The woman who organized and co-captained the first women’s squash team at F&M remembers the early days very well. The players drove themselves to their games. They found their competitors and devised their own schedule. There were 13 women on that first team.

“We made something out of nothing,” Elizabeth Mackey ’75 recalled. “The great thing about F&M is that you can do that – create something new. I didn’t do it alone. I had a core group of women who wanted the same thing, but I led the charge.”

Mackey said the men’s squash coach, Dr. John Pittinger, was a great supporter of women’s squash. The women began their squash team as a club sport, and two years later, in 1974, women’s squash became a varsity sport.

“I browbeat Bill (Dr. William Marshall), the athletic director at the time, to get the funding,” she remembered with a laugh. “His funding had been cut, but he found the money for us.”
Mackey said that experience with the squash team at F&M helped her find where her future strengths were. That organizational ability and her tenacity were beneficial in her career, first as a broker on Wall Street and then at the forefront of digital publishing.

"The great thing about F&M is that you can do that – create something new. I didn’t do it alone. I had a core group of women who wanted the same thing, but I led the charge.”

Elizabeth Mackey ’75

Immediately after F&M, Mackey attended secretarial school, and her first job was as a secretary for a Wall Street firm (“I wanted to live in New York City and work on Wall Street,” she said). She soon met an F&M alumnus who encouraged her to get her brokers licenses and take a job as a broker-dealer in a small, boutique investment firm. She eventually rose to become the vice president of an oil and gas investment company. 

Then, through another F&M alumnus, she completely changed careers (but stayed in New York City), moving into publishing.

“I started in book publishing but quickly moved into electronic books,” she remembered. “I initially worked for a small startup firm that was based in Palo Alto, which had created the first electronic book device in 1999, which ultimately led to my role in business development in digital content for Microsoft several years later.”

One of her earliest jobs at Microsoft was to successfully launch an electronic book store in London. She remembered the opening as a “test of the marketplace,” and said it was a very interesting  and fast paced space to be in at that time. She said, “The people in the EU were known for being readers, but from the beginning there were definitely two camps – electronic readers and traditional book readers.” Mackey retired from Microsoft in 2020.

Mackey and her husband, Jim Campbell ’78, give generously to Franklin & Marshall, because they believe in the liberal arts education F&M provides and they both really valued their time on campus. Jim also benefited from financial aid, and they want to support today’s students who need financial help.

“We feel strongly about this; we give and we both volunteered for F&M, which we feel is also important,” she said. “We enjoy extolling the benefits of a liberal arts education. I’ve always thought a small, liberal arts college is better than a big institution because of the intimacy you have with your professors, which is so valuable.”

Mackey and her husband support the Franklin & Marshall Fund, the Diplomat Athletic Club and, of course, squash. They are members of the College’s John Marshall Society, Benjamin Franklin Society and 1787 Society. Mackey is a prolific volunteer and has served as a member of the Franklin & Marshall College Board of Trustees, the F&M Alumni Association Board of Directors and the College’s Leadership Council. In 2011, she founded the Council for Women of Franklin & Marshall College to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the College’s first full cohort of undergraduate alumnae, which took place in 2009.

Elizabeth and Jim live in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., and have one son, Alexander, and three grandchildren.