After graduating from Salisbury, Haddaway worked as a public affairs specialist and administrative assistance for the
Maryland Department of the Environment from 1999 to 2000. Afterwards, she worked as a development personnel for the Maryland-D.C. office of the
National Audubon Society until 2003. Haddaway-Riccio owns her own graphic and web-design company, Dragonfly Designs LLC. and as a volunteer for the presidential campaigns of
Bob Dole in 1996 and
George W. Bush in 2000, and the 2002 gubernatorial campaign of
Bob Ehrlich. She as a member of the Mid-Shore League of Republican Women and Republicans for Environmental Protection, and as an organizer for the Mid-Shore Young Republicans group. Haddaway was elected to the Talbot County Republican Central Committee in 2002.
Maryland House of Delegates In June 2003, Haddaway applied to fill a vacancy in the Maryland House of Delegates left by the appointment of then-delegate
Kenneth D. Schisler to the
Maryland Public Service Commission. She was appointed to the seat by Governor
Bob Ehrlich on August 5, and sworn in on August 19, 2003. She was elected to a full four-year term in
2006. Haddaway-Riccio was a member of the Economic Matters Committee during her entire tenure and served as minority whip from 2011 to 2013. She was also a member of the
Eastern Shore Delegation, the Maryland Rural Caucus, and the Women Legislators of Maryland. On the campaign trail, Haddaway-Riccio ran on a platform promising a more rational approach toward taxes and business regulations and supported efforts to help Maryland's rural areas. In February 2014, the Craig-Riccio campaign was fined $2,000 after Haddaway-Riccio sent out a fundraising solicitation email after the start of the 2014 legislative session, during which legislators are prohibited from raising money. The Craig-Riccio ticket lost the Republican primary to businessman
Larry Hogan and his running mate,
Boyd Rutherford, in June 2014, placing second with 29.1 percent of the vote. Had the Craig-Riccio ticket won the Republican primary and defeated
Anthony Brown in the general election, Haddaway-Riccio would have been the state's first lieutenant governor from the
Eastern Shore.
Hogan administration Haddaway-Riccio served as a member of Governor-elect
Larry Hogan's transition team. In January 2015, Hogan appointed Haddaway-Riccio as his administration's director of intergovernmental affairs. She served in this position from January 2015 to January 2016, after which she served as a deputy chief of staff to the governor until 2019. , 2021 On January 19, 2019, Hogan appointed Haddaway-Riccio to serve as the Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources, succeeding Mark Belton. In this capacity, Haddaway-Riccio supported bills to ban balloon releases and proposals to expand oyster harvesting in the state. She also criticized a bill that would involve environmentalists, watermen, and scientists into the decision-making process on oyster harvesting rules in the
Chesapeake Bay. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Haddaway-Riccio declined to answer questions from lawmakers regarding her role in the firing or demotion of half a dozen agency scientists during Hogan's first term as governor or about conversations she had with watermen, but pledged to be fair-minded and sensitive to scientists in the department. The Senate Executive Nominations Committee voted 18–1 to move Haddaway-Riccio's appointment to the Senate floor, where her nomination was approved on March 8, 2019. Haddaway-Riccio is the second woman to serve as Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources after Sarah Taylor-Rodgers, who served from 1999 to 2001. In September 2022, Baltimore County Police arrested Michael Browning, the manager of
Gunpowder Falls State Park, on 27 charges of rape, sexual assault, and assault stemming from attacks on two women who worked at Gunpowder. In October,
The Baltimore Banner interviewed multiple current and former DNR employees and reviewed written accounts detailing alleged misconduct by Browning and his assistant park manager at Gunpowder, Dean Hughes, and concluded that Browning had presided a toxic work environment that saw employees who challenged Browning lose park housing and state vehicles, get reassigned to demeaning or impossible tasks, or get passed over for promotions. The report further suggested that senior park service officials had emailed complaints about Browning to senior park service officials since 2015, but authorities did nothing to address them. Following the
Baltimore Banner report, state senator
Sarah Elfreth and state House majority leader
Eric Luedtke wrote to Haddaway-Riccio calling for an independent review into the Maryland Department of Natural Resources' handling of employee reports. In November, Haddaway-Riccio told lawmakers that the department's human resources division was investigating the misconduct allegations "in consultation with the Maryland Department of Budget and Management and the Office of the Attorney General" but did not address legislators' call for an independent investigation, and added that she had taken "appropriate actions to address the situation" by firing Hughes and state park superintendent Nita Settina. ==Post-secretary career==