Today's spotlight: Randi Ilyse Roth

Age: 51

New job title: Executive director, Otto Bremer Foundation

What do you do? The Otto Bremer Foundation supports development of healthy communities in regions and areas served by Bremer bank affiliates: Minnesota, North Dakota, and western Wisconsin. I work with the foundation's trustees and staff to make sure that we accomplish our mission in accordance with the trust instrument as effectively as possible. My responsibilities include managing the work involved in fulfilling our responsibilities to grant applicants and grantees; overseeing daily operations and internal management; providing support to the Foundation's trustees, and overseeing communications with grant-seekers, grantees and the public. I also hope that I will be able to work with others in the nonprofit and foundation sectors to forge shared, effective strategies to solve societal challenges.

Education: Bachelor's degree, Yale University; law degree, Northwestern University

Family: Married with two great kids, 11 and 13

Hobbies: Cooking, gardening, relaxing and enjoying my family, our friends and our dog

Previous jobs: I have been a practicing lawyer for 24 years. First, I worked on the South Side of Chicago in the neighborhood of the Robert Taylor Homes housing development. My work in that profoundly low-income community focused on public benefits and housing concerns. Second, I worked as a staff attorney and then as executive director of Farmers' Legal Action Group Inc. (FLAG). FLAG provides legal services for low-income family farmers nationwide. Most of my work at FLAG focused on credit issues and on the labor arrangements in contract agriculture. ... Third, I serve as the court-appointed monitor in the class-action lawsuit of Pigford vs. Schafer. This is the case in which 22,000 African-American farmers sued the U. S. Department of Agriculture concerning race discrimination in credit. The case is winding down, with more than 99 percent of the claims processing completed. The last tasks needed to complete implementation of the settlement are underway.

Why did you seek to work at the Otto Bremer Foundation? When I worked at FLAG and needed to seek funds from foundations, I approached the Otto Bremer Foundation on many occasions. I had also approached the foundation in my roles on various nonprofit boards. The Otto Bremer Foundation always stood out to me -- and to other leaders in the nonprofit community -- because of the foundation's demonstrated depth of understanding of the true needs of the communities it serves.

Describe the perfect retirement: Stay in my house in St. Paul; build a greenhouse; garden intensively, growing organic tomatoes, herbs, eggplants, raspberries and cherries, preserve what I can't use in the summer, and cook great dinners for my family and friends every week. That, combined with volunteer work in my synagogue community and in the legal aid community, sounds like the perfect retirement for me.

AIMEE BLANCHETTE