Faces On Campus – Mary Trimarco

Faces On Campus – Mary Trimarco

Mary Trimarco cultivates partnerships with corporations to provide a talent pipeline within companies. Mary works closely with faculty and staff in Boston, as well as Northeastern’s campuses in Silicon Valley and Charlotte, to identify workforce trends in high-demand fields and discover where Northeastern can support employers’ needs. Mary brings more than 25 years of experience to her role. She most recently managed the international trade and business recruitment teams at the State of Washington’s Department of Commerce. This role included marketing the state across the globe and managing incentive funds to attract and retain businesses, as well as overseeing a business loan program. Mary has served on various local boards, including the China Relations Council, Impact Washington, and the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority. She is originally from Illinois and has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois.

Tell us more about your role at Northeastern Seattle?

My role has a very wide range! I mainly work on developing business partnerships. This includes, but is not limited to, co-ops, securing new projects or research opportunities, and driving an enrollment pipeline. To secure a formal partnership of any sort takes a long time. You have to date for a little while! It is vital for industry leaders to know who we are, but more importantly, who our students are. Our students and graduates lead our ability to forge these relationships with companies, to build these relationships. And they do!

I have been in this role for over two and a half years, and it is clear that our graduates are having a big impact on industry, whether they’re completing co-ops or have secured a full-time job. Our students are doing extremely well, companies are now recognizing us, they want to be involved with us. It makes my job a lot easier.

I also collaborate with a lot of other people in this role. I work closely with staff members focused solely on co-op; Paco Mesch for CCIS, Matt Lenda for Engineering and Liz Zampino on XN Labs. I also work closely with faculty out of Boston in making connections to industry as well as a lot of the staff , from Corporate Advancement to the Professional Advancement Network.  I need to coordinate with all of those people, as well as support them, as we build stronger and deeper relationships into the Seattle market.

I also assist in managing the marketing and enrollment for this campus. I work with Caroline Li, who is our Marketing Manager for Seattle, as well as Dan Kearney and Rick Turner, our recruiters. Sam Ork just joined the team at the Seattle campus, he is the new recruiter for CCIS ALIGN. I’m looking forward to working with him!

I also work on include finding sponsorships to build upon the Northeastern University – Seattle brand. We definitely want to start to build more awareness about our campus. We want to get more involved in the South Lake Union area and promote the campus further.

I’m still relatively new to higher education, but I can say truthfully that I have never learned as much as I have in the past two and a half years. But I’m still not learning as much as the students are!

What do you value most about Northeastern Seattle’s vision?

I really value Northeastern’s mission. Northeastern has so much history, and such a great reputation, so of course we want to uphold their values at the regional campuses! We are so committed to aligning the students’ intensive education, with the market and the real world, and preparing our students for a successful career. We also teach them to be big thinkers and open to learning, so they will ultimately become industry leaders.  We strive to help our students succeed in finding a fulfilling career and life.

On that note, what motivates you?

I really like expanding opportunities for students, so they can realize their full potential while they are here. It’s very satisfying to be part of their development. Just to see the students grow in confidence and be independent, and ultimately have fulfilling careers and lives is so rewarding! I really enjoy the recruiting aspect of my job, particularly for the ALIGN program. I love helping students realize that although they may not have a background in Computer Science, it doesn’t have to hold them back. They can complete a Master’s in Computer Science if they are engaged and work hard! Just helping to build that pathway is very motivating.

The Seattle campus has just celebrated its 5 year anniversary. What are your objectives for the next 5 years?

I hope that we keep growing and building upon our stellar reputation. It would also be great to keep expanding our enrollment programs. I also want to expand our reach in Seattle, and to get students more connected. At the moment, I am currently focused on integrating employers to our network, to get more co-op opportunities. Ideally, in five years, I hope we get to the point where we don’t even have to introduce ourselves, as employers are actively seeking us out.

What’s something crazy that happened on the Seattle campus?

A few things come to mind! I had only been working here a few months, and I ran into a student I hadn’t seen in a while in Suite 100. Of course, I immediately struck up a conversation with him, asking him all about his classes at the Level analytics boot camp and he looked at me really funny, and told me he had graduated that spring with an MS in IS and was working at Slalom. It turned out, I had gotten him mixed up with another student! Luckily, he saw the funny side of it, but I was mortified!

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