Profile: Carol May

By Dawne Belloise

Carol May grew up in the Detroit area in what she describes as a solidly middle-class, blue-collar world and her neighborhood reflected that. Her father worked in a factory and her mother was a schoolteacher. Her mother’s influence meant books everywhere and regular trips out into the city to experience the culture of the Detroit Institute of Art, the Detroit Historical Museum and the public library, where Carol recalls going at least a couple times a week.

Her first spark of love for the arts came early, and that experience stayed with her. “My first exposure to the arts was in fourth grade, we went to the Detroit Symphony concert and that’s how I became fascinated with music and concerts.” From then on, music wasn’t just something she heard, it became something she followed, valued and later fought to preserve.

High school, she says, was not a highlight. “In high school, well, I was glad to be out of it,” she laughs. “It was lackluster, but I got through it fine.” But while in high school, at the age of sweet 16, she met her hubby Ed. During those years she worked as a cashier at a five-and-dime store, back when they still had those old-fashioned cash registers with button keys. By her senior year, she was part of a retail co-op program that allowed her to be in school half the day and the other half at work where she was employed at Saks Fifth Avenue in downtown Detroit. “There was a strict dress code then and you dressed up,” she describes, “heels, dresses, a polished presentation.” She graduated in 1962 and married Ed the following year.

After high school, Carol was hired as a legal secretary at a law firm after recruiters came through the school to find applicants. She was trained on the job and stayed for two years. “I thought the work was fascinating, I liked the detail of it,” she says, especially because it was a large firm handling corporate and real estate law. “I worked for a specific lawyer, but you did a little bit of everything.”

Meanwhile, Detroit in those years was alive with music, and because Ed was a college student, much of it was free. “There were a lot of free concerts and dances in Detroit.” She tells of some pretty memorable nights where events featured live Motown performers alongside radio DJs. She saw Stevie Wonder when he was just 12, before fame caught up with him. She saw The Supremes before they were polished, along with Smokey Robinson, James Brown and later Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. She says that it was all happening in real time.

In 1965, Carol and Ed started Mayco Plastics which grew into the largest independent injection molding company in Michigan. “When we started Ed and I did everything. We worked, that’s what you do when you have your own business, and you do everything yourselves.” Their daughter Anne Marie was born in 1966, and their son Clifford followed in 1970. Clifford recently passed away last year. Although it was a family business and she stayed actively involved, she also took time to be a mom. By the time it was sold, the facility was one million square feet – that’s 20 acres under one roof, producing massive components like car hoods, minivan side panels, dashboards, refrigerator frameworks and doors. Chrysler, GM and Ford were all clients, and the company was widely respected within the industry.

Carol had always been civically engaged, even in her early 20s. “I was always active with the city after I was married.” That commitment deepened in the 1970s. In 1974, she became active with the Detroit Symphony, eventually serving as president of the Junior Women’s Association, which later evolved into the Detroit Symphony League. This work led her to the Board of Directors for the Detroit Symphony itself and into a lifelong role in fundraising. “And that’s how I became involved in fundraising, and I’ve been doing fundraising for 50 years.”

Carol also served on the board for Orchestra Hall, a historic, acoustically perfect concert hall built in the early 1900s that was once slated for demolition. The campaign to save it included a nine-day radio marathon on WDET and WJZZ and featured the Billy Taylor Trio. The effort succeeded, and Orchestra Hall became the permanent home of the Detroit Symphony. She stayed involved until moving to Florida in 1985.

Florida brought a new chapter, but Carol laughs about the lifestyle there, because she says, “I don’t golf. I don’t play tennis and,” she confesses that even here in Crested Butte, “I don’t ski. I’m a spectator of sports, not a participant,” she smiles. Instead, she became deeply involved with Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, 11,000 acres of protected land with the largest stand of old-growth cypress in the United States. She focused on individual fundraising, capital campaigns and personal outreach. Airboat rides through the swamp were both exhilarating and eye opening for her. “There are alligators and it’s pristine.” The land, she emphasizes, is a critical watershed feeding the Everglades. A new nature and visitor center and boardwalk were built, and her contributions were recognized with a bronze plaque bearing her name.

Her success there led to national work. In 1993, she was recruited to the Board of Directors of the National Audubon Society, and in 1997 she was asked to serve as Senior Vice President of Development. The job took her to New York City, and it was her first paid role in development, with a full windowed corner office at Broadway and Fourth Avenue. “It was incredible. I loved living in New York,” she says. Carol immersed herself in museums, concerts, opera and the constant energy of the city that never sleeps.

Ed had passed away in 1995, after they had gone their separate ways.

In 1998, she met Jim Saindon, an interior designer from Michigan, while making Thanksgiving dinner at her son’s house. They clicked, though the timing wasn’t right. Two years later they reconnected and have been together ever since. Everything changed in 2001. On September 11, they were down the street from the World Trade Center, and Carol recalls that horrific day. “I watched both planes go in and things changed.” She witnessed the collapse, the chaos and people jumping from the buildings. It took four days to leave the city. She traveled by train to her daughter’s home in Washington, D.C., where Jim picked her up. Together they decided to return to her home in Florida. She resigned from Audubon and moved to Florida until 2004.

Eventually, Carol wanted to see the seasons change again. She wanted community and a different pace. After New York, returning to Florida was a culture shock. “It was very different,” she says of the culture and lifestyle. Her connection to Colorado went back to 1992, when a friend invited Carol to her Mt. CB home. She visited in January, tried skiing, twisted her knee and decided that was enough. “That was all it took, I’m done skiing. I don’t like it enough to get hurt,” she laughs. Later that summer, she and a friend spent weeks traveling through national parks to Bryce, Zion, and the Grand Canyon before returning to Crested Butte for the Fourth of July parade, marching with the Butte Beauties. “The town’s charm won me over,” she tells. “Aspen and Vail felt too much like Naples, but CB was small, charming and friendly. It was the community.” She bought a townhouse.

Carol and Jim decided to move to Boulder in 2004, where she joined the board of the Boulder Philharmonic. Since she was spending more time in Crested Butte, she sold her Mt. CB condo to buy a house on the mountain in 2005, “We wanted a dog too.” She lived there until 2015, then moved to Skyland. “I’m smack against the mountain, right on the lake. It’s very private. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful.”

Still, Carol felt that she needed purpose. “I need to be doing something to feel productive.” She joined the Center for the Arts board which led to fundraising for the new Center, connecting donors with consultants and driving the capital campaign forward. “When you’re involved in fundraising you have no guile, you believe in a cause and you go for it. There’s no middle.” She also became president of the Gunnison Valley Health Foundation board in 2020 and supports Gunnison Tough and Project Hope. Recently, she helped complete fundraising for the new EMS building in Gunnison.

Her friendships reflect her values, “My friends are strong supporters of the community, people who strongly believe in causes and strong women who just step up and do things. We are not passive, and we do not sit on the sidelines. This is my community, this is where I am, and I am able to help to make things stronger.”