Alumni Spotlight

College of Saint Mary (CSM) helped Mary Bullard Byrnes ‘07 ‘09 gain clarity about her career in banking. 

In 2005, Byrnes was feeling uncertain about her career in mortgage lending.  

“The housing industry was in a bubble that was about to burst, and the prospect of being able to stay in lending was getting weaker and weaker by the minute,” Byrnes said. “With banks and lending firms imploding due to the market failure on loans, I needed to re-focus my journey on to a new path.” 

She didn’t finish her undergraduate degree in the late 1970’s because she got an opportunity to join a company offering a management track position.  

“The push was for companies to hire and promote women and move them into management positions, so the glass ceiling was getting clearer and clearer. I was able to work within the field of my passion. I left school before finishing my degree to jump on the wagon with other women entering the business world in droves,” Byrnes said. 

The opportunity paid off. Byrnes was fast-tracked into a career in lending, a career she had dreamed about since she was a child watching her parents buy and sell real estate. 

But over 20 years into her career, Byrnes felt deflated by the unethical behaviors of people in lending and the fall of the industry. 

When she learned she could start her bachelor’s program where she left off at CSM she saw it as a lifeline. 

“To top it off, the program was designed with working women in mind. Even more perfect. I had two children, a teenage boy and a seven-year-old girl, with diverse needs. They both still needed me, but I needed to re-find me. This was a win-win situation,” she said. 

Byrnes earned her Bachelor of Science in in Organization Leadership in 2007 and a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership in 2009. 

 “CSM helped me define my leadership style and what that style encompassed. For me, it was servitude leadership in being able to provide financial education to many with vastly different demographics,” Byrnes said. “I learned that change was good, though sometimes painful, and took my newly learned education and combined it with my tacit knowledge to create new educational platforms in teaching financial literacy.” 

Byrnes is currently the vice president and a mortgage loan office at Lincoln Federal Savings Bank.  

She is passionate about helping first-time home buyers, builders, those refinancing or remodeling and women get loans.