A Lifetime of Public Service.

14 Years as CEO of United Way.

Real Results for Local Families.

Monterey County residents are frustrated about leaders who don’t lead and don’t listen, decisions that cater to special interests, and longstanding challenges around traffic and water that have gone unaddressed.

It’s time we had a County Supervisor who is on our side.

Mary Adams’ 30-year career has been about public service and solving real problems for local families, not about politics. With our community calling for new, responsive, more effective leadership, Mary has been called to serve and lead again.

During Mary’s 14 years as CEO of United Way Monterey County, she helped raise $50 million to provide crucial services for thousands of local people. She worked with the County on many of these issues, helping homeless children, providing meals for seniors, preventing gang violence, and increasing economic opportunity for working families. She solved these problems by bringing people together.

Under her leadership, United Way launched the 2-1-1 hotline, providing free information on local health and human services for working families in 174 different languages in the County.

She spearheaded the Earn It! Keep It! Save It! program, offering free tax services to many working families who were unaware of the Earned Income Tax Credit and other tax refunds, helping local families increase their long-term economic security.

She also led the implementation of a program which provides new, fully stocked backpacks to many of the thousands of homeless students in Monterey County, allowing them to start school ready to learn. And during the mortgage crisis in 2008, Mary convened federal and local elected officials and local businesses to help residents stay in their homes. These programs made a difference for real people who were dealing with serious, real-life challenges.

Mary was humbled to be recognized for this work with Woman of the Year Awards from the Board of Supervisors’ Commission on the Status of Women and CSU Monterey Bay School of Business.

Prior to leading United Way Monterey County, Mary held senior leadership positions at the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Foundation, where she took on Big Tobacco, helped save hundreds of millions in funding for public health programs, and reduced tobacco-related illness and death in California. When revenue for these health programs was later threatened, Mary was brought back to save the funding, and received the American Heart Association’s Time, Feeling Focus Award for her work.

As our next Monterey County Supervisor, Mary Adams will put problem solving ahead of politics, give local communities a stronger voice, and bring integrity to local government. And she will bring real leadership to tackle our longstanding challenges that have gone unaddressed for far too long: ensuring a reliable water supply, providing more responsible management of development, protecting our land and coast, reducing traffic, and improving transportation.

Mary will listen and Mary will lead. She will be an accessible Supervisor, attentive to the needs of every community, and never forget whom she serves.

We all deserve better. We need a Supervisor on our side. We need Supervisor Mary Adams.