Seen in the May 2007 issue of
BALTIMORE SMARTCEO MAGAZINE
The following is excerpted by permission of SmartCEO Publishing

Selected by Sister Helen Amos
Executive Chair, Mercy Hospital

Marilynn Duker leads in many ways, but she is best known for helping to lead the working poor out of homelessness by helping to create affordable housing for them. She leads an umbrella group that encompasses Shelter Development, Shelter Properties and Brightview Senior Living. Duker also voluntarily chairs the board of the Open Society Institute of Baltimore, a George Soros led organization that has quietly made a major commitment to Baltimore-based philanthropy. “It’s an awfully big job to lead that, especially as a side job,” says Sister Helen Amos of Mercy Hospital, where Duker sits on the board of trustees as a second side-job. “She is the kind of trustee that you just dream of. She brings her own book of expertise to the table and she is always prepared and always generous. She’s everything you need as a board member. And in addition to that, she’s raising two teenagers, so she’s a pretty busy woman.

Marilynn has taken a hard look at what can be done and what can’t when it comes to affordable housing. It’s not an easy issue, because the numbers have to work for the developer. She knows how to get from the point of finding the will to conceive a project to the place where you are actually pulling it off.”

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