YOUR NEIGHBOR | Mary Elizabeth Carey

Some people bounce from place to place as they work their way up the corporate ladder. Not Mary Elizabeth Carey.

Carey spent her entire career at Exxon Mobil — from 1958 to 1997.

When she was 18, Carey began working for Exxon in New Jersey as a secretary after attending Berkeley Secretarial School in East Orange, N.J.

Carey received several promotions, eventually becoming general manager of Exxon’s Expatriate Center in Manhattan, 20 years after she began her work as secretary. She was the first woman in an executive position at Exxon.

“I never thought in a million years I would become anything more than a secretary,” she said. “I worked very diligently. It never occurred to me to become a smashing great success. I just thought I had to do the best at what I had. I never told myself I would be the first big shot woman there.”

Carey managed approximately 1,500 American employees who worked overseas and also foreign nationals who worked with Exxon in the U.S.

Her position also allowed her to travel all over the world to places such as Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Singapore. Her final assignment before retiring in 1997 was setting up an Exxon branch in Moscow.

Carey visited Longboat Key in 2000, after spending time in Naples for her cousin’s 50th wedding anniversary party. She bought a condo during that trip.

Carey has many involvements both on the Key and in Sarasota. She previously served as president of the St. Mary, Star of the Sea, Catholic Church Women’s Guild and volunteered at Save Our Seabirds.

She continues to pursue the love of music she developed when she was 7, and her father made her take singing lessons. She disliked it at first but eventually grew to love music. Earlier this year, she became chairwoman of the board of trustees of the Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota.

“One of the reasons I loved my job so much was this endless array of different cultures and different people who believed different things and acted differently,” she said. “The Artist Series is exactly the same from an artistic point of view. It’s just a breadth of different, diverse, joyful music. It’s like coming up to a buffet and having a little bit of everything.”

When Carey is not working with the Artist Series Concerts, she pursues her love of philanthropy, working with Catholic Relief Services. Carey buys items created by the impoverished individuals the organization helps and sells them at the St. Mary Christmas Bazaar.

What inspires Carey most are the people she encounters.

“The world is loaded with exciting, fascinating, exotic towns,” she said. “What’s beautiful about every single place, though, are the people who are in it. The awakening is not the places you go. It’s who’s there.”

Neighborhood: Grand Bay
Your neighbor since: 2007