Mary Kay Blake

Senior vice president

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Mary Kay Blake

Mary Kay Blake became senior vice president for the Newseum in January 2007.

Previously, she had been senior vice president/partnerships and initiatives for its parent foundation, the Freedom Forum.

She joined the Freedom Forum in June 1999 to develop its diversity programs for newspaper newsrooms. Before that, she worked 25 years with Gannett Co., starting as news editor for the Pacific Daily News on the island of Guam and moving through corporate recruiting and staff-development roles to become vice president/recruiting and placement for Gannett’s Newspaper Division.

She is a member of the Association of Fund Raising Professionals, the American Association of Museums, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Associated Press Managing Editors. The first non-minority board member of the National Association of Multicultural Media Executives, she also was the first woman to receive its Distinguished Diversity Award for Lifetime Achievement.

(updated 9/02/08)