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Scott Mulrooney

mulrooney_scott.jpg“The CCO taught me that I should integrate my faith into my studies, and subsequently into my professional career,” says Scott Mulrooney. “Twenty years later, I am still attempting that integration as a self-styled architect of the poor, humbly ministering to both their physical and spiritual needs in developing nations around the world.

“My involvement in the CCO’s ministry broadened my university education. Without their intervention, I almost assuredly would have been exclusively focused on studying architecture. It could have swallowed me for five years straight. But thanks to the CCO, I was able to see my studies in a much fuller context, both in terms of my own life as well as how they fit into the world at large.”

Today, Scott is doing international development work around the world while he and his wife, Kim, are raising their two children, Vince and Eva, on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean.

“I work with the poor in developing countries to improve their social and economic conditions through relief, reconstruction, and development programs,” Scott explains. Scott’s company, SFM Consulting Group, provides managerial and technical assistance consulting services to nonprofit organizations, microfinance institutions, and private companies in the international development sector.

Scott was a junior architecture major at Carnegie Mellon University when he heard Tony Campolo speak at Jubilee 1986. “He was calling for all of us to go into full-time mission work overseas after graduation,” Scott remembers. “Though the CCO did not advocate for students to change their course of studies or career paths and go into professional ministry, Campolo’s message still hit me hard, emotionally and intellectually. For 15 years now, I have been integrating my faith with my profession through my poverty alleviation work overseas. Tony planted that seed.”

After four years of practicing architecture after graduating from CMU, Scott realized that there were thousands of young architects like him out there doing the exact same thing. “I realized that 80% of the world’s population lives in poverty and many of those could use the services of a professional architect but could not afford it,” says Scott. “I found the volunteer work I did with Habitat on the weekends in Pittsburgh’s inner-city neighborhoods and during my summer mission trips far more fulfilling spiritually and relationally. So I decided to make a change in my client list and become a self-styled architect of the poor.”