Mary Breen will serve in her current capacity as chairperson of the Schoolcraft College Board of Trustees until June of 2007. Breen has been elected to the Board for four six-year terms, beginning in 1983. Occasionally, her duties involve a hardhat, as in the 2006 photo of the Biomedical Technology Center groundbreaking ceremony.

A graduate of Wayne State and Eastern Michigan universities, Breen retired as a high school administrator in the Livonia Public School System, but stays connected to the classroom as a substitute teacher. She has held leadership posts in the Plymouth Jay-C-Ettes, the Lake Point Homeowner’s Association, the City of Plymouth Heights Charter Commission, the Plymouth Township Council of Homeowners, the Livonia Education Association, and the Livonia Educational Administrators and Supervisors.

Of Schoolcraft, she says, “I love Schoolcraft. Being on the Board is my way of giving back, my volunteerism. I’m a first-generation Italian-American, raised in Dearborn, and while my parents were excited to see me go to college, I had to continue living in Dearborn. For the next two years, I went to Henry Ford. After my children were grown, when there was an opening on the Schoolcraft Board, my husband said, ‘Why don’t you apply?’ It was a great idea, and I really enjoy it. It is my payback.”