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THE MAN BEHIND MARY THERESE FRIEL, LLC BY GINI DENNINGER
Few people are able to say they love who they work with, love their work and love their life all around! Kent Friel is one of those rare persons who can! Lucky enough to work every day with his most favorite person in the world; his wife Mary Therese Friel, together they own and run the boutique modeling firm “Mary Therese Friel, LLC.” (MTF, LLC). MTF, LLC., was founded by Mary Therese after she won the 1979 Miss USA Beauty Pageant. After Kent came on board the company grew significantly. Today, they prefer keeping their successful operation exclusive. This approach allows close involvement with their models and clients. Growing the agency or developing a franchise operation could negatively change the equation since then both would become administrators rather than doing what they love, working directly with people. They hate the idea of handing this off to others since ”We deal with peoples dreams.” Mary Therese choses their models by looking at their goals, character, do they fit the clienteles needs and positively represent MTF, LLC? Once selected, training begins. Preparing models not just for modeling but all that comes with it. The couple strongly focuses on personal development. It’s crucial their models be secure in themselves to not take rejection to heart. They are trained how to: handle interviews, self-assessments, self-determining how to improve and how to be favorably memorable so the client thinks of them in the future. This training might seem superficial until one realizes these skills translate into everyday life. Kent and Mary Therese teach practical skills for any arena, be it business, social encounters, or modeling careers. Executives and others also come to MTF, LLC. to learn the techniques. Regarding these life skills Kent muses: “It’s more than being handsome or pretty. You 190
ROCHESTER WOMAN ONLINE :: JUNE 2017
have to be able to express confidence in your everyday life”. Kent met his wife of twenty-one years, when he assisted his master professional photographer father, on a photo shoot for Mary Therese’s agency. After getting to know each other they became fast friends until one day it dawned on both, there was more. Despite the age difference, Mary Therese being older, they took the plunge and never looked back. Kent points out they don’t focus on age, they “are who they are and its just a number.” Seeing them together its obvious they share a close bond.
Raised Catholic the couple attend church regularly. Kent believes their shared faith is a tie strongly binding their marriage together. Getting older, Kent finds religion more important. His religious beliefs give him perspective in who he is and how he lives. While a strong Catholic, Kent believes any sort of organized religion is important; to acknowledge there is something bigger and beyond oneself. The function of how or who one prays to is not important, it’s more essential that one recognizes a higher power, no matter what faith. That said, Kent doesn’t understand religious conflict or radical extremism, contending that “Thats just not religion”. Besides work, religion and homelife, it’s fair to say both share a love of pets. Laughingly recalling the only year they had none, Kent tells of buying a jeep with license plate “We Free” and traveling all over the place. But the grass wasn’t so green, not a year later jeep gone, new truck and horse trailer in tow, the menagerie commenced again. Today they have horses, dogs, cats, rat, chinchilla, rabbit, and fish; all coming from either Lollypop or Finger Lakes Race Track. Kent is a dog person and loves training them. He trained the dog that Mary Therese takes for therapy visits. The one pleasure Kent solely enjoys is skiing. Skiing since four years old, he appreciates the challenges that come with the sport as well as the extravagance of owning more than one pair of skis-unlike most people. Hitting the slopes locally due to limited time, he manages to enjoy his passion several times a week in season. Once a ski instructor, Kent belongs to the New York Masters Ski Racing and Bristol Mountain Adult Race League. While claiming not to the the best skier on the hill he admits he is “pretty good”. He