TMG Involved in Community in Many Ways
Ryan Gillis has been an avid supporter of Special Olympics and fundraises on their behalf with his participation in the annual Polar Bear Plunge Special Olympics event.

Chris Wickman is active in the community, by volunteering for the America Red Cross and the Habitat for Humanity and the National Organization Disabilities.

Suzy Howard has been active for many years sitting on the Board of New Hope Housing and is an honorary member and former Board Member of the TWIG of Alexandria, which is an auxiliary of Alexandria Hospital. She is also Co-Chair of Human Resource Leadership Awards.

Linda Segal is an Education Program Volunteer with The Textile Museum in DC, which has an Arts to Families program featuring crafts for children. She is also a member of the Social Action Council for Adas Israel Congregation and is part of a team that provides strategy and planning for social action projects that the congregation wishes to undertake. Projects include helping to refurbish homes in flood ravaged New Orleans, organizing Veteran’s Day programs as well as organizing a forum on public health in DC which was presented on Martin Luther King weekend.

Elizabeth was recently elected to the New Hope Housing Board of Directors. New Hope Housing provides homeless families and individuals shelter and the tools to build a better life. Elizabeth also serves as Co-Chair for the Human Resource Leadership Awards. Elizabeth is a member of Leadership of Greater Washington.

Tim Ward is the former Vice President of the Board of Director’s for Arlington Street People’s Assistance Network (A-SPAN). A-SPANs mission is to provide life sustaining services for Arlington’s street homeless and to secure permanent housing for one of Arlington’s most vulnerable populations through outreach and relationships built on trust and respect. With the help of several volunteers, A-SPAN also provides bagged meal services, and outreach casework. Tim is in the current program class of Leadership of Greater Washington.

David Ris places Golden Retrievers in homes across the region. For almost ten years, Dave has volunteered with GRREAT (Golden Retriever Rescue Education and Training). He interviews families who want to adopt available Retrievers and often helps out at “Adoption Days” where adopting families meet available dogs. Dave and his wife also open their home to foster dogs in transition.

Andi Cullins has been Board Chairman of the Bonder and Amanda Johnson Community Development Corporation during the planning and opening of a historic public private partnership resulting in the completion of a new affordable apartment complex in the Arlington Nauck community. She is also an active member of Leadership Arlington and a former member of the Board of Regents, as well as sits on the planning committee of Place, an initiative of the Arlington County Board, to address civic engagement throughout the county.

Grant Lehman participates in the Kogod Business Case Competition at American University. He volunteers in judging over 100 business students as their teams compete to solve complex business cases both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Grant also gives back to his neighborhood community serving on the Board of Directors of his homeowner association.

Leslie Sorg Ramsey, a talented artist, volunteers and orchestrates myriad arts programs through The Arts Club of Washington which promotes and celebrates the visual, performing and literary arts of the nation’s capital.

Ivan Adler sits on the Next Generation Board of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Next Generation Board is a group of philanthropists and emerging leaders who seek to engage and inspire the local community through events and educational programming.

Steve Nelson serves on the Tifereth Israeal congregation Social Action Committee. His primary responsibility is to write a monthly column for the Menorah, the synagogue’s newsletter. The articles often focus on congregation members who are active in social action generally and projects sponsored by Tifereth Israel. Steve also regularly participates in the Social Action Committee’s food distribution projects to the homeless, which is handled through Martha’s Table.

Chris Doxzen volunteers with Spring for Alexandria, a celebration of philanthropy and service to give back to the community. She has recently begun to volunteer with The Northern Virginia Therapeutic Riding Program (NVTRP). It is a non-profit organization dedicated to enriching the lives of children and adults with disabilities, youth-at-risk, and veterans through the challenging, physically-active sport of horseback riding.

Thirteen Years of Recognition for Corporate Service
In 1997, The Washington Business Journal released its first list of Greater Washington’s most philanthropic companies. It marked a turning point for both the Business Journal and for businesses across the region, as a powerful spotlight would now shine on corporate philanthropists and volunteers. For the first time, companies were evaluated by more than profitability. After the initial list in 1997, the race was on. As more companies looked to be included on the annual list, it became a challenge to not only make the list, but also to remain on the list. The McCormick Group is proud to have been recognized and ranked 13 straight years, and we’re still counting.

