Events & Resources

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ATHENAPowerLink® Baltimore Women in Business Speaker Series: Women in Male-Prominent Industries Panel

Wednesday, March 11, 8:30–10:30 a.m.

Towson University presents the ATHENAPowerLink® Baltimore Women in Business Speaker Series, hosted by the StarTUp at the Armory and powered by PNC. This series features trailblazers from across Maryland discussing accomplishments, challenges, and insights as women business leaders. This is a great opportunity to connect with entrepreneurs, business leaders and community members from Greater Baltimore.

Join Tracy DeCock, PNC Bank; Britt (Tegeler) Arnold, Tegeler Construction & Supply; and Judy Neff, Checkerspot Brewing Company to hear insights, accomplishments and challenges to leading in male-prominent industries.

Tracy DeCock has more than 30 years of corporate banking experience, advising clients on financial decisions in the areas of capital raising, treasury management, ownership transition, and mergers and acquisitions. She runs one of the bank’s largest corporate markets and has also led the bank’s Commercial and Corporate Banking Development Program (CCBDP). The CCBDP role involved recruiting, training and placing collegiate talent across the bank’s franchise. Prior to joining PNC, she worked for her family business in the real estate and retail industries. She also worked for Bank of America in Chicago.

Although her day job has been helping clients and developing future banking/industry leaders, Tracy has served in several Leadership Roles for PNC as well. These roles include founding and sponsoring the headquarter women’s EBRG, and Women Connect. This initiative is focused on retaining and promoting early career women in corporate banking. Tracy has received recognition for her professional success and leadership which includes Western PA Athena finalist, Girl Scouts of Western PA Women and Girls of Distinction (2017) and Working Mother of the year for PNC in Working Mother Magazine.

Tracy is a graduate of Indiana University with a B.S. in finance. She is a Lifetime Girl Scout Member, has served on the Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital Board of Directors since 2022, and is a member of the Investment Committee. She and her husband are empty nesters with two adult children and a rescue dog.

In 2016, Britt Arnold, President and Founder, bootstrapped Tegeler Construction & Supply (“TCS”), a Baltimore-based building materials company. In 2022, Britt transitioned the company into a brand new 100,000SF facility on the largest piece of multi-modal industrial land in North America at Tradepoint Atlantic. She has grown the company into a multi-million dollar business that has been nationally ranked as the #16 Fastest Growing Women-Owned Business by the Women’s President’s Organization sponsored by JP Morgan and Chase. TCS is a MD,VA, DC, and DE certified woman-owned, disadvantaged, and small business enterprise and has been involved in some of the largest projects to break ground in the United States. She recently co-founded a new DC-based building materials entity, 4West Supply, that she is helping to build, grow, and scale.

Britt’s academic timeline includes attendance at McDonogh Highschool, acquisition of a B.S. degree at the University of Connecticut, and completion of the Masters Real Estate and Infrastructure Program at Johns Hopkins University. Professionally, prior to TCS, Britt gained extensive construction experience at Grasmick Lumber and Merritt Properties/Construction Services. Athletically, Britt was a high school All-American soccer player, a 4-year Division I collegiate captain and starter and played semiprofessional soccer for the Washington Freedom.

Britt sits on the Executive Advisory Board for the Salvation Army of Central Maryland. She is on the Women’s Committee for the Associated Builder’s & Contractor’s Association of MD. She was named as both a 40 Under 40 and Enterprising Woman of the Year Honoree by Baltimore Business Journal. Britt is a mentor and public speaker, consistently traveling the country speaking to students, fortune 500 companies, and small businesses about female leadership and entrepreneurship, and how to build a business in a male-dominated industry. As an extension of her efforts to teach business and entrepreneurship, in 2023 she founded the rapidly growing Love ‘n Business podcast that she co-hosts with her husband.

Judy Neff is co-owner and brewer at Checkerspot Brewing Company, which opened in 2018 in Baltimore, MD. She has her PhD in microbiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, is a Certified Cicerone, and is president of her business association, in addition to being a founding member of the South Baltimore Brewery District. She lives in the Patterson Park neighborhood of Baltimore with her husband and brewery partner, Rob, and their sweet pup. Her favorite beer is Checkerspot Juniperus IPA.

