Mary Ann Tighe

CEO, New York Tri-State Region of CBRE; board member, Inner City Scholarship Fund; trustee, St. Patrick’s Cathedral

I grew up in the South Bronx. My mother worked as a secretary in the rectory at the parish of St. Peter and Paul. My father and all his siblings had  gone to the School of St. Peter and Paul, and my brothers and sister and I are all graduates as well. (The school has recently closed, but the parish is alive and well.) Later, I was fortunate to get a scholarship to Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, and then to Catholic University of America.



Because of my good fortune, I learned the value of giving a child a scholarship. The first thing is the value to the family, who really may not have the discretionary income to devote to tuition – what a blessing it is to a family. But a second thing that’s not immediately apparent – and I’ve seen this with our scholarship winners over and over – is how the very act of awarding the scholarship tells a child, you are special, you are a child apart. The confidence that this instills is a lifelong blessing.

Very happily, in 1982 my family and I established a scholarship in my mother’s memory at Cardinal Spellman, and to date I think we’ve given more than 60 scholarships in the name of my parents, Edith and Frank Scarangello. In addition, I’m a longtime board member of the Inner City Scholarship Fund.

I have also been a member of the Finance Council of the archdiocese for more than 25 years, and I’m a trustee of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I’m especially proud to have played a part in the re-zoning of Midtown East in Manhattan, which resulted in the archdiocese monetizing 1.1 million square feet of air rights over St. Patrick’s – a six-year effort on the part of many people that will endow the cathedral into perpetuity if the money is well invested.

As Catholicism embraces the 21st century, I think we will not just be redefining and expanding the role of women – which has been very strong for a long time – but recognizing and celebrating that involvement. I am a product of the nuns who taught me. I got married in the former home of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder of the Sisters of Charity, who were my teachers in elementary school. Those ladies taught me lifelong lessons that I treasure to this day.

Some women in the Church have received recognition, but we haven’t fully appreciated and recognized the contributions of women in general. I think that’s changing at an incredibly rapid rate now, and that is a delight for me.

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