Sue Ann Markland Day

DAY

SUE ANN MARKLAND DAY (Age 74) Association Manager

Sue Markland Day passed away April 30, 2022 at INOVA Fair Oaks Hospital after a brief illness. Born in 1947 in New Albany, Indiana to Stanley L. Markland and Mary Royse Markland, the family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where Stanley joined Convair as an accounting engineer. Sue graduated from Rice University in 1970 with a BA in microbiology and a week later married college sweetheart Howard Moreland. The couple settled in Beaumont, Texas, where she was a med tech in a local hospital. With her interest in conservation and her communication skills, Sue was a key advocate in establishing the nearby Big Thicket National Preserve. Following her divorce, she moved to Houston where she was Supervisor of the Cancer Immunology and Organ Transplantation Lab at the M.D. Anderson Hospital. She also served as president of the local Sierra Club.



Her passion for public policy and the environment led to a staff position on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, where she drafted the nation's first organic farming act. She met her best friend, Elinor Schwartz, while a Legislative Aide in the California Governor's Office. She served as Executive Director of the State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Association and later consulted with private clients and the federal government as President of the Markland Group. She also founded and served as Executive Director of the Applied Biotreatment Association.



Sue met Art Day at a bottle bill fundraiser at Eastern Market in 1987 and soon included him in her annual snorkeling trips to tropical islands. They married in 1990 before moving to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Sue joined UT's Center for Environmental Biotechnology and the Energy, Environment Resources Center. She also managed the 1992 Paul Tsongas primary campaign in eastern Tennessee.



They moved to San Francisco three years later where Sue joined the Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program at the UC Berkeley. Her expertise in association management led to a position as the first Executive Director of the California Alliance for Jobs, a coalition of heavy construction firms and union construction workers, where she successfully defended the prevailing wage provision in local government contracting. She and Art enjoyed weekends biking the Sonoma and Napa County backroads, watching sea otters along the coast, hiking the Sierras, cross-county skiing near Donner Pass and international travel.



Sue returned to her true passion, the nexus of microbiology and public policy, as President of the San Francisco Bay Area Bioscience Center, a non-profit representing the world's largest cluster of bioscience companies. But she scaled back after an aortic heart valve replacement in 2003, a consequence of Type 1 diabetes that she managed since age 5. They returned to the DC area in 2007. But Sue's passion for public policy returned with a position as Director of Carnegie Mellon University's DC Office of Engineering and Public Policy. Declining health led to her full retirement in 2009. But the DC heat and humidity resulted in a move to an active-adult community in Santa Rosa, California, where life was great until the devastating wildfires of 2017. After 10 days of evacuation, their home was undamaged but their nerves were not, so they returned to the abundant humidity of Virginia in 2018.



Sue would light up a room with her Texas charm and curly red hair while she worked a cocktail party. But the toll of diabetes and the advance of dementia caught up with her. Predeceased by her parents, she leaves behind Art, her loving husband of 32 years; her cherished brother Dale Markland and his wife Melba of Dallas; his sons Montgomery and wife Elizabeth of Dallas, and Douglas and partner Jane of Los Angeles; Art's nephew Kieran Hendrick and wife Marta Saporiti of London, UK; her BFF Elinor and many friends and former colleagues in Tennessee, Texas, Oregon and California. Art would like to thank the staff of INOVA Fair Oaks, who valiantly tried to stave off the inevitable until Mother Nature said Enough. Private service. A cocktail party will be given in her memory at a later date.



Tributes can be made on Sue's remembrance page at www.adamsgreen.com.