Joanne Tzouanakos, class of ’79, was born on April 15^th in New York and later grew up in California and Maryland until she moved to Athens, Greece in 1975 for family reasons.  She was enrolled and attended ACS for five years.  Because her move was sudden (due to the passing of her father), Joanne felt during this difficult time in her life, ACS made this transition easier and with little disruption:  “The fact that ACS offers students the curriculum and activities as any other American school, I sincerely believe that attending ACS taught us ethics but more importantly tolerance, due to the fact that the student body was comprised of so many different nationalities. The school being located in Greece rather than stateside made the perfect remedy for the success of all the alumni either in their personal life or their professional life.”

Joanne has recently established her own transport company, SAFEWAY TRANSPORT (www.safewaytransport.gr) in Glyfada, Athens, Greece following 25 years of experience in the moving industry, particularly in the commercial forwarding and removal business.  She is happy to say that her business is “doing quite well considering the bad economic times that Greece is facing.” 

Since her graduation, Joanne has given back to the ACS community by serving as the President of the Alumni Association Board for 7 years.  In her personal life, Joanne likes entertaining at home and spending time with my family and friends. Her hobbies vary from going to gym, swimming, playing tennis, reading a good book and watching a good movie and last but not least going out and having fun! “Nothing extreme…” Joanne has been married since 1985 and has one daughter, Ann Maria, 16 years of age.

When asked about her memories of ACS, Joanne responded that she felt the teachers are what made the difference.  She fondly recalls Mr. George Pisanias, Ms. Sophia Nicholas, Mr. Stackhow and Mr. George Peppas.  However, she feels that the teacher who influenced her the most was the Psycology teacher, Ms. Maria Panagiotou.

Joanne’s 'words of wisdom' to young professionals is that “if they love and respect what they do, they will succeed.”  Her future plans are to invest and expand her company.  “Professional networking has been in our lives forever with the only difference that today we have the means and technology to accomplish this more efficiently and less time consuming. I believe that we will all benefit through this and it is definitely worth being a part of it!”