Kathryn S. Helfer

Kathryn has been involved with and has been on the boards of many organiztions in our county over the years. In the early 80's she was a two-term board member of the South Butler School Board. By the mid 80's, she had ventured into the real estate marketing and sales business.

She became the owner-broker of the former real estate firm, Hays & Hartzell Realty, which led her to becoming involved with the Butler County Chamber of Commerce and eventually being asked to serve on their board, as well as the Butler County Real Estate Board, United Way Board of Butler County, Butler County Conservation District and North Suburban Builders Association Boards. She has served on the Butler County Community Development Corporation (an organization that brings tax dollars into our county) as well as on their executive board for many years. She is presently on the Butler Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors and has her real estate license with Ed Shields Realtor since selling her real estate property to the United Way of Butler County in 2009.

Kathryn is an active Holy Sepulcher Roman Catholic church member and was on the President's Advisory Board of her Junior College in Virginia and a former member of the 100 year-old Butler Reading Club, Butler Soroptimist and Butler Rotary Clubs.

During many of these business and civically active years, her elderly mother made her home with the Helfer family after Kathryn's father died. Her mother was a mentally sharp lady but physically had her problems which brought the family to become very familiar with, and value her doctors and the Butler Health System. Her mother, who had been a patient in quite a few hospitals in the various places they had lived, including the Mayo Clinic, had the highest praise for our hospital and the wonderful and personalized care she has always received from the nursing staff.

Kathryn has been part of the growth of our hospital from her days of accompanying her mother here as a patient, to serving on the Foundation Board, to becoming a trustee of our health system, to the growth and expansion of our facilities in various communities in our county and to the birth of our tower! It must be noted that because of our excellent facilities, we have attracted an excellent medical staff.

Kathryn is quick to praise our administrators for "staying ahead of the curve," for keeping us fiscally sound and for achieving well thought out goals while keeping us an independent hospital. We are recognized as high achievers in our industry and that is something to be justly proud of. While recognizing this fact, we must never take our eyes off our goals and our Mission Statement: "Butler Health System exists to make a positive differenc in the lives of people. "