Kate (Mitchell) Dyer graduated in 1999 and was excited for what was to come next, but she was also sad to leave the Island behind. However, the University of Richmond proved to be a great experience. Having taught Kate over 25 years ago and talked with her recently, I see her pattern of using whatever space she is in to challenge herself and keep growing.
At Richmond, she majored in Business to give her a broad base to explore career options. As she approached graduation, she was deciding which city to look in for a job, and DC was near enough to Richmond for her to make the leap. She secured an internship at the Kennedy Center for that post-graduate summer, followed by being hired at the Corporate Executive Board, a consultancy company for corporate best practices.
Kate told me “[she] just happened to be at the right place at the right time” when The Glover Park Group, a strategic communications and government relations consulting company, hired her for a role that allowed her to leverage her experience in internal operations (I think that it was probably more than just luck!). Kate joined the company when there were 120 employees, mostly based in DC.
Over the past 15 years and as a result of several mergers and transformations, the company is now called FGS Global and has 1,400 employees worldwide. Kate manages the Human Resources function for the company’s North American region, which is about 650 personnel. She has settled in the Maryland suburbs with her husband and two children and her family remains close to her brother Sam’s family in DC. They return as much as they can to MV, where their parents and friends welcome them home. Thanks, Kate, for making us so proud of another one of our Grads!
Marge Harris was a teacher at MVRHS for 27 years. You can contact her at margeharris@comcast.net. This column appears twice a month.
