Accomplished journalist, writer and business owner joins SCN Board of Directors

At its June meeting, SCN’s Board of Directors elected, by unanimous vote, Mary Jo David to its ranks as a three-year director.

Despite working full time as a senior technical writer for Michigan Medicine, David generously donates her time and talents to writing a column, editing articles, and contributing where needed. The graduate of the University of Detroit with a bachelor’s degree in Communications/Journalism moved to the Gregory area from Canton with husband Gary Hicks in 2018.

“Mary Jo has jumped in with both feet,” Patrice Johnson, board president said. “She’s talented, experienced, and insightful. As importantly, she’s fun to work with and a great team player.”

David grew up in Detroit and married her high-school sweetheart, Gary Hicks. Together they’ve raised a daughter, Autumn, and two sons, Jordan and Gabriel, and are the proud grandparents of four grandchildren. Mary Jo has fond memories of growing up in the city as the middle child of seven. Her father was a welder at the Ford Rouge plant, and her mom stayed home with the kids.

“Raising seven on a single income couldn’t have been easy,” David recalled of her parents, “which made signing up for the Dr. Seuss book club in first grade a very special memory for me.” David remembers years spent playing outside until the streetlights came on, riding her bike miles in a day to catch up with best friends, and where she was in the library when the 1967 Detroit riots erupted.

An avid reader all her life, David also loves writing poems and stories. After working on her school newspaper at Bishop Borgess High School in Redford, she went on to college at U-M Dearborn and then the University of Detroit.

“A summer job in a computer room at Ford Motor Company turned into full-time work,” she said. “After graduating and facing the reality that journalism was not going to pay what computer work was paying, I was lucky to land a job as a technical writer for a software company.”

Despite working full time as a senior technical writer for Michigan Medicine, Mary Jo David, new SCN director, generously donates her time and talents to writing a column, editing articles, and contributing where needed.

After working for other companies for many years, she branched out on her own and founded Write Away Enterprises. For almost 20 years, David delivered business communication and training to a long list of clients around the Detroit area.

“Ford transferred me to New Jersey for a few years,” she said. “But Write Away opportunities took me all around the country and even as far as India.” A long-time member of the Society for Technical Communication, she was named an Associate Fellow this year.

Mary Jo David serves on the 12-person board with Johnson, Vice President Diane Rockall, Treasurer Judy Williams, Secretary Bev Glynn, Amy Haggerty, Rose Collison, Roberta Ludtke, Hope Salyer, Joan Tucker, Mary Wilson, and Nancy Wisman.

“We’ve got great neighbors and have met lots of new friends in both Gregory and Stockbridge,” David said. “I’m thrilled that the Stockbridge Community News has afforded me the chance to return to my journalism roots, and I look at the opportunity of serving on the volunteer SCN Board as a way to give back to the community while expanding my circle of new friends.”

 

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