Mom, military wife and CEO

Karen Bricklemyer packed up weekend reading material, shut off the lights in her third-floor office overlooking Omaha’s City Hall and darted for an early dinner with her 9-year-old twins. Ÿ The past few weeks had been hectic, and with her husband away for his job, she and the girls were eager to get a jump on their Saturday morning getaway to the Princess Diana exhibit in Kansas City, Mo.

Her life is a balancing act as a mother of two, wife of a U.S. Marine Corps pilot and new head of the nonprofit United Way of the Midlands, which raises more than $21 million annually to award to scores of health and human service programs.

After about a month in her new position, Bricklemyer said she is better at her other roles because she adores her day job. It puts her in touch with many facets of the community, from corporate titans to homeless kids.

“I think I’m a better mother because I love my job and feel strongly about the work we do,” Bricklemyer said. “I try to show my girls that there’s no free lunch. You’ve got to work hard ... to get what you want in life. You can’t just cross your fingers.”

Bricklemyer, 44, came from a smaller United Way branch in Gainesville, Fla., to assume the reins from Michael J. McLarney, who retired after 22 years as chief executive officer.

During her eight years with the United Way of North Central Florida, Bricklemyer had a special interest in poverty and children’s concerns. Michael Gallagher, board chairman for the Gainesville-based organization, recalled how she took dental care and teeth sealants into schools, arranged for poor kids to take food-filled backpacks home on weekends and made books more accessible.

Although Bricklemyer hasn’t yet announced goals for Omaha’s United Way, she has expressed alarm over the high rates of teenage pregnancy and unemployment in north Omaha.

Before she proposes a course, though, she plans to spend more time meeting one-on-one with board members, donors and business leaders to better understand the needs and wants of her new community.

She is pleased, she said, to lead a United Way that is in the top five in donor retention and has 80,000 people who pledge to the annual drive, nearly 1,000 year-round volunteers (and thousands more who donate time to the annual fund drive) and “outstanding corporate citizenship.”

Still, her one-on-one discussions thus far have reinforced a growing challenge: how to turn up the philanthropic spirit of people in their 20s and 30s.

One corporate representative told Bricklemyer that younger employees are less inclined than their older counterparts to contribute to charity, perhaps because they feel less financially stable.

Bricklemyer said she plans to explore creative ways to reach out to different populations and show them the value of giving time and money.

For kids (and future corporate donors), those creative ways might include providing more opportunities to practice gift-giving. One hook for younger workers could be engaging families in volunteer projects so they don’t have to spend off-work hours apart.

For retirees, Bricklemyer said, the United Way must make it easier to give, “even in perpetuity,” through life insurance or other means.

A finely tuned United Way can be significant in a community, McLarney said, because it tries to make the best and most efficient use of that community’s charitable dollars.

Bricklemyer’s understanding of the different layers of the United Way system — from contributors to recipients — helped cinch her selection for the Omaha post, members of the search committee said.

“She just oozes common sense,” said Terry Kroeger, publisher of The World-Herald and board chairman of the United Way of the Midlands. “That plays well in Omaha.”

Kroeger said he expects Bricklemyer to be visible and flexible, a trait already tested during the job interview process. Flight delays had her jumping from the plane right into a critical interview — which she knocked out of the park.

The career she now loves was not her original plan.

Bricklemyer, who has a master’s degree in business, had dreamed of taking a spot in the fast-paced, high-intensity Wall Street world — until she met J.B., then a senior at the Citadel, a South Carolina military college.

After getting married, they moved to Pensacola, Fla., for his flight school. There, she landed her first nonprofit job — coordinating sporting events and raising money for at-risk kids through the Pensacola Sports Association.

She got a chance to mingle with hard-charging corporate leaders who had a softer side that Bricklemyer appreciated. They gave to their community.

After spending time in Hawaii and Florida, the military couple moved to Portland, Maine, where Bricklemyer began a six-year stint as a United Way senior vice president for development.

In Portland, she learned the baby the couple had planned on was a pair. After the twins were born, the family of four in 2003 moved to Gainesville, where she took over as CEO of the United Way of North Central Florida.

The next year, her husband left for a two-year tour in Iraq. He was in Iraq again as a reservist when Bricklemyer interviewed for the Omaha job.

Although email and other technological advances have made the separation from her husband easier, the wife of a Marine Corps pilot is never completely calm, Bricklemyer said, until he is “down and out.”

Her husband returned to the United States in January but plans to remain in Florida until June to finish his orders. Once in Omaha, Bricklemyer said, her husband is likely to take the Nebraska bar exam and pick up his law practice.

The family tries to be together on weekends, and Bricklemyer said she is grateful for Midwestern hospitality. “People are excited, enthusiastic and have really been generous, offering to help.”

She’s gotten plenty of warm welcomes — and a healthy dose of tips: That’s the best pizza place; there’s a great breakfast joint; here’s the way the streets are laid out; say, have you been to our zoo?

Her twin girls, Hannah and Emma, have adjusted well to Omaha and are thrilled that they can walk to and from their District 66 elementary school. They have discovered Red Mango, Jones Bros. cupcakes. The girls often go to the library, and they play soccer and volleyball.

The girls enjoy finding their mom waiting for them after school, and on a recent afternoon, she took them and their dog, Sirus, to play at Stinson Park in Aksarben Village.

Sharon Marvin Griffin, a real estate associate and board member of the United Way of the Midlands Foundation, spent time with the family and was impressed.

“They have strong family values,” she said. “They know how to have balance in their life.”

Bricklemyer does not apologize or downplay her professional ambitions. She said she tries to explain to her daughters how a disadvantaged child or another person might benefit from a night meeting she has to attend.

The girls have even picked up some of mom’s business tact — the art of negotiation. “Sometimes they’ll give me a hard time. ‘You have another meeting?’” They’ll end up compromising, she said, with her agreeing to pick them up early the next Friday.

Bricklemyer said she expects her day job to strengthen her family and daughters.

“I hope it teaches them that you can handle a lot, juggle multiple balls in the air — if you plan ahead and think about options and alternatives — and not just fly by the seat of your pants.”

Contact the writer:

402-444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com

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