Marion Behr, Owner/Principal of WWH Press LLC was recently selected as Top Professional of the Year in Writing and the Arts by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) for her outstanding leadership, dedication and commitment to the profession.
Inclusion with the International Association of Top Professionals is an honor in itself, only a few members in each discipline are chosen for this distinction. These special honorees are distinguished based on their professional accomplishments,academic achievements, leadership abilities, longevity in the field, other affiliations and contributions to their communities. All honorees are invited to attend the IAOTP’s annual award gala at the end of this year for a night to honor their achievements.
With over 40 years of professional experience as a Publisher, Author, Writer, Artist and Inventor. Mrs. Behr has certainly proven herself as an accomplished professional and expert in many fields. As a dynamic, results-driven leader, Mrs. Behr has demonstrated success as the Owner and Principal of WWH Press
LLC, as a Partner in ElectroEtch Enterprises and as the President of Women Working Home Inc. Her specialties include Publishing, Writing, Illustrating, Drawing, Painting, Sculpting and Teaching.
Mrs. Behr created the first national survey of women working from home entitled “Women Working Home – The Invisible Work Force” in the 1970’s and originated the concept of “Home-Based Business” as opposed to the previous use of the term “cottage industry”
As a result of her findings, Marion Behr and Wendy Lazar, both graduates of Syracuse University, co-authored two editions of Women Working Home: The Homebased Business Guide and Directory. Mrs. Behr also conceived of, co-founded and was the first president of The National Alliance of Homebased
Business. The organization, as well as Women Working Home, The Homebased Business Guide & Directory were described in many national magazines including an extensive article in Family Circle Magazine.
As a pioneer and advocate for women across the United States, Mrs. Behr received a Presidential Appointment to the White House Conference on Small Business. She gave presentations to the US Labor Department and Senate, which helped change laws on home-based businesses. Along with these achievements and her diligence, Mrs. Behr was featured on television shows such as Donahue, AM America and Good Morning America. She was also asked to teach and lecture at various universities.
Before embarking on her professional career path, Mrs. Behr earned her Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse University, where she Majored in Art Education and Minored in English 1957-1961. She continued her education and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Painting, 1962. Subsequently, Mrs. Behr attended the Parsons School of Design and learned etching from, and monitored for, Master Printer, Mohammad Khalil 1986-2004.
The President of IAOTP, Stephanie Cirami, stated “Choosing Mrs. Behr for this award was an easy decision for our panel to make. She is influential, creative, humble and brilliant at what she does. We felt she would make an amazing asset to our organization and we are looking forward to seeing more exciting
accomplishments from this woman. IAOTP will host their Annual Awards Gala at the magnificent Plaza Hotel in New York City later this year where we hope to meet Mrs. Behr in person.”
After many years of rewarding literary works, Mrs. Behr returned to her love of the arts through etching. Unfortunately, she became ill from overexposure to acid fumes. As a result, her husband, Marc Behr and Marion co-invented a non-toxic, acid-free mode of art etching using Low-Voltage Anodic Electrolysis to replace acid. Receiving the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation Humanities Grant for the Arts and Humanities allowed Marion to create portfolios of 50 ElectroEtch prints and their plates comparing acid etched to ElectroEtch prints. One of the portfolios and several prints were later purchased by The Smithsonian.
This new invention led to the creation of ElectroEtch Enterprises. This process is used by universities and studios internationally. The process was patented and the first of the ElectrEtch patents 5102520 and 5112453 was selected by the New York Times as patent of the week on May 2,1992. Her artistic ElectroEtch Prints have since been featured in Printmaking Today, ChemTech and Leonardo magazines along with articles describing various elements of the process.
Her most recent book, Surviving Cancer: Our Voices & Choices is a highly acclaimed collaborative guide to surviving cancer. It was chosen and received many awards including the IPPY Gold in the Health Category, the President’s Gold Medal for Health & Fitness from FAPA and was granted the Medal for Best
Specialty Book by New Apple. Notably, Surviving Cancer: Our Voices & Choices; was also selected by Publisher’s Weekly as the Best Independently Published Health Book and received astounding reviews in The Library Journal, Huffington Post and Cure magazine. Many of Behrs’ Sculptures made from reformed radiation cradles, representing a number of cancer patients experiences are the illustrations. The sculptures have also been in numerous one person shows to encourage “early detection”.
Throughout her illustrious career, Mrs. Behr has received awards, accolades and has been recognized worldwide for her outstanding leadership and commitment to the profession. This year she is being considered for a Front Cover feature and article in TIP (Top Industry Professional) Magazine by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) and was chosen as Top Professional of the Year in Writing and the Arts. For 2021 she is being considered for IAOTP’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. In previous years, Mrs. Behr was honored with multiple awards from Oxford Who’s Who and Marquis Who’s Who.
Mrs. Behr received the Audubon Artists Merit Award and the Purchase Prize for the American Impressions: Contemporary American Printmaking 2006 show at the Ben Shahn Gallery at William Paterson University.
She was named Artist of the Month by the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and had one-woman shows featuring her paintings, prints and/or sculptures in a number of galleries including B. Beamsderfer Gallery, El Dorado Gallery, Hunterdon Museum of Art, National Association of Women Artists Inc. gallery, The Center for Contemporary Art, OSI Pharmaceutical Gallery and the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano in Lima, Peru.
She was profiled in Le Matin in Asilah Morocco and was a grantee to the Centro de Las Artes de San Augustin Etla from the US Embassy in Mexico. Named Women of the Year in Business and Industry by the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce and N.J. Business Advocate of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration and was awarded National Runner Up. More recently she received the Rotary International’s Best of Branchburg Visual Artist Award.
Aside from her successful career, Mrs. Behr has been active within her community and volunteered much of her time. She is a Founding Member of the Rural Women’s Committee, she is a Washington D.C. Trustee- Women’s Business Ownership Conference Inc. 1981 and she was a part of the New Jersey Development Authority for Small, Minority and Women’s Business 1986-1988
Looking back, Mrs. Behr attributes her success to her father, Justin Max Rosenfeld, her mother Sophie Rosenfeld Lustik, her husband Omri Marc Behr and her business advisor for many years, Elizabeth Lyons. They have all contributed to help her achieve her lifetime goals. When not working, Mrs. Behr enjoys reading, sculpting, gardening, painting, swimming, drawing and practicing photography and equally enjoys spending time visiting her three children and five grandchildren.
For the future, Mrs. Behr will continue to remain passionate in all her business endeavors and hopes to influence as many people as she can to study and enjoy writing and the arts.
For more information on Marion Behr please visit: www.wwhpress.com, www.electroetch.org (www.marionbehr.com is presently being updated.)
About IAOTP
The International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) is an international boutique networking organization who handpicks the world’s finest, most prestigious top professionals from different industries. These top professionals are given an opportunity to collaborate, share their ideas, be keynote speakers and to help influence others in their fields. This organization is not a membership that anyone can join. You have to be asked by the President or be nominated by a distinguished honorary member after a brief interview.
IAOTP’s experts have given thousands of top prestigious professionals around the world, the recognition and credibility that they deserve and have helped in building their branding empires. IAOTP prides itself to be a one of a kind boutique networking organization that hand picks only the best and creates a networking platform that connects and brings these top professionals to one place.
For more information on IAOTP please visit: www.iaotp.com
