Mechanicsburg Area High School
Alumni Association
Hall of Fame
Debra Bates-Schrott has designed the Mechanicsburg Alumni Association’s annual newsletter, “ROAR,” for many years,
and the Association saves thousands of dollars each year
due to Debra’s generous contribution of time and expertise.
Initially, Debra designed the current format, offering
her advice and services for developing a more current
mailing piece for the MAHSAA. Her suggestion was
something that would stand out in the mail and offer the
opportunity to hold more content for the alumni reader.
She now donates her staff design team to input the
Board’s information and statistics and design each issue. Gone are the days when many volunteers hand-addressed
and added stamps to the mailer. As technology improved,
high school computer classes entered alumni addresses
and printed labels, followed by 40-50 volunteers spending
a full day to attach labels to the mailer, then sorting
the mailers by zip code.
Thanks to Debbie and her organization, we now prepare
the information for printing, proof the copy a number of
times, supply our mailing list by way of the internet to the
company who customizes the mailing labels and distributes
to the post office. The process is still time-consuming
for a small group of volunteers, but we can now mail many
thousands of pieces annually and easily, thanks to the
loyalty of Debra Bates-Schrott.
For more that 16 years, Debra has been working in
the creative industry. Six years ago, Debra founded Bates
Creative Group (BCG), located just outside of Washington,
DC in Silver Spring, Maryland. It is a creative design and
communications firm specializing in brand development,
publication, interactive design and creative consulting.
BCG has won more than 70 awards from Folio: magazine,
Print magazine, the Art Director’s Club of Metropolitan
Washington, to name a few. A roster of nearly one hundred
clients includes Cisco, U.S. Marine Corps, The American
Marketing Association, and the American Society of
Interior Designers (ASID). Founder Debra Bates-Schrott is
a sought-after speaker at numerous industry conferences
and is a senior consultant for Sabatier Consulting. While
many individuals in general have benefited from Debbie’s
expertise, it is the Alumni Association in particular which
has certainly benefited from the talents and design efforts
of her generosity.
Debra lives in Ellicott City, MD, with husband Eric
and their two sons, Connor and Tyler. Her parents are
graduates of MHS, father Richard Bates in ’57 and mother
Janice Anderson Bates in ’61.
