The Woman Behind Ecumen

As the steady leader who had successfully guided the Minnesota Zoo through a troubled post-start-up period and the public servant whose determination helped keep the Minnesota Twins from disappearing, Kathryn Roberts’ profile by 2003 was something like that of a high-powered miracle worker.

As the chairwoman of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission from 1999 through 2002, she had spearheaded the 2002 legal battle to prevent the owners of the Twins and Major League Baseball from contracting the team after years of failing to land a new ballpark. The commission’s lawsuit literally rescued baseball for Minnesota and sparked momentum for a political deal that, many would argue, ultimately resulted in the construction of Target Field, which will open this spring.

No wonder eyebrows shot up that year when news came that she was appointed to take the reins not of some big government agency or a well-known company, but a quiet (though sizable) nursing-home operator affiliated with the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

Roberts seemed an overqualified choice to a lead a 140-year-old nonprofit that for many years had quietly carried out its social mission of tending to its elderly nursing home residents, but was essentially stagnant and had showed little inclination to change.

But there was something most observers didn’t know. The Board of Social Ministry’s leaders were incubating ambitious plans. They would need someone of Roberts’ savvy and track record to turn the organization into a cutting-edge senior housing developer and provider of the kind of innovative care services that seniors and their families were clamoring for.

In short, they wanted Roberts to change the way Minnesotans live the final years of their lives. And as an outsider, she’s proven to be just the person to direct what has become a 4,000-employee entity serving 11,500 “customers,” with more and more to come.

A New Name and Direction

Established in 1862 as the Lutheran Conference (Swedish) Relief Program, the agency when Roberts arrived operated about 21 nursing homes and 46 other senior housing facilities for about 4,200 people, mostly in rural Minnesota. Its 2003 revenues were $94.7 million, making it the nation’s fifth-largest nonprofit senior-care provider.