Jen is a strategic communications and management consultant with experience in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Currently, Jen and her husband own multiple businesses, including Sweeties Company and Total Fitness at South River. Jen produces and hosts a weekly radio show and podcast, The Jen Charlton Show – Tellin’ It Like It Is! on WFMD every Saturday morning from 9-10 a.m. She broadcasts out of Frederick, Maryland and has been on air since 2014.
Jen is known professionally for delivering strategic, effective, and transformative outcomes for individuals and organizations. In recent years, her career focused on the human services, political and entrepreneurial spaces, impacting tens of thousands of people through transformational projects that produce breakthrough results. Her most recent government positions were appointed in the Hogan Administration by the Secretary of the Department of Human Services as the Director of Community Outreach working with all the Directors of Social Services and then as the Director of Communications at Baltimore City Department of Social Services (BCDSS).
Prior to working at the State of Maryland, Jen served as Executive Director of Mission of Mercy’s MD-PA mobile medical program for 3 ½ years. She was responsible for overseeing a turnaround of the program through restructuring of program operations and significant fundraising efforts in multiple million-dollar fundraising campaigns. She oversaw administrative and operational budgets, and other program delivery needs including coordinating supportive services and in-kind donations with CEOs of hospitals in several major markets including Frederick, Gettysburg, and Harrisburg. She designed and implemented a capital fundraising campaign to replace a mobile medical unit. She then envisioned a mobile dental unit and worked collaboratively with the medical team to develop the program that would enhance their existing dental services and substantially increase the number of patients served.
Jen was Miss Maryland 1985 with the Miss America Program and Past President of the Frederick County Commission for Women. She is an accomplished jazz vocalist and loves to cook. Jen is a caregiver for her 96-year-old blind father-in-law and resides in the Frederick, Maryland area with her husband, son, elderly parents and three pets.
