Beth Marcello, National City
Corporate Partner of the Year
Beth has been an enthusiastic advocate for NAWBO, particularly NAWBO Cleveland. (and she is located in Pittsburgh!!) When the NAWBO University concept was broached with National City, Beth moved quickly to bring the right people together. She has promoted the workshops within National City and has been an integral part of the marketing effort. Her way with words and ability to bring out the essence of the message is greatly appreciated.
As Vice President of the Women’s Business Development Program, Beth can choose among a number of organizations to be involved with and promote. We are pleased she has put her energy into our chapter and its educational efforts.
Beth has more than 25 years of diverse experience in business management and marketing communications. Since joining National City in 2006, Beth has expanded the bank’s outreach to women in business, including growing its network of more than 300 Women’s Business Advocates by 73 percent last year. Under her leadership, National City also established the Insights for Women in Business magazine and eNews program, which recently earned a prestigious ASTRID Award for effective design communications and a silver medal for “providing intrinsically valuable information” in the Best Custom Publication/Business to Business category of the Magazine Association of the Southeast’s annual GAMMA magazine awards.
In addition, Beth is president and owner of PRwriting, Inc., a consulting practice that has helped companies improve their communication with key stakeholders since 1990, and an adjunct
professor at the University of Pittsburgh where she teaches Public Relations Writing and Creative Corporate Communications.
Jacquie Sopko-Crolius, Balloon Crew
Volunteer of the Year
There are very few NAWBO Cleveland committees that have not benefited from Jacquie’s involvement. This year Jacquie served on the Top Ten, Membership, Programs and Facility committees.
She joined NAWBO (then WBOA) over 25 years ago and has been one of the most active members during all those years.
“It's been 27 years and I’m still going and going and going...!” Jacquie and her wonderful staff have inflated and arranged hundreds of thousands of balloons for birthdays, anniversaries, political events (having dropped 2,000 red, white and blue balloons on V.P. Cheney the same year they helium inflated one hundred 3 foot balloons on the lakefront for the Kerry/Edwards campaign) New Year's Eve celebrations (5 years running so far at Pickwick and Frolic) as well as hundreds of amazing weddings, school events and in July, they dropped over 500 Neon colored balloons for the Rock and Roll Hall to welcome their 7 millionth visitor as well as creating the "99 Red Balloons" digital art effect for the Ingenuity Fest at Playhouse Square.
Jacquie and her staff are dedicated to running a "Green" company by recycling and education. She and her staff always volunteer to inform schools, organizations and anyone else who does not know that latex balloons are made from the sap of rubber trees, are biodegradable and rot at the same rate as an oak leaf would in the same outdoor conditions.
