Mary Torrence

Founder/Executive Director
CEO/Total Marketing Solutions

Mary Torrence is CEO of Total Marketing Solutions where she handles the marketing efforts for several clients including Legacy Chevrolet, Legacy Ford, Legacy Hyundai and New Balance Atlanta. Mary has more than 20 years experience in the Marketing/Advertising Industry. Her background includes co-founding Media Dimensions (which later became Media Strategies) in 1999 after gaining extensive experience at several of Atlanta's top advertising agencies.

She worked in the areas of strategic planning and buying for McCann-Erickson, West Wayne, Earle Palmer Brown and The Reiman Agency. Account responsibilities included Georgia-Pacific, BellSouth Mobility, Atlanta Gas Light Company, Scientific-Atlanta, Contel Cellular and SunTrust Banks. Mary also worked as Account Manager for Cox Radio.

Mary resides in Sandy Springs.

Wendy Y. Bailey

Life Coach Director
CEO, Group Coaching Mastery

Wendy Y. Bailey is the Coach's Coach. Affectionately called "WendyY" by her clients, business associates and coaching colleagues, she is a Master Certified Group Coach®, Certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner and Certified Experienced Coach.

WendyY leveraged more than 25 years of leadership and management experience and expertise leading hundreds of teleseminars, live workshops and small/large group training sessions to create Group Coaching Mastery. She leads the certifying process for the Master Certified Group Coach® and Certified Group Coach® programs, training coaches to leverage their time, talent and energy using group coaching and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

WendyY trained professionally at CoachU, Coach Training Alliance, CoachVille and the Fearless Living Institute. Personally, she's invested in lots of coach training and holds a number of coaching certifications because she understands the value of honing your craft to ensure better, faster results with clients.

She's created several bestselling group programs, including "33 Minute Mastery/Group Coaching in 33 Minutes," "Close More Clients and Make More Money," and "Fill Your Coaching Groups: How to Generate Overflow Capacity by Creating, Designing and Implementing an Automated, Efficient, Effective and Focused Online Visibility Plan" and her newest program, "Advanced Group Coaching Strategies."

WendyY is really passionate about group coaching! She spends her days helping coaches, speakers and other training professionals create, design, market, fill and deliver profitable group coaching programs using NLP.

Connie Griffin

Board Member
Quarterly Donations Chair
Stay-at-Home Mom/Volunteer

Connie is a stay-at-home Mom and an active volunteer. Connie spends most of her time helping out at her kids’ school. She helps with implementing logistics of fundraising events and organizing an annual effort to provide gifts for special needs kids at an inner city school. She is a long-time volunteer with Students Without Mothers.

Connie’s background includes a career in advertising sales where she worked as an Account Executive/ Team Manager for Katz Communications. Prior to that she worked in local TV sales for WVEU-TV.

Connie and her husband Daniel are the proud parents of three teenagers. They reside in Virginia Highlands.

Maria Howell

SWM Secretary
(Singer/Actress/Voiceover Artist)

Throughout her career, she has shared the musical stage with legendary artists like Nancy Wilson, George Benson, Ray Charles and Earl Klugh. After a very successful stint in Asia, Maria relocated to Atlanta, GA and performed weekly at Sambuca Jazz Cafe for 9 consecutive years, 2002 to its closing in December 2010. She and pianist Bill Wilson held the distinction of being the longest running act at the Atlanta location. She has released several CD recordings, with the most recent release titled "Reflections", a retrospective collection.

As an actress, she has also appeared in Tyler Perry’s "Daddy’s Little Girls", "Meet the Browns" , and "House of Payne", Lifetime’s hit shows, "Army Wives" and "Drop Dead Diva", the CW’s "Vampire Diaries", FOX’s "Past Life", ABC’s Detroit 1-8-7, as well as the acclaimed theatrical release "The Blind Side", starring Sandra Bullock. Most recently, she worked alongside, Mario Van Peebles and Wendy Raquel Robinson in an episode of BET’s hit series "The Game".

Maria is not only a singer and actor, but a voiceover artist as well, lending her voice to numerous TV and radio commercials and narrations. For a full bio and additional information, please visit the following website: www.mariahowell.com

Tricia Anbinder

Board Member
Psychotherapist, Private Practice

Tricia Anbinder is a private practice psychotherapist with almost a decade of experience as a social services advocate. She attended Emory University and earned a B.A. in sociology. Tricia began her career in 1999 at the DeKalb Rape Crisis Center as the Director of Communications and a Victim Advocate. She excelled in providing crisis counseling and found her passion. Tricia also attended the University of Georgia where she obtained a Master of Social Work Degree. Tricia has established herself as a private practice psychotherapist and enjoys providing psychodynamic therapy for individuals and families. Tricia is an advocate of Social Work and is the Co-chair Elect for the Professional Education Committee of the Georgia Society for Clinical Social Workers. One of the newest SWM board members, Tricia is already making significant contributions to the organization.

