Carol J. Buck has a Master's degree in Education, as well as CPC-I, CCS-P, CPC, and CPC-H national certifications. For 20 years she served as the Program Director of the Medical Secretarial programs at the Northwest Technical College in Minnesota. She developed diploma and associate programs in medical coding. Now retired, Carol spends her time writing texts related to medical coding, certification, specialization, and reference manuals, which are known as the Step Series.