Nancy Baird Mulheren '72

Nancy Baird Mulheren '72 has been one of Roanoke College's most influential forces in promoting and fundraising for the college's recent expansion projects. Nancy's pledge of $2.5 million - a tribute to her late husband, John Mulheren '71 - was earmarked for a new residence hall. Her gift helped to build the new Caldwell and Ritter Halls on campus.

In addition, she supports scholarship programs and many other programs and projects at the college, including providing the original funding for the Outdoor Adventure Club. Mulheren says her favorite part of being a member of the Board of Trustees is her service on the Building and Grounds Committee which she has chaired since October 2008. "I really like the bricks and mortar aspect of the school" says Mulheren.  

Mulheren is President and CEO of Rumson Management, a real estate management company that oversees the Mulheren family's businesses, including residential, commercial and retail properties in New Jersey. The family also has extensive holdings in Paint Bank, Virginia, including a working buffalo and Scottish Highlander cattle farm, a Bed & Breakfast, a restaurant, and an old-fashioned General Store.  

In recent years, Nancy has been involved with providing two mansions to host designer showhouses as fundraisers for the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey. With over 50 room designers and 10 landscape designers participating, it is no surprise that the last event was both artistically and financially successful, raising over $500,000 for the VNACJ.  

Mulheren also serves as Director of the J.A.M. Anonymous Foundation, a family foundation established in tribute to her husband whose generous donations were always given anonymously to the organizations he supported. Among the many efforts the Foundation supports is a four-year college scholarship given each year to a local high school student in Rumson, New Jersey.  

Mulheren also has a seat on the Count Basie Theatre Foundation Board, which promotes the preservation and restoration of this local, historic theatre. She currently is co-chairing the Basie's capital campaign.

Mulheren lives in Rumson, New Jersey.  She has seven children - Sandy, Nora, Clark, Timothy, Dakota, Harley and Wyatt - and one gradchild.  Sandy graduated from Roanoke College in 2002, as did his wife, Vanessa.

Nancy B. Mulheren received the Roanoke College Medal in 2009.