Born, raised and educated in Pennsylvania, Patti has been a resident of Maryland since 1991, when she and her husband moved from the metropolitan Washington, DC area after a brief stay in North Carolina. Leaving a decade in the computer industry, she received a master's degree in health science from The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. She worked for the Baltimore County Health Department as an HIV/AIDS consultant to public high schools, then joined the Governor's Council on Adolescent Pregnancy first as its health educator and for 4 years as its director. In 2000 she left the Governor's office to join the adjunct faculty at the Community College of Baltimore County and to spend more time with her sons (now 4 and 6).

Patti now teaches Health and Wellness at the Owings Mills extension campus, provides training services for the National Capital Area chapter of the Society of Public Health Education (NCA SOPHE) and acts as a consultant to various organizations on community health education and teen pregnancy prevention.

Her political interests began at a very early age at the knee of her grandmother who voted in every election subsequent to receiving the right to vote. In 1989 she worked in North Carolina on the Gantt campaign for Senator against Jesse Helms. In Maryland, she has volunteered for various local and state campaigns but was most active in the Townsend gubernatorial campaign in 2002. Patti is proud to call herself a liberal and is a registered Democrat because she believes in social justice, reproductive freedom, separation of church and state, fighting for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, and creating policy based on compassion, tolerance, and fairness.