Catherine D "Cate" Bower, FASAE, IOM

Cate is co-founder and partner emeritus of Cygnet Strategy, LLC. She has extensive experience in strategy development, large group process, leadership development, facilitation, governance and organizational structure alignment, strategic communications and culture change, primarily with not for profit clients in the US and Canada.  From 1991 until 2010, when she and Marybeth Fidler co-founded Cygnet Strategy, LLC, she was a principal partner with Tecker Consultants, LLC. Her office is in West River, MD.

Cate is a skilled facilitator and an award winning strategist and writer. Prior to entering consulting, she spent 20 years in association management and organizational communications. In 1974, she joined what was then the American Society for Personnel Administration, following a three-year stint in corporate communications at a major public utility in Cleveland. During her tenure, ASPA became the Society for Human Resource Management (she oversaw the name development and change process) and the association grew from 14,000 members, 7 employees and a $750,000 annual operating budget to 50,000 members, 130 employees, and a $20 million budget. She also developed and implemented its nationally recognized Issues Management program.

A Fellow of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), she has chaired both its Research Committee and its Communications Section Council, served on the ASAE Foundation Board of Directors and the ASAE Board, chaired the 2003 Strategic Leadership Forum and served on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Association Leadership. She served as core faculty for the Power of Partnership Symposium sponsored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and co-facilitated the Canadian Society of Association Executive’s CEO Symposium Program for 5 years. She served for several years as editor of Working Smart Newsletter, and as an editor of the highly regarded business books Work in the 21st Century and Worklife Visions. She currently serves as a member of the Director’s Circle of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD. She is a graduate of Kent State University and of the US Chamber’s 6-year Institute of Organizational Management and earned her CAE in 1991.