By Molly Englund

Gayle V. Economos ’76 received the 2025 Elizabeth Statuta Baker ’70 Public Service Award at Alumnae/i Weekend

During her sophomore year at Goucher, Gayle V. Economos ’76 was taking Brownlee Sands Corrin’s class Politics of Laughter, and, for a final project, rewrote and performed the myth of Sisyphus as the downfall of Spiro Agnew. Economos had just returned to her dorm room after class when the phone rang. It was Corrin. “I have an idea for a new major,” he said, “and I’d like to talk to you about it.” He wanted to introduce a degree in communication, which was on the cutting edge at the time. Economos loved the idea. She, Corrin, and Flo Ayres, who also taught at Goucher, worked to put the major together, and a year later, after Rhoda Dorsey became the college president, it was approved.

Economos was the first person to graduate from Goucher College with a degree in communication, with the major officially instituted a year later. It was the first of many paths she would clear for other people, including other Goucher students. After college, she worked at an advertising agency and in broadcasting, first in radio and then at WBAL-TV and WJZ-TV. She eventually became the director of communications and spokesperson for Catholic Charities in Maryland, the largest provider of social services in the state. “It was wonderful, because I got to use all my marketing skills,” she said. It was there that Economos learned how much she could help people by helping nonprofits.

“I always knew I was going to start my own business,” said Economos. Her entrepreneurial spirit dated back to grade school, when she and a friend started a fairy-princess themed birthday party business. In 1995, she started her own public relations firm, GVE Media/Public Relations, and began working with local institutions like the Walters Art Museum and Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. She also began volunteering her time to promote Baltimore’s Greek American community.

During the subprime mortgage crisis that started in 2007, Economos launched a widespread media campaign about the issue for the Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition. She wrote the persuasive slogan “Mortgage late, don’t wait” for the nonprofit, which was later adopted by the state of Maryland. “A lot of people were being ripped off, let’s put it that way, and were in over their heads with mortgages,” she said. Economos arranged for a retired Baltimore City school teacher with a predatory mortgage to appear in a CNN segment. “CNN took a close up of some of the paperwork from the company that was trying to foreclose her,” said Economos. The company came to terms with the teacher. “They said, ‘Just don’t call CNN again.’”

Today, Economos manages the publicity and advertising for the CASH (Creating Assets, Savings, and Hope) Campaign of Maryland, which offers free income tax assistance, education, and more for people with low-to-moderate incomes. “It’s very cool to see how many people get help,” she said. Economos also helps support CASH in their advocacy efforts before Maryland’s General Assembly. This has resulted in a number of new laws and acts, including the state expanding its own earned income tax credits to reduce the tax burden for low- and moderate-income workers. She also helps CASH advocate for the issue by promoting National Earned Income Tax Credit Awareness Day.

There is so much more that Economos has done to help the people of Maryland. She has worked with the Community Development Network of Maryland, the Economic Action Maryland Fund, and the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations. And although she and her business partner mainly work with nonprofits, they will work with businesses if they can link them to nonprofits. They once convinced a local bank to raise funds for the Family Crisis Center of Baltimore, which enabled the center to buy a van and put TVs in the rooms where each family stayed. “It really helped get the word out about the center,” said Economos.

For more than 30 years, Economos also taught communication at Goucher. As a beloved faculty member, she dedicated herself to mentoring students and helping them gain employment or enter graduate school. “I’m batting a thousand when it comes to writing letters of recommendation,” she said. Her former students work at PR agencies and in television and radio. She’s hired some former students to work with her on projects, and some have even hired her to work on theirs.

When Economos was an undergrad, she received the Advertising Association of Baltimore Scholarship Internship, which gave her a stipend as she spent a summer working for an ad agency that had the department store Hutzler’s as a client. She got to write and design ads, as well as negotiate media buys. “It was just really wonderful,” she said. That led her to establish her own award at Goucher, the Gayle V. Economos ’76 First Graduate in Communication and Media Studies Prize, also named in honor of her dearly loved late parents and aunt, who always encouraged her endeavors. And although Economos has retired from teaching at Goucher, she continues to mentor the prize winners and her former students to this day.

During this year’s Alumnae/i Weekend, the Alumnae and Alumni of Goucher College recognized her work with the Elizabeth Statuta Baker ’70 Public Service Award. Economos used to say she had spent two-thirds of her life at Goucher. “I think now it’s more like three-quarters,” she said. “It’s still a very special place, and I’m just so honored that I’ve been chosen.”