Pamela Pressley

Board Member
Public Affairs Consultant

An entrepreneur, speaker and social advocate, Pamela L. Pressley is the publisher and editor of www.TheCotillionOnline.com, a non-profit news resource and membership organization dedicated to cultivating the next generation of charitable givers. She holds a Masters in Social Work with a concentration in social policy, community organization and policy from Howard University. Over the years Pamela has served on several non profit advisory committees and boards including the most recent - College and Career Connections, a non profit organization working to ensure youth from Washington DC's low-income communities have a chance to graduate from high school and pursue higher education.

A South Carolina native, Ms. Pressley is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority In. An exemplary leader in the public service community, Ms. Pressley is a seasoned volunteer and budding philanthropist. In 2010, she established the Dirt Road™ scholarship, which provides financial aid to first generation college students like herself. "It's extremely important to me that those who are literally paving the way to become the first in their families to attend and graduate a four-year university are celebrated and supported."

Giving back and service is her passion. You will often find her name in support of some of her favorite charities and organizations like the Washington Ballet, The National Council of Negro Women, the National Endowment for the Arts & the Humanities and the Children Defense Fund.

Pamela spent several years lobbying Congress for one of the lead social and behavioral sciences associations in the U.S. Today Ms. Pressley is rapidly excelling as a media maven and commentator serving on panels and participating in various workshops surrounding African American Philanthropy, Youth, Mentoring, Women, Empowerment and Social Media.

Allan Grant

Scholarship Selection COmmittee Chair
Strategic Account Manager, Total Traffic Network

Allan Grant is a Strategic Account Manager for Total Traffic Network, a division of Clear Channel Media+Entertainment. He has territorial responsibility for Georgia, and both North and South Carolina for multi-market media opportunities. Allan received his B.A. degree in Art History from Charter Oak College in Hartford, CT, and is at heart an artist having worked in various media as steel sculpture, bronze casting, wood carving and stained glass. Allan has exhibited his stained glass work in both Hartford and New York in years past. Currently his passion is woodworking spending most weekends ensconced in his basement workshop producing items as diverse as cutting boards, jewelry boxes and furniture. He is married and the proud father of two children both of whom are attending college. As a board member, Allan is the Chair of the Scholarship Selection Committee.

JoAnn McLean

Board Member
Director of Economic Development, Goodwill of North Georgia

JoAnn McLean is the Director of Economic Development for Goodwill of North Georgia. JoAnn oversees each of the career centers, the volunteers, the GoodBIZ micro entrepreneur program and Youth Employment Services. Prior to working for Goodwill of North Georgia, JoAnn owned a catering business for five years and worked for AT&T for 10 years.

JoAnn's skills and level of expertise are non-profit organizations, economic/workforce development, and community outreach. She, along with her Goodwill of North Georgia team, provided assistance to more than 30,000 job seekers last fiscal year and helped 9,357 of them find employment. In her 18 years of employment with Goodwill of North Georgia, she has witnessed the organization's growth and has had a key role in making it happen. JoAnn even remembers the day she & her team helped place 100 people. She prides herself in reaching this goal and now helps even more people in a day. JoAnn's goal is to open one center each year. JoAnn says that her biggest challenge is not the workload, but convincing others to take the step she did 18 years ago – pursuing their passions.

JoAnn has provided essential leadership over the years, contributing greatly to Goodwill's highly successful mission services. JoAnn does not mind taking on a challenge and has a passion of helping people understand the changing job market and helping them to gain confidence in pursuing their goals.

JoAnn is thrilled to be joining the Students Without Mothers Board of Directors. She has the right attitude, drive, and passion to make this organization a success. She challenges people to, "look at the world in a different way, to embrace the change, not to fear the change."

Paula Smith

Board Member
(Silent Auction Items Committee Chair)
Director of Economic Development, Goodwill of North Georgia

Paula Smith currently serves and represents the Federal Government through her 37 years of legal, administrative, and program management experience. In her current position, Paula collaborates with the enforcement team to develop and implement the agency's enforcement program and provides legal advice to federal, state and local counsel, as well as counsel from various other agencies and organizations that have a vested interest in their program activities. She is also involved in processing enforcement cases involving violations of the safety, commercial and hazardous materials regulations.

Paula received her legal training and paralegal certification from the U.S. Department of Justice worked for the following federal government agencies: Small Business Administration; Environmental Protection Agency; Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Attorney's Office; and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

For over 15 years Paula served as a CFC Coordinator and Keyworker. The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is the world's largest and most successful annual workplace charity campaign, with more than 200 CFC campaigns throughout the world. Its mission is to help raise millions of dollars each year. An effective Coordinator and Keyworker needs to be an effective "convener" - that is, a person who brings others together to work toward a common goal. Her outreach as the agency CFC Coordinator and Keyworker helped ensure that a broad spectrum of Federal workers became personally involved in CFC's goals and operations.

She's also served as the Federal Women's Program Manager, which developed agency work plans in order to set goals for hiring and promoting women. In addition, Paula has actively participated in recruitment programs to attract qualified women to government service.

