Kathy Bornheimer RIP

I knew Kathy for 20 years as part of the recruiting scene.
For those of you who have seen me speak you know I'm rarely at a loss for words...
Neither was Kathy!
Every recruiting meeting, job seekers club meeting or any other meeting, even if you didn't see her you always knew when she was in the room. Heaven forbid if you were the featured speaker at the meeting and you turned over the topic to questions in the middle of your presentation because she would have something to say. If you asked a rhetorical question, Kathy would answer it. She wasn't doing that to be rude or obnoxious. She was passing on words of wisdom from someone who had seen and done it all (in terms of job seeking) to those who had not. They were words of gold.
Her job seeking ideas worked.
Her interview tips worked.
Her resume ideas worked.
Her ideas worked.
She has literally changed the lives and direction and helped hundreds and hundreds of people by helping them get a job.
What a powerful legacy.

Even towards the end of her battle with cancer, when it was too hard for her to work with job seekers on a regular basis, she kept going to work at a little laundromat near her house. She was the daytime cleaner. One thing I learned about Kathy long ago, is that if you open the door to let her into your life just a little bit, you had a friend for life. She had such a way with people that everyone that came into the laundromat where she worked got a greeting, or a joke, and a conversation that told them this wasn't going to be an ordinary day for doing their wash, and that they weren't talking to someone ordinary.
 I told her she should just stay home and asked her why she still went to work.
She would always tell me she loved the customers and liked getting out of the house. "Sitting around isn't my style. I'm a do-er," she told me.
10-15 customers a week came in all the time to ask the owner of the business how she was doing, whenever she had to take weeks off for her chemo treatments.

The last day she worked there was a little farewell party. Kathy went into the back room to put some things away she was working on. Someone made a little joke. From the back room you could hear Kathy's big laugh. The person that made the joke quietly told everyone, "I was hoping to hear her laugh one more time because her laugh always made me fell good."
She helped people by finding them new jobs, giving them a sense of direction, and giving them a sense of happiness.
Quite a legacy.

From a Heck of A Nice Guy, to a heck of a nice lady.
Be at Peace.
Ev