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2007 WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE AWARD RECIPIENTS
Doris Burke | Paula Vogel, ABD, BA | Beatriz E. Perez, MPH
Gemma Guinguing | Women's Fund of RI | Maureen A. McDonough-Roddy
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR
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MAUREEN A. McDONOUGH-RODDY
Founder
Red Dress Racing
Maureen McDonough-Roddy, known as Moe, is a world-class sailor, mother and cardiac surgical nurse who launched the Red Dress Racing Campaign to raise awareness about cardiac disease and inspire women to take control of their lives and their health. In 2005, they became the first all women's team to complete the Bermuda One Two, a grueling off shore race in which McDonough-Roddy raced solo from Newport, RI to Bermuda, then back to Newport with her racing partner Katie Ambach in the double-handed leg.
The daughter of a Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant, McDonough-Roddy grew up all over the world. During her final year of college she worked on an environmental impact study that took place in the Virgin Islands. There she fell in love and married the owner of a little Tortola sloop, launching her love of sailing and halting her work towards her Marine Biology degree. She and her husband relocated temporarily to Boston, where McDonough-Roddy returned to school and studied nursing. Two years after her graduation they returned to St. John where McDonough-Roddy spent many years as the Public Health nurse and eventually worked in the Emergency and Operating Rooms on St. Thomas. McDonough-Roddy remained in the Virgin Islands until finally ending her abusive18-year marriage in 2001.
When McDonough-Roddy learned that heart disease kills more women than all the cancers combined, she wanted to do something profound to change this horrible statistic. She already had plans to enter the 2005 Bermuda One Two and named her boat "Red Dress". When asked about the unusual name, McDonough-Roddy uses the opportunity to talk about heart disease and women. Because of her efforts, McDonough-Roddy has been featured on National Public Radio, in all of the major sailing magazines, her professional nursing journal AORN, Women's Day magazine, RI PBS, Coast 93.3 twice, and the Northern YWCA of RI awarded her a Women of Achievement Award in 2006.
McDonough-Roddy continues to work full time as a cardio thoracic nurse at New England Medical Center. She also strives to enlighten and empower women to make changes in their lives to improve their health, learn about the risks of heart disease, to take the word impossible out of their vocabularies and to dream big. Despite the strength and courage it took to sail solo to Bermuda, McDonough-Roddy sites coming out as a survivor of domestic violence as her most courageous feat to date.
For more information on McDonough-Roddy and Red Dress Racing please visit www.reddressracing.com.
