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Columbia Icon Kennedy: Still Making a Difference

(The Business Monthly) -- When Padraic “Pat” Kennedy retired at the end of 1998 after running the Columbia Association (CA) for 26 years, it marked the close of a defining time of his life.

But what that really meant was that the time had come for the next chapter of his career, which is proving equally rewarding for the 35-year Columbia resident. That’s when Kennedy transitioned to his current role on The Horizon Foundation’s board of directors, which he has chaired for the past three years.

As might be expected, this new chapter has had many overlapping pages. He has been involved in the organization’s strategic planning, grants committee, nominating committee “and basically helped to set the direction” of the largest philanthropy in Howard County and one of the largest in the region, with $3 million to $4 million contributed annually to numerous causes to advance health and wellness.

And it’s only fitting that the man who was [Columbia Founder] Jim Rouse’s friend and long-time next-door neighbor in The Village of Wilde Lake is also chairing part of the effort to raise money to celebrate Columbia’s 40th anniversary this year, which is set for June.

While the party is about the city, long-time residents like Kennedy will recall that during the first year (and the next few that followed), “Wilde Lake was all that was here and Slayton House was the first village community center.”

The party this summer will give Kennedy another reason to reflect on the early days of Columbia after he arrived from VISTA (the domestic volunteer service program) in 1972 to become CA’s first president.

“When I arrived, probably because CA was preservicing [spending funds to prepare for the population influx] so much, we lost about $3 million a year,” he said. “Most of the facilities here now were built during my tenure, including Lake Elkhorn and many of the tennis and swimming clubs. We worked our way up to an A+ bond rating from all three rating agencies.”

Not only that — CA had a budget in excess of $50 million a year and made $3 million a year in revenues, he said. “It became the most successful homeowners association in the country due to its size, staff, facilities and its value, financial resources and influence on the community.”

Kennedy said some of the standout moments during those 26 years include starting the membership on a sliding scale so lower-income residents could enjoy the facilities and services Columbia has to offer; support of the arts through the Columbia Festival of the Arts and the Columbia Foundation (Kennedy was president of both at different times); and the opening of The Jim Rouse Theatre at Wilde Lake High School.

“We had more than a million visits a year to our facilities and the quality of service was very, very high,” he said. “I enjoyed all of the time that I was at CA. It was a terrific job that encouraged creativity and we had the resources that allowed us to do important things.”



Today’s Needs

Important things are just what Kennedy is addressing in his current position. “I am learning constantly,” he said. “We always have issues and problems like we never had before. For instance, how do we help the homeless and other residents who are among the 15,000 county residents who don’t have health insurance?”

Other issues he and his colleagues at Horizon are addressing include trying to facilitate improvements to the local infrastructure for the elderly so they can age in place, as well as bracing for potential terrorist attacks or a pandemic flu outbreak. “The list is endless,” he said.

For Horizon, having an influential figure like Kennedy on the team when addressing those problems is key.

“One thing that I have enjoyed immensely is forming partnerships with the nonprofits like Howard Community College, Howard County General Hospital, Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center, the Domestic Violence Center, the Health Alliance and others to help achieve important objectives for those organizations and the community,” he said. “That is a fundamental goal of The Horizon Foundation and we are engaged in a huge number of projects.”



Acting Locally

Kennedy, a native of New York City, came to Jim Rouse’s new town to take the CA job (“I feel like I was there from the Lincoln Administration,” he said with a laugh) from D.C., where he was one of the 10 staffers that helped to create the Peace Corps before becoming a director of VISTA.

He pointed out the logical transition that took place in his early career. “In those organizations, you are helping to develop communities, be it internationally, through the Peace Corps in a South American Village; or domestically, through VISTA on an Indian reservation here in the United States,” he said.

As it turned out, that same mindset applied when creating a city within a rural county.

“One of the goals with Columbia was to take a series of 147 farms and create a community that was truly supportive of its residents,” Kennedy said, “and look at what we’ve done so far.”