|
Continued from previous page
Kathryn Engebretson, WG'83, PhD'96
Kathryn Engebretson knew the City
of Philadelphia was hemorrhaging when
she agreed to become its new treasurer
in 1992. What she didn't know was how
bad things really were.
She quickly found out. Her first
day on the job, Engebretson, then 34,
learned that colleagues were in court
that morning scrambling to postpone
a pension payment. If they failed, the
city's thousands of employees would
not get paid that Friday.
Later that day she joined another
group of colleagues gathered to project
the city's anticipated revenue for the
week. The group, which met every
Monday, then sifted through a massive
pile of outstanding invoices, deciding
who would get paid, and who would not.
"It was one thing after another,"
Engebretson recalls. "I thought, 'Oh,
my God.' Certainly I expected it to be
bad. But I never thought it could be
that bad. I was really overwhelmed. At
the end of the day, I was so tired," says
Engebretson, today the president of the
William Penn Foundation.
In the early 1990s, its population
and workforce declining and taxes rising,
Philadelphia's bond rating slipped
to junk status. Lenders and guarantors
refused to assist the city with routine
borrowing necessary to meet expenditures
until tax revenues could be collected.
Newly elected mayor Ed Rendell,
facing a daunting $153.5-million budget
deficit, recruited Engebretson from
Lehman Brothers in New York to play a
pivotal role in the City's fiscal recovery.
In the two years she spent as city
treasurer, Engebretson led a turnaround
of the city's financial ratings via a massive
$3.3 billion in financings, $2.5 billion
of which were refinancings that
resulted in $110 million in savings. She
also revamped the city's investment policy,
guided new investment legislation
through City Council, and redirected
investments to private-sector managers
where possible. Today, Philadelphia's
financial about-face is often cited as one
of the most remarkable turnarounds in
urban history.
For Engebretson, the post was without
question the most tumultuous she
has ever held. "It was a really hard job
in the sense that every day there was a
crisis," she says. "But I was working
with great people, and the mayor was
so positive and did have a plan. If I
would have had to do it all myself, I
probably would have been almost paralyzed
by fright. In a way it was great
because since then, not much worries
me," she adds.
Engebretson, now 45, hasn't followed
a focused path based on a singular passion.
She worked in investment banking
at several different firms on the East
Coast and the Midwest. After serving as
treasurer of the City of Philadelphia, she
was vice president for finance and ultimately
chief financial officer of the
University of Pennsylvania. She even
spent two years at a Washington, DC-based
dot-com before becoming the
William Penn Foundation's new president
this year. "Yes, I've done a lot of
things," she says, laughing.
The link in each instance, though,
is the fact that Engebretson was aggressively
recruited for nearly every post
she's held. Known for her intelligence,
collegiality, and ability to solve tough
problems, Engebretson hasn't ever really
had to look for opportunities.
She became president of the William
Penn Foundation, a major philanthropic organization with about
$1 billion in assets, through a typically
circuitous route. After sitting on the
foundation's board for a number of
years, the foundation's leadership asked
whether she'd consider taking over.
The timing wasn't great. Engebretson
had just bought a house in Washington,
where she'd moved in late 1999 to serve
as CFO of BET Interactive, a company
that operated two web sites targeted to
African American and urban communities.
"But on the other hand, there's no
job like giving away money." She also
liked the Foundation's exclusive focus
on the Philadelphia region — "The
endowments are sizeable enough that
we really can have an impact on the
area" — and felt a real affinity for the
understated, civic-minded Haas family,
which established the foundation in
1945 and has remained very active in
its workings.
And so Engebretson decided to
accept the board's offer. She put her
Washington home up for sale and
moved back to Philadelphia.
At the William Penn Foundation,
Engebretson has very little to fix. After
just recently completing a major strategic
planning process — which, as a board
member, she was actively involved in —
the organization, she believes, is on
the right track. "There's a lot going on
here that's very positive," she says. "It's
wonderful to not have to turn things
on end."
That being said, Engebretson has
some very definite plans. She worries
about the Philadelphia area and the reality
that the region has fallen far behind
most of the nation in two critical areas —
population and job growth. Recent data
shows that the region's population has
grown just 6 percent from 1970 to year
2000, one of the lowest growth rates in
the nation. By comparison, Atlanta had
170 percent growth, and Washington,
DC grew by 70 percent. Employment
growth also has lagged.
Meanwhile, suburban sprawl is rampant. Engebretson cited
one study that revealed that developed land grew 33 percent
between 1982 and 1997, but the region's population increased
by just 3 percent. "There's a little bit of a sense of complacency
here," she says. "I don't think many people who live outside
of the city realize that our region as a whole is not doing
very well."
|
