The best-laid detour comes with a soda on the side
VCU School of Business alumna Mary Riddle never made it to California. Instead, she spent decades making sure Coca-Cola’s global supply chain never went flat.
By Megan Nash
Mary Riddle (B.S. ’70) was supposed to be in San Francisco by now. That was the plan—two years on the West Coast, then back home to Virginia. Instead, she was in Atlanta, standing in front of The Coca-Cola Company’s headquarters on the advice of her father, hoping for a job.
She had tried everywhere. Applied everywhere.
“I went door to door,” she recalls. “I got nowhere.” Frustrated, she called home. Her father, a Citadel graduate and decorated World War II veteran, gave her a single directive: “Go to Coca-Cola.”
So she did. And they hired her.
But first, let’s rewind.
Riddle grew up in Java, Virginia, a town as small as it sounds, about two and a half hours outside of Richmond. She was one of five siblings in a big, tight-knit family where relatives never lived far apart. “We all lived within two miles of each other,” she says. “It was a wonderful way to grow up. I adored my siblings—we were all close in age, and I couldn’t have asked for better brothers and sisters.”
Her dad had been the youngest colonel in the entire U.S. armed forces. Her mother, a graduate of Hollins College, earned a master’s degree from Columbia University. Expectations were high for Mary, but so was the freedom to chart her own path.
She thought that path was nursing. Had thought so since she was four. But then she got to VCU, then known as Richmond Professional Institute, prepping to transfer to the University of Virginia’s nursing program.
In her dorm, she watched her roommate practically fuse herself to a microbiology textbook.
“She was studying all hours,” Riddle said. “And I thought, I don’t think I’m up to that.”
By that afternoon, she had made the call home.
“Would you and Daddy be upset if I changed my major to business?” she asked.
“Of course not,” her mother said. “We want you to choose whatever you want.”
By the next day, she had switched majors.
Four years later, after graduation, she and her best friend, Carol Blair (B.F.A. ’70), packed up for California. But halfway there, homesickness hit—hard.
“I told Blair, ‘I don’t think I can do this’,” she said. But Blair pushed forward.
They made it as far as Atlanta, where they crashed with Riddle’s cousins for the night. The cousins insisted they stay a couple of weeks to look for jobs before heading to California.
That turned into a pact: If we don’t find jobs within the next two weeks, we go home. They had $400 between them, no jobs and another 2,500 miles ahead. The Bay Area would have to wait.
Blair landed a job at Marriott International. Riddle? Not so lucky. She went office to office, scanning classifieds, hoping for a yes.
It didn’t come—until she took her father’s advice.
She walked into Coca-Cola’s headquarters, filled out an application and landed a job as a junior secretary under Del Webb, the assistant vice president.
“My first office was the size of a closet,” Riddle said. “But I loved my first job, and I didn’t mind the size—because it was mine.”
Within two years, she was promoted to finance. A short time later, she was offered a role in the department responsible for the supply chain of ingredients.
“I had no idea what this would involve but I was excited about this promotion,” she said.
Her boss, Sam Magruder, corporate vice president of Coca-Cola, waved off her hesitation.
“You’ll figure it out,” he told her.
And she did.
She figured it out so well that she spent the next forty-five years working her way up the company’s global supply chain division, overseeing operations that stretched across continents. She was responsible for the movement of Coca-Cola’s most closely guarded ingredients, ensuring that everything—from raw materials to finished products—flowed through the company’s vast international network without disruption.
Her job took her across five continents, from South America to Asia.
“A key part of my job was working with suppliers around the world,” she said. “We had many, many ingredients—thousands—because we did the purchasing for the world. I don’t think we ever ran out of an ingredient, and it was because we had incredible relationships with the suppliers. And I always said to them from day one, all I ask of you is to be fair and honest.”
She and other executives kept close tabs on market conditions, from labor strikes to crop diseases to shifting supplier dynamics.
She was there for one of Coca-Cola’s most talked-about moments—the 1985 New Coke rollout. The formula change sparked a national outcry, becoming less about taste and more about identity. The controversy lasted three months before Coca-Cola walked it back and rebranded to what we now know as Coca-Cola Classic.
By the time Riddle retired, she was a board-elected vice president and director of the flavor ingredient supply division.
Her work took her across the globe, but when she was home, she had another commitment: running. She has completed multiple marathons, including New York, London and Marine Corp in Washington, D.C. These days, she and a group of five friends have transitioned to walking half marathons and 10Ks.
“We laugh because we still get the same medals as the winners,” she jokes.
But retirement hasn’t slowed her down.
Riddle now devotes much of her time to nonprofit work. She serves on the board of Circle Camps, a free summer program for girls who have lost a parent, ensuring that finances never stand in the way of a child’s chance to heal. She is also active in the Sandy Springs Society, a Georgia-based organization that raises money for scholarships, food assistance and community programs. She also serves on the Board of Trustees for Averett University.
“Every day—there’s something to do,” she says.
Despite building a life in Atlanta, she never lost touch with Blair. They still see each other often.
“And to this day, we are best friends.”
And Java never left her, either. Last year, she and her husband, Bill, whom she met at Coca-Cola, bought a home in Danville, just minutes from where she grew up.
“Bill has been the best husband I could have ever imagined,” she said. “Through all the long hours and weeks of travel, he was always supportive. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
Now, she returns to Virginia each month, keeping close to family and friends.
As for the road trip that never happened? She has no regrets. “I had forty-five incredible years with The Coca-Cola Company. Not only did I have a career I loved, I met the love of my life. So now—chapter two.”
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