Dear Friends! If you wish, you may read about my personal life and adventures! I will add more material from time to time.

BIOGRAPHY OF MARY ALICE HURD

Values and strengths:

I value my loving relationships with my family, friends, acquaintances, and God I think of each person as being unique. When I interact with others I am aware that their spirituality is important and I try to understand their inner worth.

My strengths include being optimism, creativity and understanding. Throughout my life, I have shown persistence in accomplishing goals and my sense of humor has helped me keep moving forward during difficult times.

Personal history:

My parents were both only children and I am their only child. My father died suddenly when I was 3 ½ years old. Fortunately, I remember my father, and know that he loved me. He instructed me, “Be a good girl, and don’t make Mama any trouble!” After his death, my mother returned to college to complete a BA so she could teach mathematics. She placed a high value on education and made me promise when I was 5 years old, “Yes, mama, I will graduate from college.” When I was in Junior High School she completed her MA degree and started teaching in high school.

Educational Background

In my sophomore year at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., I discovered psychology and it became my major. In my junior year I met my future husband, Randal Hunter Gordon. After we graduated, we married and went to the University of Pennsylvania where I earned an MA in Psychology. We lived in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and New York City, where I was able to use my psychological training working in Personnel Departments. We had one daughter, Carol Anne, and moved to Dallas to raise her. I started working part-time for a psychological consulting firm, doing psychological evaluations, psychotherapy, and consulting with organizations. A few years later I received a scholarship to earn my Ph.D. in Psychology.

Professional Career

Shortly after graduation, I joined the Psychology Department at Southern Methodist University (SMU). Over the next 30 years I taught many classes with a special emphasis on Organizational Psychology and Social Psychology. Life and Career Explorations was a course which I especially enjoyed developing to help students understand their abilities and strengths. In the course, we considered what to expect and how to make choices in the “real world.” While is was at SMU, I consulted with organizations, presented inspirational speeches, and conducted workshops.

Marriages

Randy developed cancer and died after our 35th wedding anniversary. We were fortunate to have met and loved each other. Our spiritual faith and the support and love of our friends and colleagues helped Carol Anne and me adjust to this big change in our lives.

After I retired from SMU, a friend living in California told me about a neighbor of hers. She said, “You two are so much alike!” My thought was, “Sure, someone is setting me up with a date at my age!” She insisted Phillip Hurd phone me and as the saying goes. “The rest is history!” Phil and I were married nine months later.

After Phil and I met, we married 9 months later.	After seven years, we're still on our honeymoon!

When I married Phil my family increased from one adult daughter to three adult daughters, one adult son, a wonderful son-in-law, a precious granddaughter, and one golden retriever (who thinks he is a person). We feel so blessed that we found each other and have such a wonderful enlarged family. In 2000 we spent three months in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) where Phil worked with the packaging industry to teach them to make better paper and strong boxes. It was an exciting three months consulting together in a different culture.

After 9/11 I became “rewired” and started doing virtual coaching over the telephone.

[Another link labeled “Mary Alice Hurd’s Professional honors and organizations”]ALSO CONFUSED. BEV

Professional honors and organizations:

Over these many years I have continued to share my passion to use psychological knowledge to help others realize they have choices and that they can pilot their own lives.
As a licensed Psychologist in the State of Texas I continued to take Continuing Education courses. I decided to become an executive and coach after I took a course through MentorCoach, an organization "Helping Accomplished Clinicians Become Extraordinary Coaches." I continue to take their excellent courses.

Presently I am a member of the International Coach Federation, International Coach
Federation of North Texas, North Dallas Chamber of Commerce, American Psychological
Association, Texas Psychological Association, Dallas Psychological Association, and Phi
Beta Kappa of North Texas.

It was a high point in my life when I was awarded the Distinguished Psychologist Award
by the Dallas Psychological Association in recognition of “outstanding contributions as an
educator, professional, and leader in the field of Psychology.”