Corrie Mays: You Can Go Home Again

Family matters to Corrie Mays. 

She lives in the same house on Cape Cod where she grew up. Her children attend the same elementary school she did. Corrie and her younger sister, Samantha, who lives down the street, even run a business together. They co-own a gift shop that’s five minutes away from the neighborhood. 

Mays describes running the Plum Porch as her “own little Hallmark story.” Its purple-hued charms radiate from the walls, and the shop’s place in its community is reflected in the owners’ dedication.

“We have jewelry, wedding gifts, birthday gifts, lots of baby items,” Mays says. “We also have a lot of locally made arts and crafts, and that’s something we are really proud of. We don’t want to just peddle goods. We want to give back.”

Mays loves her Cape Cod community. That’s easy to see. But that doesn’t mean she won’t venture beyond it.

Taking Flight

For college, Mays wanted to go somewhere warm. In 1998, her senior year in high school, she and her father, an airline pilot, visited Athens. When she came home to Massachusetts and saw her mom, Mays was decked out in a Bulldog sweatshirt and sweatpants. 

The decision was made. 

“I felt the need to serve. I didn’t want to sit on my hands and be a bystander.”

– CORRIE MAYS, CO-OWNER OF THE PLUM PORCH AND A MAJOR IN THE MARINE CORPS RESERVES

Mays BSES ’03 studied environmental economics and management, and excelled. But when 9/11 happened, she took a hard look at her priorities.

“I knew from that day—in that moment—that something was different,’ Mays recalls. “I felt the need to serve. I didn’t want to sit on my hands and be a bystander.” 

But she felt she owed it to her father, who did not go to college, to finish her education. So she did. 

After graduating, Mays moved to Boston, where she worked as an environmental scientist for CH2M Hill, doing a job she was trained for and enjoyed. After a transfer to a project office on the Cape, however, Mays got restless. Every day, she saw the F-15s in the skies above Joint Base Cape Cod. Her latent desire to serve returned to the forefront. 

Mays visited the military recruitment office in Boston. She wanted to be a Marine. And she wanted to fly jets. 

In Service

Mays graduated top of her class in flight school, which gave her the opportunity to pick her station. She chose to fly F/A-18 Hornets based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego. 

Less than six years into her service, Mays, a captain, was promoted to airframes division officer where she led one of the squadron’s largest maintenance divisions. Meanwhile, she continued to fly jets and kept the roles during the division’s combat deployment to the Middle East during the Iraq War.

In 2014, Mays was selected to the Blue Angels, the Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron. As Blue Angel #8, she was just the second woman to wear a number on her flight suit with the elite group. 

Mays flew with the Angels for two years, performing hundreds of shows. For her third year, she moved to an administrative role, where she helped rewrite some of the Angels’ standard operating procedures.  

“Being a Marine officer always meant the most to me,” she says. “But I absolutely love the honor of being a Blue Angel. Once a Blue Angel, always a Blue Angel.” By 2017, Mays had served on active duty for more than a decade, and she was ready for the next step. She and her husband, who was also a Marine officer when they met, wanted to start a family, and she knew where she wanted to go. 

Her Front Porch

Later that summer, she and Samantha were designing a variety of clothing—leggings, T-shirts, some baby items. They planned to visit several stores to see if any would carry their merchandise, including the Plum Porch, a local staple. Finding it closed, they reached out to the owner, who was looking to sell. So Corrie and Samantha, alongside their mother, Kelley, bought it and have been there ever since. 

Mays, now a major in the Marine Corps Reserves, will retire from that role by the end of this year. But she remains engaged in local veterans organizations as a volunteer and a board member. The rest of her time is spent at the Plum Porch and with her family, including her husband and two young children—she really is living the last five minutes of a Hallmark movie. 

“There is a saying that it takes a village,” she says. “Through good times and bad, we’re all in it together, and everybody loves each other.

“This is exactly the life I wanted to eventually have for my children.”