Katy Hansen isn’t a starry-eyed dreamer. She’s a calculating problem solver.

Her resume includes service in Nigeria as a member of the Peace Corps and upon her return, service as president of the National Peace Corps Association.

She is the executive director of the Iowa Division of the United Nations Association and president of Iowa Shares, a group of non-profit organizations that raise money through workplace donations.

If you categorize her as a fuzzyheaded do-gooder with no grasp of the real world, you would be wrong. For one thing, that’s not how her mind works. She has a degree in math and a master’s degree in chemistry.

“The science lends itself to some understandings that other people might not have,” Hansen said.

“I’m fascinated by processes,” she said. “U.N. processes are fascinating. The processes of working on the local level are fascinating.”

She is determined even in the face of an increasingly dysfunctional global community.

“Thinking of it today, you see some progress and then it slows down,” she said. “We are now going backward relative to international understanding, dealing with other countries, peace efforts; we’re going backwards.

“But the hope comes with the realization that the U.N. is not going to go away even though our government seems to be trying. This is an avenue, a process where we can make    significant progress.”

She is motivated by the intellectual stimulation from the broad range of issues the U.N. deals with and the challenge of working with different people and groups to solve real-life problems.

“It’s not tilting at windmills,” she said. “The area is significant.”

— Susan Harman

Previous | Next