User:Mariadorfner

MARIA DORFNER, CEO of NewsMD Communications, LLC is a journalist and entrepreneur connecting media, medical and marketing. She is the founder of Healthy Within Network. She has co-anchored on CNBC and created programming and segments for NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CNN and Discovery. She launched NewsMD, a production company specializing in health after relocating to Apex, North Carolina. Prior to that, she was medical and special projects producer for NBC Miami. She began at NBC as an intern during college working part-time filling in for Bryant Gumbel's assistant, Trish Peters. Bryant co-hosted the Today Show with Jane Pauley at the time. Gumbel placed a glowing recommendation in Maria's permanent NBC file requesting her as the permanent fill-in. She also filled-on for Maria Shriver during rehearsals of a program Shriver co-hosted with Gumbel calld, Main Street. During college, Maria also worked at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City as a sales associate and model in the petite department. She hosted a training video for employees at Lord & Taylor called, "The Secret to Success." During breaks during undergraduate college at Pace University, Maria ran across the street to work at the cash register at Barnes & Noble Bookstore, founded by Uncle Lenny. Maria attended a private, all-girl Catholic high school where she graduated with honors, and was the first child to attend college on scholarship. During high school, Maria and all of her cousins would work in the Fifth Avenue Barnes and Noble, where she met quite a few classic actors, including Gregory Peck. While in North Carolina working out of her home to write, and an executive producer's screened-in porch in Chapel Hill, she wrote hour-long award-winning documentary scripts for the Discovery Health Channel. She travelled extensively directing filming on-location, while interviewing numerous pioneers in medicine on tissue regeneration, surgery and the latest breakthroughs in health from the discoveries outside of the lab to the healthcare consumer.

Born in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn, New York as Maria Angelina Pallante. Maria's mother Anna Carmela was a part-time seamstress and her father Aniello, a construction worker, chef and owner of an Italian restaurant in Sheepshead Bay, Brookyn and another near Manhattan Beach. Maria worked in the restaurant making Italian ices when she was a kid. Her parents and grandparents, both farmers, were born in Avellino, Italy. Their home graces the cover of an Italian cookbook Maria wrote. The home is still there for the family with an Aunt and Uncle residing in it. Her grandparents lived upstairs from her home until she was 10-years-old. Maria did not speak English until she attended first grade at Saint Ephrem, a private Catholic school near the Brooklyn Bridge. She was returned home with a note that she must learn to speak English. She quickly learned and later became a member of Sigma Tau Delta, a national English Honor Society. Early on, she excelled in the verbal and written language, as well as in art. In grade school, she designed and decorated each classroom for every holiday. She also won the Gold Medals for painting local store windows along 86th Street. She also designed the covers for the classroom graduating pamphlets. In grade school, Maria wanted to become an artist autographing all her drawings "Ria" with a star on the letter "i" or a writer as her papers always received a lot of stars. She also loved to sing and play the guitar. She took guitar lessons as a child and sang and played guitar in the weekly Sunday church choir after reading a passage. Each year, Saint Ephrem had a recital where each class would put on a musical performance on stage for their parents. Her school did not have cheerleaders or a sports team. Her cousin and best friend's school, nearby Regina Pacis did, so Maria tried out and became a military cheerleader for them. She can still recall the cheers. But when her best friend/cousin did not make the team and cried, Maria quit in order to maintain her loyalty to her cousin as they practiced together and wanted to be on the team together. Since she couldn't be a cheerleader, Maria turned her fitness dreams to becoming an Olympic Gymnast and practiced daily after school.

When Maria was 10-years-old, the family moved a few blocks away to 71st Street. Her grandparents moved around the block. This block had a direct train line to New York, New York where Maria would end up going to college, working and living. Maria comes from a large, Italian family. Twenty-six cousins. They all lived within a mile from each other in Brooklyn and were extremely close. The entire neighborhood was an extended family with everyone looking out for each other. It was not unusual to hear another person's mother yell out a window to another person's kid that it was time to go in for dinner. A famous commercial would later re-enact such a scene. She and her cousins were active outdoors after school, bike riding to Dyker Heights Park, where the adult men, including Maria's Dad and Uncles played bocci, the Italian outdoor version of bowling. The Dyker Heights Golf Course was adjacent to it and Maria developed an early love of golf from having spent a lot of time there. As an adult, she plays at the Aviara Golf Course, formerly The Four Seasons in California.

...to be continued.