A 1971 graduate of the Colorado Outward Bound School, a few years later Mary began taking her fellow undergrads backpacking and climbing as a co-founder of Project Wild (Wilderness Initiatives for Learning at Duke), a program that still exists today. She got her first wilderness first aid training as part of that program.

Several careers later, Mary was hired by the NOC to teach white water kayaking in 2006. Sadly, a tibia-fibula fracture four years later ended her time as an instructor.

However, with her academic background as a researcher and teacher of anatomy and physiology (she has a Ph. D. in zoology), and her ongoing fascination with how the human body works, Mary soon found a happy home at SOLO Southeast.

When not working she loves nothing more than going on 50- mile rides on her road bike, cranking up long hills to the mountain passes at the top and then flying down the other sides.