MWW Group
Company: MWW Group, East Rutherford, NJ
Company Description: FRB is one of America's leading investor relations and financial communications firms with expertise in corporate positioning and communication, investment community targeting, media relations, shareholder management services and valuation analysis.
Nomination Category: Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Lifetime Achievement Award
Nomination Title: Marilyn Thompson, Executive Vice President
Describe for the judges the nominated individual's lifetime of accomplishments (up to 500 words):
Marilyn Berry Thompson, General Manager and Executive Vice President at MWW Group, has 38 years of continuous professional experience specializing in the representation of health and education interests, including colleges and universities; health, hospital and medical school interests; research and non-profit entities; libraries and museums; state and local governments, and financial services and corporate entities. Past accomplishments include:
• One of first to establish a Washington Office for a Governor. Only New York and Illinois had pushed through to establish a presence for their States and Governors in the mid-1970. The New Jersey office was only the third in the country to be established, and Thompson headed it for more than a decade under three Governors.
• When President Carter was elected, Thompson was tapped to work with his Chief Domestic Policy Chief and the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs to design and draft the White House/Carter national urban Policy in 1979, the first major urban policy initiative since the Johnson years.
• Started her practice in 1981 with then former Governor Brendan Byrne of New Jersey as her partner.
• Thompson is also especially known for her work in economic development, urban development, and in representing the needs of cities. Accordingly in her private practice she has represented the City of Newark for over 25 years, raising more than $400 million for the city’s needs. Beyond Newark she has represented the cities of Miami Beach, among others in Florida, as well as in Georgia, and California.
• Thompson is especially engaged in representing both Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), but also several other Hispanic-serving and minority serving institutions. She has represented all of the public HBCUs in the nation, all 47 of them in 22 states, and prides herself for her work in assisting the well-known Morehouse College, the school of MLK and working on the preservation, exhibition and utilization of the MLK papers to inform and inspire future leaders.
• Thompson currently is representing more than 50 major U.S. corporations who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that an increasing number of minorities will be successful in pursuing engineering careers and careers in Science and Technology. NACME is becoming nationally recognized as one of the rue leaders in the critical challenge to ensure that there is an adequate pipeline of trained scientists.
• Active and direct involvement in every authorization of the Higher Education Act over the last 35 years (since 1969).
Ms. Thompson’s practice is also distinguished by her recognized experience in appropriations and tax policy; developing and working with large national coalitions and associations to achieve specific federal goals and outcomes; and the comprehensive scope of the services provided, including legislative information and advocacy services and federal agency and grant development services. Of particular note, is the recognition that her practice has been given for its model federal agenda-setting skills.
Marilyn is a gifted communicator and combined with her experience in representing health and educational institutions, a natural choice for The Stevie Award for the Women in Business.
List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:
http://www.prweekus.com/mww-promotes-thompson-to-gm-of-dc-office/article/135700/
Provide a brief biography of the nominated individual (up to 100 words):
Veteran lobbyist Marilyn Berry Thompson has continuous professional experience specializing in the representation of health and education interests, medical school interests; research and non-profit entities; libraries and museums; state and local governments, and financial services and corporate entities. Ms. Thompson has represented not only large public and private research universities, medical schools and museums, but has specialized in the representation of smaller colleges and universities and minority–serving institutions. Her career includes long government relations and Washington experience representing the State of New Jersey and three of its Governors, as well as local governments and both corporate and non-profit interests in appropriations, budget, tax, technology, and infrastructure development.