Girl Scouts, A Life Cycle

Frances Scovil will proudly tell you that she is a product of the Girl Scouts. As the new chief financial officer/chief operating officer of the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, Frances credits her experience as a Girl Scout with enabling her career accomplishments, which extend from earning an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to becoming a corporate executive.

As a Girl Scout for eight years from grade school through ninth grade, Frances earned her First Class, which is now known as the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest award a girl member can earn. From that accomplishment, Frances went on to tackle an engineering degree at MIT.

At MIT, Frances drew on the values she learned as a Girl Scout. “My Girl Scout background taught me that “impossible” is just a word. That fundamental belief freed me up to ignore things that others perceived as barriers.” After graduating MIT, Frances got her first job as a field engineer testing oil wells throughout south Texas, a predominantly male environment. “Of 750 engineers in the company only seventeen of us were women,” said Frances.

After chalking up accomplishments in Texas, Frances obtained her master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago and went on to build a reputation as an operations strategist and change agent. Most recently, Scovil was Director, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration for HD Supply, where she managed all aspects of acquisition integration for the $1 billion utilities division.

Having seen the job posting for CFO/COO for Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta on Opportunity Knocks, Frances applied, wanting to work for an organization that impacted her life and is now a part of her daughter’s life. Frances knows the value her daughter and other young women will gain from being a Girl Scout. “Something is right in the world when the skills that my Girl Scout experience enabled me to obtain in the business world are now being put to work for the benefit of the Scouts.”

About Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, Inc.
Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, Inc. serves approximately 40,000 girls and over 16,000 adult members in 34 counties in the Greater Metropolitan Atlanta area, northwest Georgia and Polk County, TN. Girl Scouting’s mission is to build girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place. For more information on how to join, volunteer or donate to the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, Inc. call 1-800-771-4046, or visit www.girlscoutsofgreateratlanta.org. For information on the national organization visit Girl Scouts of the USA’s Web site at www.girlscouts.org.