She has been a volunteer, as well as made donations to several community-oriented organizations, including, but not limited to: Atlanta Day Shelter; Secret Santa and has independently provided utility assistance to others; YMCA Head Start Policy Council; and has volunteered for 5 years with Students Without Mothers where she has hosted an annual fundraiser "Chastain in Ellenwood" 2011 and 2012. Paula also chairs the Silent Auction Committee for Students Without Mothers.

Stacy C. Brown

Director or Product Marketing Management, AT&T

Stacy Canady Brown is currently the Director of Product Marketing Management in AT&T's newly formed Emerging Segments Organization. In this role Stacy works to launch the most innovative wirelessly connected consumer devices in the marketplace today. These devices include tablet computers, e-readers and gaming devices.

Prior to moving into the Emerging Segments Organization, Mrs. Brown served as one of nine coordinators across Cingular to manage the $41 billion Cingular/AT&T Mobility merger for the Supply Chain Organization. As a result of those efforts, she was promoted to Director of Logistics Support in the newly formed entity. Stacy's background also includes working in a wide range of positions including as a Software Developer with BellSouth Applied Technologies and a management stint at WORLDSPAN.

Throughout her career Stacy has held a key role in implementing several leading edge projects for AT&T, including several firsts for the industry. Stacy was the IT Project Manager responsible for integrating Oracle software into the Supply Chain Organization. This was the first implementation of this software in the wireless industry. She also worked on teams that launched the first Android device to use AT&T's 3G wireless network, the Barnes & Noble Nook and the first Apple iPhone 2G/3G device for AT&T. The iPhone is the leading smart phone on the market today.

In 2010, Stacy won a national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) award for Business Achievement. Mrs. Brown was hand picked by one of AT&T's Presidents to be Chair of his Diversity & Inclusion Council. She led the Diversity and Inclusion Council for a 3 year term ending in 2011. In 2011, Stacy was selected to be the RAVE (Recognition Award for Value & Excellence) Member of the Year by the Atlanta Chapter of the Women of AT&T.

In October 2011, Stacy leveraged her business expertise and her love of Diversity and Inclusion activities to launch the inaugural Atlanta Women's Summit, a first of its kind for AT&T's Southeastern region. Stacy was instrumental in the Emerging Devices organization hosting the first Year-Up (yearup.org) intern at AT&T.

Mrs. Brown is a Lifetime Member of the National Black MBA Association. She also is active in multiple AT&T employee resource groups including having a board position with the "The Women of AT&T".

Continuing education is important to Mrs. Brown and in 1999; Stacy earned her Executive Masters of Business Administration (EMBA) from Kennesaw State University. In 2001, she achieved a Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University. In 2006 Stacy received a certificate in Logistics Management from Kennesaw State University.

Stacy enjoys traveling, reading and listening to live music. Stacy is a native of Kansas City, Kansas. Stacy is a member of Antioch Baptist Church North. She currently resides in Georgia with her family that includes her mother Ozrie Canady, her husband Ryan and their son, Tahane. Stacy has a philosophy in life and it is stated everywhere in her office to Live, Laugh & Love, for laughter is the music of the heart.

Suzanne Touchstone

Board Member
Sales Representative, ValPak of Atlanta

Suzanne Touchstone is a native of Atlanta. She attended Columbia High School in Decatur, Georgia which is a school many of the Students Without Mothers applicants come from.

Suzanne's background includes owning several hair salons in Atlanta. After 30 years, she retired to go through cancer treatments. Suzanne considers herself a "blessed survivor" since some are not as lucky as she was. During this time, until 2005, Suzanne had the amazing experience of working as a manager and instructor at Jeanne's Body Tech, a gym owned by a close friend. Suzanne is a mother of two adult children, and now resides in Smyrna.

Since 2007, Suzanne has been working at ValPak of Atlanta as a Sales Representative. She is excited about utilizing her connections, love for new ventures, and sales skills to help raise funds and support for Students Without Mothers.

Reggie Prime

Board Chair
Director of Environmental Affairs,
Coca-Cola Refreshments USA

Mr. Prime is the Director of Environmental Affairs for Coca-Cola Refreshments USA, Inc. He is responsible for the development and implementation of strategic direction, tactical execution and leadership for the company's environmental compliance and sustainability requirements within the company's North American Business Unit. Reggie is a graduate of the University of Central Florida with a B.S. in environmental engineering. Reggie enjoys community service and teaching young people about business protocol and development. He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Reggie and his wife, Lynn, reside in Lilburn. As a SWM board member, Reggie is responsible for Corporate Sponsorships.

Marc Rawls

Vice Chair Executive Committee
Attorney, Sutherland

Marc practices in the areas of corporate mergers and acquisitions, securities issues, including public and private offerings, and general corporate matters. In addition to corporate responsibilities, he has experience in the areas of banking and corporate finance, particularly the representation of commercial banks and other financial companies in unsecured and asset-based lending transactions.

Marc is a member of the American Bar Association. In 2008, he was selected as a top performer by Stakeholder 100,
which works with law firms to select and invest in top performing associates of color. In 2005, Marc was selected
as a "Georgia Super Lawyers Rising Star" and is currently the Chairman of the Board of the Atlanta Bar Association
Business and Finance Section.