Mayor of Trotwood
Mary McDonald is the mayor of the City of Trotwood, Ohio, and has served on its City Council since 2005. She is an entrepreneur who has served the Miami Valley for more than 38 years and has also worked with various cosmetic companies, such as Fashion Fair Cosmetics, Revlon, Flori Roberts, and many others. Her passion to serve people led her to work with cancer survivors in restorative imaging.
In her first year as mayor, economic development within the City of Trotwood experienced a dynamic resurgence due to the repurposing of many retail structures and the relocation of several major corporations to the area. McDonald initiated improvements to the city’s parks, specifically John Wolfe Park, and other recreational areas in the City of Trotwood. One of her major initiatives was the renovation of the former Trotwood Community Center, which is now home to the Trotwood Community and Cultural Arts Center. Through her efforts, the City of Trotwood has experienced several partnerships with state and federal leaders that provide positive benefits to residents.
McDonald serves on the Goodwill Easterseals Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors for the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, the Discover Classical (88.1 and 89.9 FM) Board of Trustees, and as Co-Chairperson of the Trotwood Community Improvement Corporation Board of Directors. She is a member of the Mayors Association of Ohio and several other professional organizations.
Mary is the proud recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the National Conference for Community and Justice of Greater Dayton, the Gospel SuperFest Community Service Award, the Delta D.E.A.R. Community Service Award from the Wilberforce Alumnae Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., and the Community Service Award from the Dayton Alumni Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.
The Better Business Bureau’s Women in Business Networking (WiBN) program recognized Mary as one of its 25 Women to Watch and most recently, McDonald was selected to be a Leadership Ohio Fellow in the Class of 2021, one of the state’s most prestigious and longest-running statewide leadership programs.
The city of Trotwood has been a community redefining itself since the Salem Mall closed in the early 2000’s. The community was setback in this process by the economic impacts of the Great Recession and the natural disaster of the 2019 Memorial Day Tornado. However, demonstrating resilience and determination, the Trotwood community has worked to demonstrate itself as a community that can be a choice for development. With the objective of expanding and diversifying our economy through creating partnerships around industrial development, the community is creating opportunities for new types of jobs—not just the primary retail base of the Salem Mall era. Furthermore, the City of Trotwood has taken efforts to expand our capacity through the utilization of the Trotwood Community Improvement Corporation and this has resulted in the community taking its seat at the table and telling our story. Through these efforts, we have been able to demonstrate to community members and outside developers that Trotwood is a good investment and presents real opportunities for economic growth. A key aspect of this has been prioritizing and articulating the opportunities on key development or redevelopment sites in Trotwood, many of which are owned by the Trotwood CIC, and creatively using incentive tools to support the sustainability and attractiveness of these sites—without compromising the government services offered to our community. This session will discuss the economic development progress the City of Trotwood has had in recent years and will highlight the policy decisions and partnerships created to drive this progress.