Accomplished Nonprofit Executive and Educator Kathy McCarrell Joins Project Access as President and

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., October 1, 2015 – Accomplished nonprofit executive and educator Kathy McCarrell, MSW has recently taken the helm of Newport Beach-based Project Access as its new CEO and President.

She brings a 25-year history of community building and social service programming to the post, including proven expertise in non-profit management, fundraising and strategic planning.

“We are pleased to welcome Kathy aboard and know she will successfully take Project Access to the next level,” said the nonprofit organization’s Chairman of the Board Jonathan Webb. “She represents a great mixture of leadership, inspiration, operational expertise and passion. We are fortunate to find someone whose skill set so well aligns with our mission and vision.”

Most recently, McCarrell served for more than eight years as CEO of Santa Ana-based Heroes and Healthy Families, an organization that has served more than 20,000 Marines and their families across the nation. During her tenure there, she expanded the program’s military combat trauma conferences for active duty Marines and Sailors from Camp Pendleton to 11 bases worldwide.

Previously, she served as executive director of the Orange County Child Abuse Prevention Center for 12 years, growing that organization’s $300,000 budget into a $5 million budget while overseeing day-to-day operations.

McCarrell is a Fulbright Scholar who serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology at Chapman University’s Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences and was a trainer at the University of Texas at Austin’s Graduate School of Social Work. She has also taught classes at the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea shipboard program while traveling through Europe and North Africa.

Her professional honors include being recognized by the Orange County Business Journal as one of the “Top 5 Female Business Executives in Orange County” and by the OC Metro magazine’s “Top 10 Orange County Women Making a Difference.”

McCarrell earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Social Work from Chapman University and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Houston.

Project Access directly serves more than 11,000 low-income individuals at over 60 Family and Senior Resource Centers throughout California, Colorado and Arizona by assisting residents from a broad range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds to improve their lives through education, employment, wellness, and financial capability, among other programs.

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