This month’s issue of FiftyPlus Magazine has a nice article on M. H. West & Co., Inc.’s Chair and CEO, Marilyn West along with her husband, Ed West. Below is the article.

Marilyn and Ed West have their feet planted firmly on the ground.

Marilyn is CEO of M.H. West & Co. Inc., a consultant firm she founded 21 years ago. Ed retired from the Department of Defense in 2011. Their two children are both flourishing college graduates.
However, their lives have not been without challenge with racial discrimination being ever present. But, their outlook is that you can allow it to hold you back or you can finds ways to overcome and succeed. “Conflict can bring growth,” said Marilyn.

Ed was raised in Newport News, “a city that had neighborhoods where the cops would stop you for just riding your bike through them.” Marilyn grew up in a diverse Pennsylvania community where Italians, Hungarians, Jewish and African-American kids all played together.

Ed recalled serving as a military police officer in Germany and realizing that his first sergeant was trying to organize a KKK unit. He and a few other black soldiers conducted their own unofficial investigation and presented their evidence to commanding officers. The first sergeant was discharged and race relations classes began being taught by both black and white instructors. “Things got better. They stopped calling us the ‘N word’,” said Ed. (more…)