Maureen Sullivan Flynn

Maureen Sullivan Flynn, 67; spokeswoman and champion for Boston's most vulnerable populations

Maureen Sullivan Flynn, a prominent Boston public relations professional who was a champion, mentor and respected spokeswoman for people in recovery, the elderly, cancer survivors, and those with intellectual disabilities died at her home in Reno, Nevada on May 8 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. She was 67.

Family and friends will gather at Doyle's Café in Jamaica Plain on Friday, May 30, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, for a celebration of her remarkable life.

A leading advocate for Massachusetts' most vulnerable populations, Flynn developed and orchestrated several groundbreaking social marketing campaigns to address major public health issues that earned Boston and the state national recognition.

In partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the City of Boston, she was instrumental in launching Boston's Crusade Against Cancer in 1998 which was hailed by the US Conference of Mayors as the largest and most successful public health initiative in the country. The most massive public health education campaign ever undertaken by an American city included a citywide cancer awareness mailing to every household in the city. Mayor Thomas Menino also signed an executive order that made Boston the first city in the nation to grant municipal employees four hours of paid time off to undergo annual age-appropriate cancer screening.

"It's one of those programs where we know we are saving lives," Maureen, then serving as regional vice president for the American Cancer Society, Massachusetts Bay Region, said in a New York Times article on the initiative.

While serving as Vice President of Public Relations for United Way, she partnered with Boston's local TV network affiliates to produce the nation's first "simulcast" to support the work of local charities supported by the United Way.

Flynn was also instrumental in creating national health and housing policies. She led the medical and communication teams that created the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/NCCN Cancer Survivorship Information web-page and helped develop and implement the groundbreaking Massachusetts Comprehensive Cancer Control Coalition Survivorship Summit to elicit input from cancer survivors and professionals on developing system-level action plans for cancer survivorship issues.

During her career, Flynn served as program administrator for the Adult Cancer Survivorship Program at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute; manager of public relations, public education, and outreach for the Boston Partnership for Older Americans (BPOA); regional vice president and regional operations director for The American Cancer Society, New England Division; principal of the Women's Health Initiative at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts; vice president of public relations for The United Way of Mass Bay; director of communications for the MA Department of Mental Retardation; deputy director of the City of Boston Commission on Affairs of the Elderly; and as a rehabilitation counselor at Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries.

She was a member of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Association of Older Americans, a member of the Human Rights Committee for Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, treasurer of the board for Autism Services Association, and a member of the Multi-Cultural Coalition on Cancer.

Her awards included a Points of Light Foundation Award and The Fleet Leadership Award. Her research included Developing and Implementing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Cancer Control Coalition Survivorship Summit, 2010; 100,000 Voices – On Growing Older in Boston, April 2003; and No Place Like Home – Lodging Houses In The City of Boston, 1990.

An adjunct professor at Boston University's College of Communication from 1997-2010, Flynn developed and taught evening courses in public relations and crisis communication in non-profit settings. As an academic advisor to undergraduate students majoring in public relations, Flynn continued to impact the lives of those around her, earning online evaluations from her students that described her as "One of the best professors I ever had. One of the few I can remember years later;" "By far the most comprehensive and useful class I have taken;" and "Awesome professor. She really loves teaching and wants students to take away something."

Maureen's compassion for others included the four-legged kind. She would adopt shelter dogs in the direst of shapes from Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston including those with cancer requiring ongoing veterinary care, the blind, the hyperactive, and the senior – the ones no one else would adopt. She didn't care. They all needed a home. And Gifford, and Shadow, and Cooper, and Kendall and Preston, among others, found that home.

She was the same way with people. If someone was in need, Maureen Flynn was right there at their side. She would drive people to and from chemotherapy sessions, accompany people in recovery to meetings, volunteer for every cause, and lend her considerable public relations skills to non-profit advocacy groups who could not afford paid professionals.

Those whom she helped and mentored -- whether they be college students in her class at Boston University, or low income elders struggling to get by in Boston, the intellectually disabled so often marginalized in society, people living with or having survived cancer, or those from Yale or jail struggling to get sober -- saw Maureen as a guardian angel. She subscribed to the spirituality of Dorothy Day of the Catholic Social Workers Movement and never hesitated to lend a helping hand or engaging smile to those in need.

She worked with or for every Mayor of the City of Boston, including current Boston Mayor Marty Walsh whom she came to know as a fellow cancer survivor.
She was well respected and highly regarded by members of Boston's media who knew, in taking a call from Maureen, that her pitch would always be about a news story that had legs, that it would appeal to their readership or viewing audience, and that it also happened to serve the public interest and welfare of Massachusetts residents.

Maureen never looked for awards or recognition but did feel she had grabbed the brass ring when she met her best friend and soul mate Thomas R. Flynn, DMD, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon affiliated with the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. They married at a ceremony in Hawaii in 2003.

Flynn was born at Mass General Hospital on June 18, 1946, daughter of the late Gregory Sullivan Esq. and Eileen D. (McDougall) of Westwood. She graduated from Sacred Heart High School in Newton, MA in 1964, attended St. Bonaventure University in New York until 1967, and graduated from Kansas State University 1969. She received her MS from Boston University in 1983.

Maureen and Tom retired to Reno, Nevada in 2011. Both avid skiers and outdoorsmen, they planned to take advantage of the ski slopes and hiking trails of the High Sierras and Squaw Valley. But no sooner had they settled in Reno than Maureen set aside retirement and became an Adjunct Faculty member in the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada Reno teaching the art of public relations.

Before being diagnosed with ALS, Maureen also served as Executive Director of the Down Syndrome Network of Northern Nevada in Reno, a network of individuals with Down syndrome, their parents, families and friends whose mission is to create a positive understanding of Down syndrome and provide information, education and awareness as we advocate for full community inclusion of people with Down syndrome and their families.

In addition to her husband Thomas Flynn, and the wonderful and blind Cooper who would accompany her everywhere, Maureen is survived by her stepsons Dan and John Flynn; her sister Nancy Sullivan and her husband Fred Campbell of Walpole; nieces and nephews Lisa Montgomery, Mark, David, and Rob Paine, Gregory and Christopher Campbell; six great-nieces and nephews; and legions more whose lives were touched and made better by having met and known Maureen Sullivan Flynn.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by the Holden, Dunn & Lawler Funeral Home of Westwood MA. Private burial will take place at Westwood Cemetery on Saturday, May 31.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Maureen's name to the American Cancer Society; the Animal Rescue League of Boston; or the Muscular Dystrophy Association, ALS Division.