As female, solo-GP with a PhD in Biophysics, Deborah Hemingway boasts an extensive background, having deployed over $15M into medical startups. Additionally, she has been involved in the founding, funding, and board membership of 53 startups allowing for unparalleled expertise and support to portfolio companies.

ATHENAPowerLink® Baltimore Women in Business Speaker Series: Elda Devarie

Wednesday, April 22, 8:30–10:30 a.m.

Towson University presents the ATHENAPowerLink® Baltimore Women in Business Speaker Series, hosted by the StarTUp at the Armory and powered by PNC. This series features trailblazers from across Maryland discussing accomplishments, challenges, and insights as women business leaders. This is a great opportunity to connect with entrepreneurs, business leaders and community members from Greater Baltimore.

Born Elda M. Perez in Puerto Rico. She is the oldest daughter of four children, from a very early age learned to follow their parents into the family business. Later on, she graduated from the University of Puerto Rico and worked for the second largest supermarket chain in the island at the time. Her role as a military wife led her to move often and nobody wanted to hire her. As a result, E.M.D. Sales and Marketing Services was born in 1989 in Cape May, New Jersey.

From its humble beginnings in a spare room of her home, to a storage facility, to their current 153,000 sq. ft. warehouse, Ms. Devarie has been able to significantly expand the ethnic food distribution business in the Mid- Atlantic Region. Her company, EMD Sales today employs over 150 employees and services some of the largest supermarket chains, restaurants and ethnic stores in the area. Her son, Roberto has grown in the business by her side. Since the tender age of four, mom and son have been inseparable.

Elda started from the back of a van, moving to a used 18-foot truck, to today, a fleet of over 25 commercial trucks. Her commitment to her employees, her business, community and family are evident in everything she does. Too humble to let anyone know she is the quiet warrior, working long hours every day, with the help of her beloved sister, Carmen and her brother-in-law Antonio, Elda and EMD Sales has been recognized numerous times for their success in Ethnic marketing and their charitable work.

In 2009 Elda and a small group of individuals from different backgrounds joined forces to start Bags of Love. A nonprofit organization focused on fighting food insecurity in the DMV, working for more than 15 years by providing a box with 52lbs of nonperishable items to a 1100 families around the DMV.

Her mission is to provide for the ones in need, make her family and her people proud while showing others that, no matter how tough it gets, God is always by your side and there is nothing that we can’t accomplish if you focus, sacrifice, work hard with honesty and purpose.

PAST EVENTS

Panelists

  • Janet Currie, president, greater Maryland, Bank of America
  • Jen Dardis, chief financial officer and treasurer, T. Rowe Price Group
  • Aileen Eskildsen, chief executive officer and managing partner, Ellin & Tucker
  • Laura Gamble, regional president greater Maryland and territory executive for the northeast, PNC Bank

ATHENAPowerLink® Baltimore Information Session

RESOURCES

The following resources may be of interest for networking and professional development opportunities.

C200

A powerful community of the most successful women in business, representing companies with more than $1.2 trillion in combined revenue and employing more than 2.5 million people.

Dr. Nancy Grasmick Leadership Institute

A principal destination for comprehensive and results-driven leadership development opportunities for individuals and organizations, including the TU Professional Leadership Program for Women.

Small, Minority & Women Business Affairs

We connect the small business community to greater economic opportunities, while implementing and monitoring small, minority, women, and veteran procurement programs across 70 state agencies.

IFundWomen + Maryland

A crowdfunding ecosystem designed to help women-led startups, small businesses, nonprofits, side hustles, and passion projects of Maryland raise funds to launch and grow.

Mayor’s Office of Minority & Women-Owned Business Development

The City of Baltimore’s primary advocate for small, local, minority, and women-owned companies including prime contractors, subcontractors, and joint venture partners.

National Association of Women Business Owners

The unified voice of over 10 million women-owned businesses in the United States representing the fastest-growing segment of the economy.

StarTUp at the Armory

TU’s front door for start-ups, small businesses, as well as our region’s largest corporations. This vibrant public space includes free, co-working space.

Women’s Funding Network

A global alliance that works to develop strategies, mobilize resources, and raise awareness to combat systemic gender and racial inequality at the community level, forging a better quality of life for all.

Women Presidents Organization

The WPO is a non-profit membership organization for women leaders of privately held, multi-million dollar companies.