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Recent Articles from M.J. McAteer
TRACY FITZSIMMONS
Tracy Fitzsimmons thinks regionally. Through her involvement on GO Virginia’s Region 8 council, secretary of Loudoun Education Foundation and vice chair on the board of Shenandoah Telecommunications Co. (aka Shentel), she has connections throughout the Shenandoah Valley and into Northern Virginia. She also focuses on regional connections in her role as the first woman president […]
KIM ROY
By age 10, Kim Roy knew she wanted to build skyscrapers. Now she leads Hitt Contracting, a $3.3 billion commercial construction business that builds structures across America. Roy is passionate about recruiting women into her firm to help diversify the next generation of leaders in her industry. Women comprise about 10% of the construction workforce […]
LAUREN SWEENEY
Lauren Sweeney founded Richmond-based creative agency Dotted Line in 2014 when she was 26 years old — building on insights from her family. “I come from a family of small business owners,” she explains, “so a lot of the language that I heard growing up around the dinner table was … the typical topics you […]
JAYME SWAIN
Jayme Swain is the first woman to serve as president and CEO of VPM and the Virginia Foundation for Public Media. She leads a 100-person team that creates content and programs for a network of public media television and radio stations and digital properties serving Central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, a notable achievement in […]
KAREN WIGGINTON
Karen Wigginton is a passionate mentor who encourages women to dream big. Her secret to success, she says, is boldly taking on leadership roles that push her outside of her comfort zone. Since 2013, Wigginton has overseen marketing and sales strategies for Sunnyside Communities, which has three senior living properties in Virginia. It was a […]
LORETTA CATALDI
When Loretta Cataldi started out in the real estate business 25 years ago, only a handful of agents were women. “Not very many doors were open,” she says, “so I had to climb in through the windows.” That determination has taken her from being an executive assistant to principal and managing broker at Divaris Real […]
CATHIE J. VICK
Cathie J. Vick was the first woman to join the Port of Virginia’s executive leadership team eight years ago. Vick had no direct experience in the male-dominated maritime industry, so she almost didn’t apply for the job, but a male colleague encouraged her to try. “Just having my job is shattering the glass ceiling,” Vick […]
CONNIE CONNELLY O’BRIEN
Early in her career, a client at the ad agency where Connie Connelly O’Brien worked threatened to take their business to another firm. Determined to fix the situation, she spoke with the client and learned that they did not feel heard, and quickly offered a solution. “By really listening to the problem they were trying […]
DeETTE GRAY
DeEtte Gray began her career as a middle school math and science teacher in the late 1990s. Her passion for STEM education eventually led to her role at CACI, where she’s involved in modernizing government agencies’ operations. “One of my great experiences was integrating computers into the science curriculum, making the classroom more interactive and […]
BECKY BAREFORD
To become the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s chief operating officer, Becky Bareford had to embrace a paradox: She had to get “comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Her moments of greatest doubt also were her “greatest learning moments,” she says, and many learning moments later, she now oversees the bank’s $400 million annual operating budget and […]
LYNN CROWDER GREER
Lynn Crowder Greer has been instrumental in some of this country’s biggest legal mass claims resolutions. From 1990 to 2000, the attorney was part of the Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust, which obtained settlements for more than 200,000 women who had been injured by the contraceptive device produced by A.H. Robins Co., a Richmond pharmaceutical company. […]
DENISE VAUGHN
Twelve years ago, Denise Vaughn was struggling to balance work with the demands of raising a family. She felt like she was failing at both, so she resigned to take a less demanding job. The news reached the CEO of Ferguson, and he called her. She sobbed as she told him why she felt she […]
JEN FLINCHUM
Before video conferencing existed, Jen Flinchum was a trailblazer for remote work. Women made up a small portion of the professional accounting workforce in the 1990s, and she wanted to change that. Flinchum joined Keiter CPAs, a certified public accounting firm, in 1999 and is now a partner specializing in tax planning and compliance. She […]
STEM-ming the tide
Mariah Simmons arrived at Virginia State University in 2016 with a dream of becoming the first computer scientist in her family. The week before school started, she enrolled in an on-campus mentorship program called Project Knowledge, which provided her a road map for navigating college. Simmons, now 23, heard stories from students who had been […]
KATHRYN FALK
Kathryn Falk’s interest in politics led to her career in telecommunications. After working as a congressional aide, she saw women entering the cable broadband industry and realized she, too, wanted to join. “The industry is so unique because it’s not a utility. I mean, we think of it as a utility today, [but] it was […]
