Kathleen A. Blatz

"It was not to be a time of treading water."

"Being a board member can be a lot of work. You have to be invested in it. It is not something where you show up at the board meeting and opine and everybody listens. That’s not what board work is."

"My goal was to restore public trust and confidence in the authority."

"Most of the public is very reasonable. So, I thought what we did was very defensible."

"Both sides ask me to do it. I really love law. I will always take law cases as long as people want me to do it."

"In the end, it’s not what you practice, it’s how you practice."

"I love the justice part of being a judge. Every case affected real people. When I became chief justice, I liked the opportunity for real change."

"She is fearless and she is a truth-teller."

"Blatz is an attractive candidate for boards because of her reputation for immense integrity."

"She took pieces of information, data points, and could see that they formed something that caused her concern, Wheelock says. To her, it is about the truth and facts. It is around an issue you can’t anticipate that you see how good somebody is on their feet and how their prior life experience prepares them for difficult moments."

"She was a tigress on compliance stuff, because she wanted to make sure that the fund managers were transparent with the board and that they understood what they were doing."

"She is very good at reading people. On the Columbia board, there are some really difficult characters."

"You have to spend enough time on personal relationships, so when somebody says something, you know what they mean, he notes. Kathleen is very good at that."

"She knows how to get things done."

"She has always placed integrity above all else and defined the mission in the context of service to others. As a legislator, jurist and board leader, she was constant in her focus and brought colleagues together in a most delightful and engaging fashion. Smart, quick, witty and sensitive, Kathleen provided the glue that brings people together."