Ann McLaughlin Korologos, Former Labor Secretary, Dies at 81

Ann Marie Lauenstein was born on Nov. 16, 1941, in Newark, the daughter of Edward Lauenstein, who managed sales for defense contractors, and Marie (Koellhoffer) Lauenstein, a homemaker.

After graduating with a degree in English from Marymount College (later a part of Fordham University) in Tarrytown, N.Y., in 1963, she worked in public relations in Manhattan for several years, married William Dore in 1965 and later returned to Marymount to run the college’s office of alumnae relations.

It was there, in 1968, that she met Mr. McLaughlin, who was a Jesuit priest at the time and had come to campus to speak. By then she had divorced Mr. Dore, and she and Mr. McLaughlin struck up a friendship.

Two years later, he hired her to run his unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in Rhode Island, and in 1972 they both joined the campaign to re-elect President Richard M. Nixon, he as a speechwriter and she as a spokeswoman. After Nixon’s victory, she joined the administration as the director of press relations for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Nixon’s resignation drove her back out of government, this time to the chemical company Union Carbide, where she worked as the assistant director of government relations.

Her friendship with Mr. McLaughlin eventually turned romantic; he left the priesthood, and they married in 1975. Two years later they opened a public relations company, McLaughlin & Company, with her as president.

While Mr. McLaughlin pursued a career in conservative media, his wife re-entered government after Reagan’s election in 1980. They divorced in 1992; he died in 2016.