MDP Chair, Susan Turnbull

Susan W. Turnbull Biography

 

Susan Turnbull is a life-long community activist who has worked in numerous campaigns and Democratic Party leadership positions at the local, state and national levels.  From 2005 until 2009, Ms. Turnbull served as Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, acting as an instrumental adviser on a number of key Democratic programs and initiatives. For more than a decade she has been seen as an expert in women’s outreach, Jewish outreach, and many other areas of political strategy.  She has been a frequent Democratic Party spokesperson on national and international cable television and talk radio programs.

 

In the 2008 campaign, Turnbull traveled extensively on behalf of the Democratic Party, its Congressional and Senate candidates, and eventually the Obama/Biden ticket. (Owing to Democratic Party rules, she was precluded from endorsing a Presidential candidate until the nominee was known.) During the three weeks before Election Day, she spoke at campaign events across the country and made more than 50 campaign office visits and canvass kickoffs in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia and Maryland.

 

Among her many honors and accomplishments, she is most proud that, at her initiative (and in response to her mother’s sudden death from complications from breast cancer while a resident of a nursing care facility), in 1994, the State of Maryland, in cooperation with the Nursing Home Association of Maryland, established a protocol to screen and treat residents for breast and prostate cancer and that in 2005, Turnbull was recognized as one of Jewish Women’s Magazine’s “Top Ten Women to Watch.” In addition, in March 2009 she will receive the Chair’s Tikkun Olam Service Award from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.  She is also the only person to have been awarded both the Montgomery County Democratic Party Democrat of the Year (2000) and the Maryland Democratic Party Distinguished Service Award (2003).

 

First elected to the Democratic National Committee by the Maryland Democratic Party in 1992, Turnbull has served in a number of formal capacities.  She served on the DNC Executive Committee from 1997 to 2009; she was appointed DNC Deputy Chair in 2003; she was the elected Chair of the DNC Women's Caucus from 1997 to 2003; she was named as one of the founding Co-Chairs of the DNC Women's Vote Center in 2005; and she was the National Chair of the DNC Women's Leadership Forum from 2002 to 2004.  Ms. Turnbull was a platform speaker at the 2000 and 2008 Democratic Conventions.

 

Previous to and in conjunction with her experience on the national level, Ms. Turnbull was a member of the Maryland Democratic Party Executive Committee from 1990 to 2004.  Ms. Turnbull was first elected to the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee in 1990 and served one four-year term, first as the Committee’s Vice Chair and then as Montgomery County Democratic Party Chair in 1994.  Ms. Turnbull chaired the Maryland Democratic Party Inaugural Gala in 1993 and served as the Maryland for Gore Steering Committee Chair in 1999-2000. Ms. Turnbull began her Maryland campaign activity as a volunteer in the 1982 Michael Barnes Congressional campaign.

 

Turnbull has worked in a variety of legislative and governmental positions for more than 30 years.  She currently serves as Senior Advisor and Grant Consultant to several Democratic Members of Congress, including Congresswoman Congressman Brad Ellsworth and Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas. She also has worked in the fields of urban planning and design; she hold and M.S. in Urban Studies from the University of Maryland and a B.A. in Interior Design from Marymount University.

 

Turnbull is a life member of the board of the Jewish Social Service Agency of Metropolitan Washington, a board member of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), a trustee of Jewish Women International (JWI) and a founding board member of the Bolechow Jewish Heritage Society. In the fall of 2008, Turnbull joined the Board of the University of Maryland’s Center for American Politics and Citizenship.

 

Susan Turnbull lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband Bruce. They are proud parents of two adult sons, Joshua and David.