Building Better Lives

Building bridges and laying foundations is a major part of alumnus Mary McBride’s (’79) career, but she’s no contractor.

McBride is the newly appointed director of Northwest Region for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). She was chosen in January by President Barak Obama to serve four states – Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska.

“This is such a tremendous honor,” said McBride. “I am truly humbled by the opportunities that have been presented to me.”

In her new post, McBride serves as HUD’s liaison to mayors, city managers, elected representatives, state and local officials, congressional delegations, stakeholders and customers. She is responsible for overseeing the delivery of HUD programs and services to communities in the Northwest Region and evaluating their efficiency and effectiveness.

Prior to taking on this new role, McBride served as the South Sound regional director for Washington Sen. Patty Murray where she was a lead resource for statewide initiatives involving affordable, public and farm worker housing and community and economic development issues.

The Statesboro native said the foundation for her successful career began while doing her undergraduate work in criminal justice at Georgia Southern.

“Georgia Southern really gave me a great foundation to be able to accomplish the things I have done in my life,” said McBride. “I built life-long friendships and developed the framework and the confidence to step into the larger world. The college itself presented me with many opportunities to challenge myself and ask questions of the world – challenge the ‘status quo.'”

After graduating with her Bachelor of Science degree, McBride challenged herself to become a global citizen and spent four years working with the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, Africa.

“It was my first real opportunity to see the world and to work in a community that had such tremendous needs,” said McBride.

The experience left her with a desire to do more – to build bridges between agencies and cut through red tape, making it simpler for those in need to access programs offered by government agencies. To that end, McBride took another leap and moved to the state of Washington to pursue her postgraduate degree, focusing on regional and urban planning.

Now her focus is on making the programs work collaboratively. “My goal is to make the agency’s programs become seamless in how the resources are delivered to communities,” said McBride.

As the term “affordable housing” continues to change in terms of energy efficiency, transportation and cost of living, McBride will continue her work of building better lives for her region.

— Marla Bruner