The McCormick Group has always believed in serving the community as well as serving clients, and it’s never been an either-or scenario. As The McCormick Group has grown over the years, so has its commitment to philanthropy. Before the inception of the Corporate Philanthropy list, our specialists worked with not-for-profit organizations in a number of functional areas, including providing pro-bono assistance. After the first annual Business Philanthropy Summit in 1998, the desire to respond to the needs of community-serving organizations evolved into the now successful Not-for-profit & Associations practice of the McCormick Group. This practice group has allowed the company to focus on the community on a daily basis by consulting for both local and national organizations of all sizes. The McCormick Group is proud to assist the not-for-profit world, especially in this latest economic downturn, as we know first-hand how important these organizations are.

The McCormick Group not only donates services as an organization, but also encourages employees to give back. Each employee is given six days per year to volunteer. These volunteer days have been used to re-build homes, paint facilities, clean up parks, and time swim-meets, just to name a few. Almost everyone finds a way to give back, as The McCormick Group is continually ranked in average volunteer hours per employee.

Senior Vice President, Lyles Carr, believes that successful companies like The McCormick Group have to focus on more than just the bottom-line. “It is no doubt a challenge to grow as a company and give back at the same time,” Lyles said. “But it’s a challenge we embrace. The rewards are significant.”

The McCormick Group thanks the Washington Business Journal for its commitment to recognizing corporate philanthropy, and we look forward to remaining on the list for years to come.

Paul Rothenburg Featured in Rosslyn Magazine
Paul Rothenburg was featured in the Summer issue of Rosslyn Magazine for his commitment to community service, notably to The McCormick Group’s neighborhood of Rosslyn. The article is below.

For 20 years, long before he was a VP with The McCormick Group, or chairman of three non-profit organizations, or an integral part of Rosslyn Renaissance, Paul Rothenburg was a newspaper man.

It started with his first job out of college, working in the Motor City for the Detroit News. He ran what was the marketing department, won two Clio advertising awards, and eventually rose to become VP for Circulation. “It was an almost 24-hour-a-day operation that I was responsible for,” he says, “involving 13,500 people to distribute the newspaper.”

“The appeal of the newspaper business,” he goes on, “is the immediacy. It’s a timely, very complicated process to put out a new product every day. You start from scratch – every single day you start with nothing.”

For years, Rothenburg thrived on the intensity, but at age 40 took a year off, then ran his own newspaper consulting business. In 1982, one of his clients gave him a once-in-a-lifetime offer – the chance to become VP and General Manager of the newly-formed Washington Times. “To start a newspaper in the nation’s capitol, arguably the capitol of the world,” he says, “ was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. It was a great experience.”

He was at the Washington Times for five years, and has remained in the Washington region ever since, working in the real estate/ construction and banking industries before joining an executive search firm, The McCormick Group, in 1994, where he is currently Vice President of Business Development. The McCormick Group, founded in Rosslyn in 1974, has always emphasized civic participation, and it’s part of Rothenburg’s personal business philosophy. “Being a good corporate citizen,” he says, “is more than doing a good job at work.”

A member of the inaugural class of Leadership Washington in 1987, he has also served as chair of the Columbia Lighthouse of the Blind, Goodwill of Greater Washington, and vice-chair for the United Negro College Fund, always bringing exceptional leadership skills and management expertise to bear. To say nothing of the good humor he brings to any table at which he sits, ever able to lighten up difficult discussions with his hearty laugh.

Early Days
Rothenburg grew up in the northwest suburbs of Detroit with his parents and younger brother. After high school, he received a degree in communication arts from Michigan State and from 1963 to1968 served stateside with the U.S. Marines. He also attended the Detroit College of Law, and had a stint as chair of the Grosse Pointe Woods Planning Commission, good preparation for site plan reviews in Arlington. He arrived in D.C. in 1983, along with his wife-to-be, Kathleen, who is also in the newspaper business. They just celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary, along with their three daughters and four grandsons.

RR Urban Design Committee
As First Vice President of Rosslyn Renaissance, he also co-chairs RR’s Urban Design Committee, which, he notes “has become a required stop for developers.” “There are currently eight blocks in Rosslyn that are either under development, or about to undergo construction, or in planning. Eight blocks in a small, defined community is a lot. When you look at it, you’re talking about the future of Rosslyn,” Rothenburg states. “That’s why it’s important for RR and the Urban Design Committee to be at the very focal point of all this development, where we can be a voice that brings various aspects together – Arlington County government, developers, civic associations, the business community and residents. The community in its entirety looks at UDC and RR for their input because it represents a cross-section of the business and civic community.”

After he says this, you can imagine him making an aside from back in his newspaper days. “Get me Re-Write! This place needs an edit!” Everyone will laugh, and get down to the business of making Rosslyn an extraordinary place.