Powers was steadying force for 37 years at MMAC
For years, Mary Ellen Powers was a quiet force behind many of the Milwaukee business community’s most important achievements.
She most recently served as chief operating officer of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, where her associates say she worked tirelessly behind the scenes on nearly all of the organization’s biggest projects.
Powers, 70, died Tuesday from lung cancer.
“She had an indisputably big impact on everything the business community has pursued in the past 35 years,” MMAC President Tim Sheehy said Friday.
During her 37 years with the MMAC, Powers helped with the organization’s efforts to make Miller Park a reality, create school choice programs, bring businesses to Milwaukee, build the new Bucks arena and increase diversity in the workplace.
She also oversaw the MMAC Community Support Foundation and set up one of the largest scholarship funds for Milwaukee Public School students. The fund has helped 5,000 students attend college.
“She was the heart and soul behind the organization,” Sheehy said.
Her husband, Frank Miller, and former associates describe her as someone who always knew what was right and never wanted the spotlight.
“Ellen was one of those people in the workplace behind the scenes who never wants any recognition,” Miller said. “She just wanted to make good things happen.”
Both Miller and Sheehy said Powers was especially impressive as one of Milwaukee’s early female business leaders.
“She was doing all of this at a time when being a business and civic leader as a woman was still kind of new,” Miller said. “But she didn’t let that get in the way.”
Before joining MMAC, Powers worked for Milwaukee’s first county executive, John Doyne, and managed the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, or CETA, a federally subsidized job program.
Right after college, she worked as a social worker for the Milwaukee County Welfare Department.
Powers earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Marquette University, graduating with high honors.
Miller also went to Marquette at the time. He said they crossed paths many times and even lived right next door to each other for a while. But it wasn’t until he applied for the CETA program that they became friends and later married.
Powers was the oldest of 13 children. Her family moved several times as she was growing up, but once she came to Milwaukee for college she never left.
Miller said Powers was equally dedicated to her work and family.
“She was the cement in the family and the glue that held us together,” Miller said.
Friends and family are creating the Mary Ellen Powers scholarship through the MMAC foundation to continue her legacy of helping others.
The family is holding a visitation and funeral at Church of the Gesu on July 20. The visitation begins at 11:00 a.m., and the funeral is expected to start at 1:30 p.m.