Forty Under 40: Allison A. McElroy

Allison A. McElroy, 32, has spent her entire professional career working to raise money for the Adult Development Center of Benton County.

She earned a broadcasting degree in 1993 from Arkansas State University in her hometown of Jonesboro. She then married and moved to Rogers where she heard the Adult Development Center was planning to form a foundation and to hire a coordinator for it. McElroy said she knew immediately she wanted the job, and has since raised more than $1 million for the ADC.

The community has made that happen, McElroy said. She felt at home in Rogers immediately, and one person she really connected with right away was Dick Trammel at Arvest Bank-Rogers.

Hes my kind of people, McElroy said. I feel like maybe Im Dick Trammel in a dress.

McElroy would eventually like to raise about $5 million, of which half could be used for new ADC facilities and the remainder for an endowment for fund.

McElroy is a founding board member of the Northwest Arkansas chapter of Fundraising Professionals, a member of the Rogers Noon Rotary Club, a previous board member of the Rogers Little Theatre board and an active member of the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce board of directors.