Making A Difference: An Occasional Series Profiling North Idaho’S Community Leaders Give Sue Her Due Sue Thilo, The Driving Force Behind Cda’S Proposed Community Center, Is The Kind Of Person Who Gets Things Done

When Sue Thilo marched to the forefront of Coeur d’Alene’s drive for a community center last winter, the collective sigh of relief from supporters could have raised a hot air balloon.

“She’s very, very, very keen at knowing what’s going to make a project successful,” says Erna Rhinehart, a parent and public relations specialist. “She brings so much passion to the table. It’s phenomenal.”

Supporters of the $6.3 million proposed project are not alone in their admiration for the 45-year-old Thilo.

“If you want something done in this community, call Sue Thilo,” says Nancy Sue Wallace, City Council president.

“She doesn’t have any ulterior motives. She tries to make things happen in this community.”

There’s no debate about Thilo’s effectiveness. From the Kootenai Medical Center’s Festival of Trees to the Coeur d’Alene School District’s EXCEL Foundation, Thilo has proved herself hard-working, tenacious and focused.

“She’s the quintessential volunteer, everybody’s idea of what a volunteer should be like,” says Steve Schenk, North Idaho College’s dean of community relations. Thilo serves with Schenk on the NIC Foundation board.

“She’s effective because she truly believes in her mission. People know she sincerely cares.”

Sincerity is as fundamental in Thilo as her heartbeat, which makes her a hot commodity in the cause world. From the time she hit town in 1985, organizers of every event under the sun have courted her participation and support. One doesn’t come without the other.

“I won’t do something unless I believe in it,” she says. “I would never fund-raise for something I wouldn’t write the first check for.”

Such values are rooted in her family centered, Midwestern upbringing. Her engineer father and teacher mother raised three girls and two boys in Muscatine, Iowa.

“Where,” Thilo can’t resist adding, “I hung out at a Y a lot as a kid - a YMCA and a YWCA.”

She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology at Iowa State University and planned to enroll in graduate school when a job opportunity caught her attention. AT&T wanted college graduates interested in management careers. Thilo interviewed and was dispatched to Houston.

“I figured I could always go back to school but maybe not have a chance to be in management,” she says. “It was an adventure. I learned so much.”

Such as how women fit into the male-dominated management world of the late-1970s. Thilo struggled to learn her co-workers’ sports-metaphor language and to overcome resistance to women breaching their work site fraternities.

She quietly refused to acquiesce to expectations she’d play a supporting role.

The challenge and the puzzle of corporate politics captivated her. Thilo returned to Iowa to marry a year later, but had no intention of leaving management.

She stuck with marketing and supervision while her husband, Tom, finished medical school in Iowa and his residency in Seattle.

“I loved it. It was stimulating,” she says, with an eagerness that suggests she’d return to it in a second. “It was good brain exercise.”

Then, three babies in three years changed her focus. When her husband joined a Coeur d’Alene medical practice in 1985, Thilo quit working outside the home to raise their children.

“I could work until I was 65,” she says. “I could see those kids learn to walk only once.”

To stay connected, she joined the American Association of University Women. To stay mentally sharp, she managed the books and profit-sharing plan for Tom’s office.

But it wasn’t enough. Thilo’s need to contribute and use her organizational talents led her to join the local medical alliance and the Coeur d’Alene School District’s new EXCEL (Extras to Create Excellence in Learning) Foundation.

EXCEL was a grass-roots attempt to raise money for programs teachers saw as valuable but weren’t covered by the school district budget.

Thilo volunteered as EXCEL’s first fund-raising director. She modeled EXCEL’s successful Extravaganza after a dinner/dance she’d heard about at which every ticket-holder received a gift. Thilo’s glitzy affair raised $20,000 and became an annual event.

“I think it’s fun, thrilling, exciting to build something,” she says. “It’s amazing what you can get done when your kids are in preschool or after they go to bed.”

EXCEL served as a spotlight for Thilo. When Jim Faucher, Kootenai Medical Center Foundation director, wanted to hire someone to give life to a holiday festival fund-raiser for the hospital, Thilo was his first choice.

