November 23, 2008

Ambassador Somogyi Presents Hungarian State Decoration To Mary Mochary

On November 8 at the Hungarian Residence, Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi presented the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary to Mary V. Mochary, Member of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and President of the Board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, for her active promotion of the cultural presence of Hungary in Washington, DC and the United States of America in the last fifteen years.

Mary Mochary graduated from Wellesley College in 1963 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1967. From 1971 to 1984, she practiced law in Montclair, New Jersey, in the firm of Mochary and Mochary, which later merged with the New York firm of Lane and Mittendorf.

During this period, she was an active volunteer as president of the New Jersey Wellesley Club, on the board of the Whole Theater Company, and Foundation of the Archdiocese of Newark. Ms. Mochary entered local politics in 1980 when she was elected mayor of Montclair, NJ. In 1984, she won the Republican primary in New Jersey and ran against incumbent Bill Bradley for the United States Senate. After losing her bid for the U.S. Senate, Ms. Mochary was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be Deputy Legal Advisor at the U.S. Department of State. She remained at the State Department until 1993 as a foreign policy expert and negotiator on property issues.

In 1993, Ms. Mochary returned to private life. She is currently involved with many not-for-profit organizations, including the Kennedy Center and the Washington National Opera.