Greenville native, Dr. Mae Jones, takes the helm of the Phillis Wheatley Center

The previous director of the Phillis Wheatley Center, Randy Jackson, came out of retirement to right a floundering ship and gracefully go back into retirement.

An enthusiastic Jackson describes Dr. Mae, as she is affectionately called by her staff, as a good fit as the new director of the Center, more than 100 years old.

Dr. Mae D. Jones has been the director of a national organization. The Atlanta-based 100 Black Men was a fitting segue. The robust and specialized staff promoted teamwork and triggered exponential business management skill growth.

Now that Dr. Mae is winding down her long and hectic business management career, she has landed in a sweet spot with a very supportive staff.

Dr. Mae can brainstorm with the staff, stacked with team players, formulate goals and policies, and delegate some of the execution to a capable staff.

The firstborn of Clarence Booker Jr. and Helen Booker, Dr. Mae has never been afraid of hard work, demonstrating a remarkable stick-to-itiveness from an early age.

At about age 9, the Duckett/Booker family moved to the Fieldcrest Apartments, a few steps from the Center.  As the firstborn, Dr. Mae helped care for her younger sister, April.

Friends and relatives had fun calling them April, May, and June, because their father was a junior, affectionately called June. Acquaintances quipped that the family had cornered one-fourth of the calendar by using three names of the months.

All members of their community in those days participated in the center. Everybody played and hung out there.

Whatever the official name of the center was in those days, it was the White House to the children. The swimming pool was in the back, and the baseball field was in the front.

Little did she know then that she would come back as the executive director of her beloved childhood center.

As she thinks back on her childhood friends, not one of them went on to earn a PhD. She has wondered, “How did I make it?”

Her educational odyssey was anything but easy. She has been working since age 15 and told her employer that she was 16. Mae’s time was spent taking care of her mom and her younger sister, April.

Sure, there were times when Mae wondered if she would attend college. Even though she was accepted into South Carolina State and USC, she had an interest in attending Benedict, but none of that worked out.  Mae was committed to caring for her mom and sister.

Eventually, Mae got a job at Liberty Life in Greenville. They had an employee college program.

Mae had already attended Greenville Tech and Rutledge College. However, at Liberty Life, she got a BA in business management at Limestone University.

Nothing was easy. Mae went to night school and attended classes on Saturdays to make it through.

Determined to press on, Mae earned her MBA at Webster University. In July 2012, Mae enrolled in the doctoral program at Capella University in Minnesota.

Six grueling years in the PhD program

She slipped into the ABD zone, having completed all but her dissertation. Mae, at times, felt alone because her chair was determined to stretch her into an unfamiliar zone of quantitative research with multiple regression models to defend her hypothesis. That was an area reserved for statisticians.

Her chair wielded veto powers. The committee could approve her work, but the chair could unilaterally reject it. Or he would say de-emphasize this section and highlight another section.

There were many setbacks, but she pressed doggedly forward through them all.

Mae had completed the required coursework and was working on her dissertation. She needed to hire an expensive statistician to support her theory. They charged from $100 an hour and up, depending on the task at hand.

The prevailing dominant paradigm was that women preferred to work for nonprofits because they were inherently nurturers and did not demand the perks common for men, or were offered positions in for-profit jobs, which was the norm for men.

Mae’s thesis title was “The relationship between rewards and organizational commitment among female leaders in large nonprofit organizations.”

Women, asserted male educators, were not driven to earn a coveted corner office, fat bonuses, and top pay. The dictum further said that women would happily stay at lower-paying jobs because they were fully satisfied in just knowing that they provided value to the mission of the organization. For years, scholars posited that extrinsic rewards were of no value to women leaders in nonprofits.

Since Mae’s doctorate was in business management with a specialization in human resource management, she strove to debunk the myth about women working in nonprofit organizations as opposed to the corporate world. And she welcomed the challenge of proving it scientifically.

It was easy to compose the narrative in prose. But the challenge was to demonstrate her points statistically in computer models.

After forking out major money to a statistician and proudly presenting her work to the chair, his call for more proof saddened her. And it devastated her statistician, let’s call him Jack.

Jack defiantly insisted that no one had ever rejected his work.  I posited that the chair did not per se reject the work, but merely called for more conclusive proof.

In fact, Jack was not swayed by my many entreaties. When I talked with another statistician, he explained that he would have to start from the beginning because he could not accept work done by another. That position made an expensive adventure prohibitive.

So, she had to learn how to become a statistician and, using the work already done, eventually completed the model to the very high standard of her chair.

Many times she worked through the night, still at her desk at daybreak. She also had to rent the required software and undergo an audit, thus scientifically demonstrating that her theory was true.

I will always remember the words of my chair, Mae said. Once he had approved of my work, he told me that I would appreciate the arduous challenge he had placed before me.

Indeed, she did. He had made her stretch in a way she did not know was possible. It made her a better person and a professional.

Now she can smile at previous moments of doubt. “I voiced my frustration to a compassionate lady.”  She simply told me. “Don’t stop.”

How glad I am that I took her advice, offered at just the right time.

My chair asked me to continue with my research in this field and share it far and wide with others. In the blink of an eye, my nemesis has become a friend.

Mae had been the executive director of the 100 Black Men before she earned her doctorate.

After having a PhD conferred on her, she held a leadership role with the Black Women’s Health Imperative as the COO and the EVP of finance.

Part of Dr. Mae’s daily operations included securing funds.

Sure, there were several candidates for the post at the center, but Dr. Mae ascended above them all.

Little wonder why Randy Jackson said Dr. Mae is a good fit.  She has a background in managing organizations and finance.

In addition to supervising a competent staff, she examines the finances and stays on top of all things. There are independent audits.

Understandably, the staff embraced her on the first day.

The staff has also embraced her focus areas. It’s important to remain fiscally strong and sustainable, maintaining the premises secure, keeping daily operations humming smoothly, and maintaining amicable rapport with all partners.

A strategic move is to look beyond state borders for additional funding. And Mae always remembers the why.  Yes, what keeps Dr. Mae energized remains laser-focused.

A native of Greenville, Mae attended Allen School and Nicholtown Schools, League and Beck Middle Schools, and Wade Hampton High School.

There is a special joy in coming full circle back to your hometown.