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Kate Lee – Initiative's MVP Retires, Honored with Prestigious Rama Award
Kate Lee has been with the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative before there was a building, a bank account, a phone number or even a name for that matter. Call her the Most Valuable Player – Lee helped build the Initiative from the ground up and has done everything from strategy design to assisting sites with implementation. As chief financial officer, she set up the Initiative's bank account, created its fiscal and grants management systems, wrote all the checks and paid all the bills. Early on, she was staff lead for the evaluation and measures used to gauge progress. She has supervised staff and sites during staff transitions. And she chuckles that she's even cleaned out the refrigerator from time to time. Now after six years with the Initiative and 30 years in educational program development and managerial experience working with children, youth, and families, Lee is retiring to her home state of Iowa.
"When Kate left Jim Casey, we gave her a framed poster of Rosie the Riveter, captioned 'Kate Lee Can Do It.' That begins to capture her role: no matter what the task, large or small, trivial or life-changing, Kate was the one we always turned to," says Gary Stangler, the Initiative's executive director. "She was completely focused on doing the right thing right, and motivated—no, consumed—by the opportunity to make a difference for youth aging out of foster care. She combined the maternal instinct, professional accounting standards, research rigor, and passion into a relentless effort to make the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative a powerful force for change: in our public systems, in our communities, and in the lives of young people."
Before Lee recently retired, the Initiative surprised her with the prestigious Rama Ramanathan Commitment to Service Award, presented by Annie E. Casey Foundation President Doug Nelson at a dinner during the September board meeting in Hartford. The annual Rama Ramanathan award honors outstanding individuals who demonstrate extraordinary leadership and service while improving the lives of young people in foster care. It is named after the former vice president and chief financial and operations officer at the Annie E. Casey Foundation who retired from the foundation in 2001, who wrote a letter, saying: "...Kate has been responsible in establishing and running the administrative part of Jim Casey from day one." Lee was stunned by the award: "I absolutely didn't expect it," she says. "Rama is a man of the highest ethical standards. I have so much respect for him. This is such an honor. It was a good thing Gary stuck a wad of Kleenex in my hand beforehand!"
Prior to joining the Initiative in 2001, Lee was senior executive associate at the Family Investment Trust in St. Louis, where she got to know Stangler because he chaired her board. Lee also previously has served as a field specialist as well as a 4-H and Youth Leader with the Iowa State University Extension in Des Moines, where she helped teach young people to make good choices in their lives. She has a master's degree in public administration from Iowa State University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa.
Leonard Burton, Kate Lee and Gary Stangler
And now, sitting in her new home west of Des Moines, it is the people at the Initiative and its 10 demonstration sites that Lee remembers most fondly. "One of the most exciting and satisfying experiences at Jim Casey has been the opportunity to work with so many talented and committed people in our demonstration sites across the nation," she said. "I also am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with so many tremendous and wonderful colleagues at the Initiative."
Today, Lee lives in a new subdivision in a rural community where she can look out at a peaceful field with cattle grazing. She loves the fact that the town center of nearby Waukee doesn't have any stop lights. And even more, she loves that her eldest daughter, her husband and two grandchildren, ages 7 and 9, live 20 minutes away. Another married daughter lives near Boulder, Colo.
After a January trip to Mexico with her husband and "a suitcase half full of books," Lee plans to work as an Initiative consultant, serving as a liaison between the Initiative and its Des Moines demonstration site. With the Center for the Study of Social Policy, she also plans to write lessons learned and a guide to help state agencies in additional states better serve young adults from foster care. She also plans to work with the Finance Project on fiscal management workshops for small community-based organizations that serve youth.
We'll miss you, Kate!
