Merrily Pychinka
email address for Merrily is:
merrilypychinka@sjcms.net

Administrative Assistant and Business Manager

 

Merrily Pychinka grew up in Allentown, PA. She attended St. Catherine of Siena grade school and Allentown Central Catholic High School.

Her husband Dennis was her high school sweetheart and together they raised three sons and one daughter in Allentown, PA. Merrily acquired a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Muhlenberg College. In later years she earned close to 30 credits towards her Master Degree.

She was self employed for twenty six years and was President and owner of Clean-Ups Inc. Over the years she gave back to her community in many ways. She has received the Senate of Pennsylvania Volunteer Award as well as the Donald P Miller Award for her commitment and well being of her community. She has served as Trustee, Board President and Board member for the YMCA-YMCA in center city Allenton for over 10 years. She was co-founder for Kids Fest, the premier community event for children and families in the Lehigh County.

She was an adjunct Professor at Lehigh Carbon Community College, spoke several times at Penn State University, Allentown, PA campus on entrepreneurship and assisted The Allentown Downtown Development Program with seminars for new business owners to help them reach their goals by implementing a strong business plan.

She was the commencement speaker twice for Lehigh Carbon Community College’s graduation ceremonies. She was also involved with many of her children’s sport groups as fundraiser chair.

In 2004 she sold her business and her husband Dennis retired. They decided to retire to the Sedona area. Retirement was not for her and she became the Human Resource Director for Sedona-Oak Creek School District and during that time met Greg Kirkham, the principal here at St. Joseph’s. In 2007, Merrily found herself not knowing what to do with her life. Her husband Dennis passed away that year and she was not certain if she was going to stay in Sedona. She put her home up for sale, decided to retire again and thought she was headed back east to her children, grandchildren and family. It was a simple phone call from Greg Kirkham that changed her game plan. Today she uses her organizational, operational and managerial skills to run the business aspect for St. Joseph’s Catholic School. But most importantly, she now has all of the St. Joseph’s families and staff as an extended family.