From street-hardened teens to blue-chip executives in downtown office towers, Ruth Ramsden-Wood knows how to motivate all kinds of people to reach deep within themselves for excellence.
Like any seasoned CEO, she also appreciates a bottom line — but in human potential, rather than simply a fiscal accounting of performance. It’s the kind of leadership which has marked her career path from the classroom to the top job at the United Way of Calgary, and has led to her being named President of the Year by the Calgary Strategic Leadership Forum.
For the first time in its 13-year history, the organization has broken with its tradition of presenting its award for sustained strategic leadership and results to a CEO in the energy sector — past winners have included AEC’s Gwyn Morgan, Petro-Canada’s Jim Stanford and Brian McNeil at Enbridge.
Also for the first time ever, the recipient of the top award is a woman.
“Ruth is highly visible and well respected in both corporate and not-for-profit circles,” notes John Galloway, president of the Calgary Strategic Leadership Forum, which represents about 200 members in several corporate sectors in Calgary.
Under her leadership, he adds, the United Way of Calgary and area has raised a record-breaking $25.3 million this past year to be distributed among more than 200 agencies and programs tackling a huge range of needs in the community.
Working with more than 10,000 volunteers, a hardworking staff and a high-profile public board representing Calgary’s top community and corporate leaders, Ramsden-Wood’s job as she moves into her fourth year at the helm is to continue delivering on the UW’s business plan and its mission to build stronger, healthier communities.
Ramsden-Wood says she’s thrilled by the recognition, to be presented at a dinner at the Palliser Hotel on May 15, but in the same breath notes the award is a nod to both the non-profit and education sectors which honed her interest in helping the community.
“As I look back, every experience I had prepared me for the next one. So there wasn’t one of those experiences that did not prepare me for this,” says Ramsden-Wood during a chat at her United Way office on 13th Avenue S.E.
The Trail, B.C., native remembers her first job at age 22 when she stood before a roomful of 19-year-old reform school boys who were not exactly anxious to master their Grade 9 curriculum.
“Those were the kids that I always ended up teaching, and that was where my passion was,” she smiles. “I always gravitated to the tough kids. I loved them the most.”
After she and husband Garry settled with their two children in Calgary, she helped open Annie Gale junior high in Whitehorn as an assistant principal in 1985, and then moved to Louise Dean school for pregnant and parenting teens as principal in 1989.
Calgarians will recall she also helped launch Canada’s first year-round school program at Terry Fox junior high in 1995. Each school position presented its own challenges of leadership and conflict management; motivating staff and students; and integrating a variety of needs within the diversified community — exactly the kind of foundation that the United Way was looking for in 1997 when they offered Ramsden-Wood the president’s job.
“It’s all about relationships, building people and helping people see their own potential,” she says.
It’s extremely important for her that the corporate community understand why people are homeless, how they fall into crisis and why many visible minorities, women struggling with children, aboriginals and the differently abled often feel marginalized in Calgary’s booming society.
“You drive in from a nice neighbourhood, go into an underground garage, and you don’t have to see or mix with anybody like that,” observes Ramsden-Wood, who speaks warmly of a UW program which offers businesses “walking tours” of nearby agencies and communities.
“I care that we don’t become a city that doesn’t care about itself and the struggling people in it.”
The United Way’s biggest hurdle ahead?
“Our biggest challenge is our success,” says Ramsden-Wood, who fears both complacency and donor fatigue as Calgary’s needs grow in tandem with its exploding population. “We need to be making a difference, and need to be doing things better all the time. If you’re not in a crisis, can we keep people focused on where we need to go?
“We have to stay on the edge, looking forward, being relevant and being good at what we do.”
The message has remained the same since her early days at the blackboard.
Occasionally, a face from the past returns to remind her of the value of leadership in building a caring community. At the United Way’s annual general meeting last Thursday, she says, she noticed a man gazing at her in the crowd. “He’s staring at me, I’m looking at him,” she recalls. “It turned out he was one of the kids at Annie Gale, just a tough little . . . who was kicked out of school.
“And there he is, this wonderful adult, telling me his life history since he was kicked out and saying: ‘I want to come and volunteer at United Way.’ ”
Web Watch:
www.strategicleadershipforum.org
