Susan Rosenthal

LIFE SINCE HIGH SCHOOL

From Sharon, I went to Simmons College. While I wanted to be a surgeon (and would sneak into the surgical amphitheaters at the surrounding hospitals whenever I could get away with it), my parents would only support me to become a teacher. It was the wrong fit even though I am an educator at heart. From Boston we, meaning my husband who I married a month after I turned 21, moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut where I left teaching and found a job that I loved, being Director of Student Activities at a school of nursing. It was my first exposure to management as well as to counseling, which have been a part of my career ever since. From Connecticut we moved to Minneapolis when my husband landed a job with the National Labor Relations Board. He knew he wanted to do labor law since he was in 9th grade. He’s been doing labor law ever since although now he has his own practice. We only planned to stay in Minneapolis for 5 years which has grown to 30 years.

If you could extract the weather, it is a glorious place to live- about 10 lakes within the city itself, lots of bike paths, warm people, strong work ethic, and loads of culture and fine restaurants. Marilyn Freedman Paul and I got together a few times when we discovered we were fellow Minnesotans and I was stunned to find she didn’t like Minnesota at all. She lives in a second ring suburb and the difference between the culture of the city and the first ring suburbs is entirely different in the second ring which is insular vs. cosmopolitan.

The challenge of the weather in the north has provoked me to venture in ways I may never have done. Long ago I decided I wouldn’t be defeated by the weather and so I am a snowshoer and a downhill novice skier ( I even went skiing when it was 40 below!). I also have been dog sledding. I love the woods- I sometimes think of myself as a woods elf (for those of you who remember me, I was the smallest in our class... Marilyn beat me by about 1/2 inch). I also ride my bike and walk lots.

Professionally, my career has been in various arenas of management. I got my Masters Degree and then became Director of Continuing Education at a large hospital followed by building a community school in the inner city of Minneapolis. Then, I founded an organizational development consulting firm in 1977. The size of the firm has varied over the years from 3 to 12 and back again. I just went through a dissolution process with my partner of 20 years and that was very difficult.

On the family front, my husband and I are what our counselor calls an “extraordinary couple.” What he meant was that he has never worked with a couple where the two people are so different and so determined to find a way to dance with their differences. It has been beyond challenging and we have just celebrated our 32nd year together. We have a daughter, Erica, who is a freshman at George Washington University in the honors program (please excuse the proud parent thing!). She loves it and wants to be active in politics although she is insistent that does not include being an elected official. I periodically nudge her to consider the presidency as an aspiration- why not? After all, the beauty of our country ( I have not yet become a cynic for reasons I cannot explain), is that our presidents really are just ordinary folks. She has been dating a wonderful young man who she met in Jerusalem 2 years ago. He’s a year ahead of her at GW and I just found out they are talking marriage. Fortunately we are nuts about him and we like his parents a lot also- it could make for good family times.