“I knew she was very creative and determined and would be willing to take the risk to create something that had never been done in our community before,” he says. “I could not have picked a more perfect person to accept that type of challenge.”

The weekend event Thilo introduced following Thanksgiving included an upscale dinner/dance and auction, elaborate tree decorating contest, inexpensive family day that featured entertainment from school and community groups, holiday workshops and a senior social.

The first Festival of Trees raised $45,000 toward the construction of the Walden House, a temporary home for outpatients receiving treatment at the North Idaho Cancer Center.

“It was almost an honor to fund-raise for that,” Thilo says.

She worked for two years on the festival, built it a rock-solid foundation, then handed it to a new director with fresh ideas.

“Part of the fun is getting it set up and moving on. I wanted to leave it in a place where someone could take it to the next level,” she says.

Like EXCEL’s Extravaganza, the festival grew into an annual event. In its 10 years, it’s raised $815,000.

One community involvement led to another for Thilo and each taught her something important.

“I’ve learned there has to be a reason for someone to write a check - a belief in a cause, a tax write-off, promotion,” she says. “I have to find the exchange, the right match.”

She joined the boards of the Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Coeur d’Alene, United Way and the Rotary Club.

“I was impressed by her sincerity and honesty and inborn drive,” says Dr. E.R.W. Fox, who sponsored her for Rotary membership in 1989. “She just grabs the ball and runs with it.”

She helped with the Performing Arts Alliance and worked tirelessly on Coeur d’Alene School District levy and bond campaigns.

“If Sue says, `I’ll do this,’ you can cross it off your list,” says Lori Barnes, who managed several levy campaigns for the district. “Not everybody has that ability to see things through.”

Thilo’s belief in post-secondary education inspired her to apply for an open position on the North Idaho College board of trustees in 1993. She was appointed, then won election to the seat a few months later.

It’s the only volunteer service she’d like to forget.

Four years into her term, the board abruptly fired NIC President Bob Bennett. The vote was unanimous and drew as much outrage from the community as approval. A day later an obviously miserable Thilo resigned.

Her fellow trustees’ silence on her behavior says plenty, but nothing that Thilo doesn’t already know.

“Maybe I just didn’t have a thick enough skin to ride it out,” she says, sighing. “I’ll never run for another public office in my life. There’s a certain amount of freedom you have as a volunteer.”

She found a berth more to her liking on the NIC Foundation, helping raise money for scholarships.

Between all the volunteer work, Thilo found time for family. Cooking family meals was her stress release. She shuttled son Sam and daughter Becky to soccer practices and games, and daughter Sarah to swim workouts and meets.

She also served on the swim team board. Thilo watched the team’s ranks swell with excited children, then worried as private clubs that owned the pools threatened to evict the team.

With no secure facilities, the team had nothing to keep or attract coaches. Training suffered. Kids quit to join a team in Spokane.

Finally last winter, Thilo had had enough. Kootenai County’s campaign for a jail expansion pushed all her buttons.

She reasoned that a community center eventually would reduce crime. It would give kids somewhere to go and something to do after school, when most youth crime and teen pregnancies occur.

“We have to spend money to save money,” she insists. “We have a lot to gain from building a safe place for our kids.”

The plan calls for the city to pay $5.3 million from tax revenues for the $6.3 million center. Thilo’s nonprofit Center Project Foundation has pledged to raise $1 million and sell 2,000 memberships.

The city will ask voters for approval in an advisory vote Nov. 2.

Until then, Thilo is fretting off pounds she can’t afford to lose and wearing down her shoe soles courting support. It’s not the biggest campaign she’s waged - Lake City High cost taxpayers $16.9 million - but it’s the hardest.

“People forget or don’t realize how much we need a community center and why,” she says. “And some people have made up their minds without even studying the issue.”

MAKE A DIFFERENCE Let us know Making a Difference is an occasional series about people in Kootenai County who help to make the community a better place to live. If you know of such a person, pass their name along to Cynthia Taggart at 765-7128 or by e-mail at cynthiat@spokesman.com.