For more than two decades, Ellen Finnerty Myers has helped countless donors build their legacies within the Carroll Hospital community. Now, as she enters retirement this July, it’s only appropriate to look at the legacy she leaves behind. And, oh, what a tremendous legacy it is.
“It is not an overstatement to say that Ellen has been pivotal in transforming Carroll Hospital,” says Mark Debinski, chair of the Carroll Hospital Foundation Board of Trustees. “Everywhere you look, you can see the impact she has made.”
Indeed, as vice president of corporate development and chief development officer, Myers has touched just about every aspect of the hospital’s growth since 2000. She played an integral role in the creation of the William E. Kahlert Regional Cancer Center, the Tevis Center for Wellness and the Mt. Airy Health and Wellness Pavilion, as well as in the hospital’s 2015 merger with LifeBridge Health.
She served as an executive leader for multiple subsidiaries, including Carroll Hospice, Carroll Hospital Auxiliary and Mt. Airy Health Services. And she built a reputation as a leader of high-performing teams within the hospital, from marketing and public relations to environmental and dietary services.
For many in the community, however, Myers is best known as the leader and face of the Carroll Hospital Foundation. A Certified Fund Raising Executive (C.F.R.E.), she increased sustainable giving to the Foundation from $400,000 a year to $5 million a year, raising nearly $100 million over the course of her tenure. Those funds were critical to the hospital’s ability to advance its services, programs, treatment technologies and facilities as the health needs of the community evolved.
Myers will be succeeded by another familiar face to Carroll Hospital donors: Brenda Frazier, Carroll Hospital Foundation’s director of development from 2010 to 2018. Frazier helped lead the $23 million Campaign to Cure & Comfort, Always that ultimately paved the way for the Kahlert Regional Cancer Center and Tevis Center for Wellness. Since 2018, Frazier has served as associate vice president of development and leadership gifts at McDaniel College, where she and her team raised more than $25 million. She will return to the Foundation under the new role of vice president of development.
“We are beyond grateful for Ellen’s incredible leadership, and we know we will be in good hands with Brenda,” says Carroll Hospital President and COO Garrett Hoover. “Brenda’s experience and expertise uniquely positions her to continue the tradition of excellence that Ellen set for the Foundation and for us all.”
Visit carrollhospitalfoundation.org to make a gift and build your legacy within the Carroll Hospital community.
From the summer issue of A Healthy Dose, Carroll Hospital’s community magazine
