where she and her actor husband are performing arts professionals, while Culp and his wife, a former journalist, are also on the East Coast, nearly a continent away from Boise.

“We do see a lot of clients in our Boise office,” Carroll said. “The rest we see via Zoom. The geographic distribution of the team wasn’t planned, but it works well. In terms of time zones, we’ve got the U.S. pretty well covered and are well-positioned internationally.”

Carroll said her personal experience with student debt and with the education of her own children were highly motivating for her.

“As a parent, I feel for families and the pressures they face,” Carroll said. “As a businesswoman, I see an opportunity to make a living helping people from all countries and walks of life address a major problem. It’s a calling. It’s really a very satisfying thing to be doing.”