Montclair runs deep in Marilyn Jacobs’ blood. Born and bred in the township, she is a 3rd generation Montclairian. In fact, if you go to Glenfield Park, you may see the Owens/Catching Suite – it’s named after her grandfather, Richard Owens, who founded the Glenfield Taskforce. Marilyn credits him for instilling in her the value of civic responsibility, asking her repeatedly how she planned to work out this role in life. She certainly took his example to heart because her passion lies in providing mentoring and career coaching primarily to minorities in corporate America. She also joined the board of MNDC and loves being able to speak to students in Project Life, MNDC’s program to ready students for successful employment.

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The approach that Jacobs takes is to use the power of her own story. As the daughter of a single mom, she didn’t have a whole lot growing up. But she did have personality, and admits that she loved to socialize. A lot. Peer pressure was her biggest obstacle, so much so that her guidance counselor declared to her that she would never amount to anything. Thankfully, other teachers and family members saw her strengths – her ability to get along with others and to have a rapport with other kids across economic, social and racial lines – and pushed her to do better. She took up that challenge and improved her grades so she could attend college, graduating with a political science major from Rutgers University. Professionally, she’s worked at Johnson & Johnson for 20 years in Process Improvement and also earned a Masters in Jurisprudence from Seton Hall Law School. That’s certainly a story that inspires and gives her mentees the belief that they, too, can be achievers.

 

Jacobs likes to tell those she mentors to keep acquiring skills as they go through life because you never know when you’ll need them. That boring math class? Someday, you may need to calculate percentages to figure out the tip for a waiter or the final cost of a marked-down item.

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Speaking of stories, Jacobs looks forward to helping MNDC increase their outreach and getting their story told to an ever wider audience. She wants people to know about the great work that MNDC does and believes that this is the key for growing the agency that she has known since its inception when she was a young girl in Montclair.