For nearly four decades, Julie Baumgardner has helped individuals, couples, and families build healthier relationships. A nationally recognized marriage and family educator, speaker, writer, and nonprofit leader, her career has been anything but predictable.
One lesson has guided her journey: Keep your eyes open for opportunities, even when they lead somewhere unexpected.
Julie began counseling adolescents at a wilderness treatment center before moving to a psychiatric hospital serving children and teens. After repeated turnover in the hospital’s marketing director position, she asked leadership for 90 days to prove she could do the job, despite having little marketing experience.
That 90-day trial lasted six years.
She eventually became a regional marketing manager for a group of hospitals. During that time, she learned about a new Chattanooga nonprofit focused on strengthening marriages and families through education and prevention. Having worked with families in crisis, she was drawn to helping people develop relationship skills before problems escalated.
In 1997, Julie joined the launch team of First Things First, one of the nation’s earliest Community Marriage Initiatives.
Coming from corporate America, Julie knew little about nonprofit leadership.
“It was baptism by fire,” she recalls.
Fundraising, grant writing, board development, and sustainability were unfamiliar territory. She learned that leadership meant asking questions, surrounding herself with knowledgeable people, building relationships, and persevering through challenges.
She also discovered that sometimes opportunities must be created.
In 1999, Julie approached the lifestyle editor of Chattanooga’s newspaper about a weekly column on marriage and family relationships. The editor liked the idea but had no writer or budget. Julie volunteered anyway, believing research-based relationship information should be accessible to everybody.
Julie became President and CEO of First Things First, in 2001 serving in that role for 19 years. The organization developed innovative marriage, parenting, and family-strengthening initiatives that earned national and international recognition and helped other communities adopt similar approaches.
In 2006, First Things First hosted training for the first group of federal Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grantees.
Julie was invited to speak at the White House Conference on Helping America’s Youth, and before Congress about the benefits of healthy marriage for children, adults and communities. Through writing, television, and speaking, she has reached hundreds of thousands of people.
In 2009, Julie, along with Richard Albertson, Dennise Stoica, Joneen Mackenzie and Patty Howell founded the National Alliance for Relationship and Marriage Education (NARME), connecting researchers, practitioners, educators, and organizational leaders. She served as board chair and Summit coordinator for 11 years.
After First Things First, Julie spent four years as Senior Director of WinShape Marriage at the WinShape Foundation, helping increase marriage retreat programming by more than 300 percent and expanding opportunities for thousands of couples.
She is a Certified Family Life Educator, speaker, consultant, and host of the weekly podcast Marriage on the Daily with Julie B. Her focus is helping couples in their first decade of marriage build biblically rooted, research-informed foundations for thriving relationships.
When thinking about the field, Julie worries about cultural messages that elevate personal happiness above commitment and suggest relationships should end when difficulties arise. While emphasizing that safety must take priority in abusive relationships, she believes the impact of divorce on adults and children is sometimes minimized. She is also concerned about messages that diminish fathers’ importance in family life.
Still, she sees hope. Although fewer young adults are dating and marrying, she questions whether they have lost the desire for meaningful relationships, or simply lack examples of healthy marriages and the skills to build them.
That question fuels her commitment to preparing couples for marriage and helping newlyweds navigate communication, conflict, finances, parenting, extended family, and life’s inevitable challenges.
Julie believes the future of marriage and relationship education depends on collaboration. The field has abundant research, expertise, and experience, but organizations can accomplish more together than alone.
She envisions NARME being recognized as a national home for relationship and marriage education professionals: a place to connect, learn, collaborate, and access resources.
Looking back, Julie sees a common thread: embracing unexpected opportunities, learning through challenges, and bringing people together around a shared mission.
After nearly 40 years, her conviction remains unchanged. Healthy relationships don’t happen by accident. They require intentional investment, practical skills, and people who believe they are worth strengthening.
Julie emphasizes that relationships matter. In all aspects. Connect with people at NARME and more doors open, because connection with others is the key. We stand on the shoulders of giants in the field, but we also get to be the shoulders for the next professionals willing to rise.
