As one of his final official acts prior to leaving office January 16, 2010, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine appointed Mary Jones Berry, P.E., of Prince William County to the Board of Visitors of the University of Mary Washington.
Mary Jones Berry has had a long and distinguished career, and she is a well known pioneer among women in the engineering profession. As the only woman in her 1962 graduating class from Virginia Tech’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, she became the first woman registered as a professional engineer by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Ms. Berry’s professional career spanned more than four decades with Aerojet General Corporation (formerly Atlantic Research Corporation) where she began as a structural engineer and advanced to become the Executive Director of Engineering at the company’s Gainesville, Virginia, facility from which she retired in 2007.
Throughout her career, she has been recognized as a role model for women engineering students and professionals. In 1998 the Society of Women Engineers awarded her the rank of Fellow for her contributions to women in engineering.
From 1984-1988, she served on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors, and was President of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association in 1999. In 2004, she was inducted into the Academy of Engineering Excellence at Virginia Tech, and she was the first woman to receive her alma mater’s highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.
Ms. Berry’s distinct career history of attaining “firsts” for women in the field of engineering, and her many contributions to academia throughout her career, truly define a lifetime of achievement.