About Us
Mary Schnack, President, Mary Schnack & Associates
A specialist in communications for almost 30 years, Mary Schnack owns a variety of businesses focusing on communications and is an award-winning writer, reporter, public relations professional and advocate.
She was the recipient of the 2004 U.S. Small Business Administration’s Women in Business Advocate award for the Arizona District and Region IX and in 2008 she was awarded The International Alliance for Women Inaugural World of Difference 100 Awards, Advertising Working Mother of the Year Trailblazer Award and Member of the Year for Women Impacting Public Policy.
Mary is the Past Chair of the National Association of Women Business Owners’ (NAWBO) International Forum and National Founding Partner of Women Impacting Public Policy.
Mary started out as a journalist, working for daily newspapers in Iowa and West Virginia, and has written for major national magazines and newspapers, including Newsweek, McCall’s and the Los Angeles Times. She also was a television field producer and director for Newsweek Video.
Mary moved into public relations at two private, non-profit medical centers in the Los Angeles area. She established a strong public and community relations program, producing all collateral materials, advertising and media outreach. She effectively handled the hospitals’ crisis communications during the 1992 Civic Unrest in Los Angeles and the 1991 U. S. Air crash at Los Angeles International Airport.
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Mary and Betsy Weber at the NAWBO International Conference Booth |
She assisted and counseled the Seventh-day Adventist Church during the Waco cult standoff and, subsequently, helped the world church establish a crisis communications plan. She went to Africa for ADRA, a humanitarian aid agency, to help with communications during the Rwanda Civil War. After her original experience with ADRA, Mary conducted extensive communication seminars for ADRA’s field offices in Russia, Azerbaijan, Ghana, Guinea, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.
She wrote a crisis communications plan for Reno Air and was interviewed as a crisis communications specialist on CNN after the American Airlines crash in Queens, New York.
Mary has been giving speeches and presentations worldwide for more than 25 years. Mary is articulate, witty and knowledgeable about communications for both business and personal relevance. Her topics are interesting and thought provoking and offer communication and entrepreneurial tips that can be put to immediate use. By peppering her presentations with examples from her personal experiences in such places as Waco, Rwanda, Russia and Los Angeles, Mary offers real world perspective and not just textbook examples from other people’s work.
Through her public relations work, she conducts public relations, crisis communications and media training seminars throughout the United States and has conducted workshops at conferences in Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Indonesia, Switzerland, Egypt, Greece, Brussels, London, and Mexico City.
Mary is a public relations consultant and represents associations, corporations, entrepreneurs, government entities, small businesses, and non-profit organizations. Her agency is well known for association public relations, women-owned and small business representation. They have placed client’s stories in national publications, regional and local newspapers, radio shows and programs, television news programs and internet-based media. She also works extensively on public involvement projects for transportation and transit projects throughout the state of Arizona.
During her 15 years as an entrepreneur she has branched out into other projects and businesses, as well. She recently created a partnership in Nairobi, Kenya, to do communications training in Africa, and formed Asia Business Connect, Inc. with two Chinese-American businesswomen in Shanghai and Beijing, China, to help businesses who want to do business between the U.S. and Asia.
Mary also started “Up from the Dust: Supporting the global growth of women microenterprises.” She exhibits at various women’s conferences throughout the country, selling items made by women microenterprises in developing countries, including China, Afghanistan, Egypt, Guatemala, Kenya, South Africa and Ghana. She is expanding the business into website and home party sales, to help the women secure U.S. retail outlets for the sale of their items.
Mary’s community involvement has been extensive. She is the founder of the NAWBO-Sedona chapter, and served on NAWBO’s national board of directors as the Southwest Regional Director. She is a National Founding Partner and on the executive advisory board for Women Impacting Public Policy. She also is a Lifetime Charter Member of Boardroom Bound, a corporate governance and director candidate program, and graduate of their Pipeline seminar. She is a board member and co-chair of the International Committee of ATHENA International board of directors. She is the Arizona representative for the Women’s Leadership Exchange and is certified as a woman-owned business by the National Women Business Owners Corporation.
She was chair of the Great American Smokeout for the American Cancer Society, Los Angeles, for more than 10 years, and consultant and instructor for the SBA’s Small Business Development Center in West Los Angeles. She was a board member of the Sedona-Oak Creek and Marina del Rey Chambers of Commerce, Sedona Boys and Girls Club, Los Angeles Police Department Pacific Division Community Advisory Board, Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, head coach for the girl’s basketball team at Sedona Red Rock High School, and moderator of the Church of Red Rocks.
Mary received her Bachelor of Science degree from the prestigious University of Iowa School of Journalism.
Mary Schnack, second from left in back row, attended the
52nd FCEM World Congress, the World Association of
Women Entrepreneurs. She is with the other U.S. delegates
and NAWBO members that attended.
Mary Schnack, Chair of NAWBO’s International Forum, met with Ally Karlsdottir, Chair for International
Affairs for the Icelandic Association of Women Entrepreneurs, and Dagmar Steinmetz, head of the
International committee for the Association of German Women Entrepreneurs (VdU), at the
Global Summit of Women in Berlin from June 14-16, 2007.
Summit attendees from the US and Germany networked while they toured Berlin before the summit began.
Left to right is: Lisa Hanlon, owner of TELTECH COMMUNICATIONS, LLC of USA; Dagmar Frank,
I-Gistix, Baden-Baden, Germany; Mary Schnack, Communication Bridges, USA; Terri E. McNally-Beals,
President of Global Capital, Ltd. , USA.
Mrs. Bola Olabisi, CEO of Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network (GWIIN)
and PAWII Event Director, with Mary Schnack at the Global Summit for Women in
Mexico City.
At the Euro-American Women’s Council Conference in Greece.
From left to right: Melanie Sabelhaus, Deputy Director of U.S. SBA,
Daisy Gallagher, CEO of Gallgher & Gallagher; Mary Schnack;
Loula Loi-Alafoyiannis, Founder, EAWC, Phyllis Hill-Slater, co-founder, EAWC
Hi-Res Mary Schnack - right-click
