RESUME

Mary Sue McCarthy is a well-rounded, seasoned manager with hands-on experience and an aptitude for strategic visioning, events planning and marketing and project management. After 25 years in public relations and events planning, Mary Sue is a firm believer in finding common ground while honoring diversity and dissent. This belief, coupled with her natural inclination to build alignment and help parties work toward a common goal, prompted Mary Sue to become a student and facilitator of the strategic visioning process and the transformative approach to conflict resolution.

The addition of Strategic Visioning Facilitation to her professional “tool kit,” plus her 2003 affiliation with the Baltimore Mediation Center, led to her to the 2005 creation of her new enterprise Status Grow, LLC. Inspired by the realization that clients come to her with expectations of positive change and growth, Mary Sue named her new endeavor “Status Grow: Communications Consulting Above and Beyond the Status Quo.”

Status Grow’s most recent projects include strategic visioning facilitation for the Boards of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, the Contemporary Art Museum, Little Italy Chapter of the Maryland Restaurant Association, the Greater Baltimore Parents’ Council, Civic Works, Preakness Celebration Inc, and the National Academies Foundation. She is trained by the industry leader Grove Consultants International in strategic visioning and planning, using visual group facilitation tools.

Current event planning and marketing projects have included the 2005 Holly Tour with colleague Joan Davidson, for the Friends of Mt. Vernon, and the marketing and public relations for the 2006 Volvo Ocean Race.

Prior to January 2005, Mary Sue was President of McCarthy Communications, Inc., her Development/Fundraising and Special Events Consultancy from 1996-2004. Mary Sue assisted a variety of clients with event planning, fundraising, communications and image building. Her clients included the 2005 Volvo Ocean Race, Baltimore Office of Promotion (Waterfront Festival), Constellation Foundation, Baltimore Convention Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital/Dome Real Estate Corp., among others. Mary Sue has facilitated meetings to create marketing plans, raise money, execute special events, and generate publicity.

In her role as Project Manager for the Fish Out of Water Campaign, the city’s public arts project, she helped raise more than $600,000 for local charities from August 2000 through December 2001.From January 1994 until May 1996, Mary Sue served as Executive Director of the Mayor's Advisory Commission on Tourism, Entertainment and Culture. Her responsibilities included the launch, daily administration and budget oversight of this unique, new mayoral initiative.

During this period, Mary Sue managed eight subcommittees dedicated to increasing tourism and the promotion of the City while working with diverse groups including cabinet level civic leaders, and agency heads, as well as corporate leaders. She was instrumental in raising $365,000 to enhance Penn Station by creating the Penn Station Sensation (1995-1996).

She was the Executive Director of Baltimore Operation Sail, the Mayor's Official Committee on Visiting Ships from 1989 through December 1994. Her responsibilities at this non-profit service organization included daily administration, budget maintenance and program expansion through special events, fund raising, marketing, publicity and implementation of the strategic plan. She worked independently at the direction of a nine-person executive committee and a 21-member board of directors, but with a clear understanding of association staff and board roles. She raised $100,000 with her Board for Operation Sail for two consecutive years, 1992 and 1993.

After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1977, Mary Sue trained with Hill and Knowlton Public Relations in both their Washington and New York offices. She returned to her hometown of Baltimore in 1986 to serve as Director of Public Relations for the Pride of Baltimore 11.Mary Sue lives in Baltimore with her husband Bill Hopkinson with whom she has climbed all 46 Adirondack High Peaks. In her free time she is often found riding her German Dressage horse ‘Friday”.