Colonel Karen Ritchie

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For those who knew her or worked with her, either through the CF or Girl Guides...

http://www.rmcclub.ca/eVeritaswp/

REMEMBERING ONE OF OUR BEST
Posted by rmcclub on November 4th, 2008

REMEMBERING ONE OF OUR BEST

As many of you may know, 14491 Colonel Karen Ritchie, class of ‘85, died as a result of injuries received in a car accident over the Thanksgiving weekend. Colonel Karen Ritchie was an inspiring, caring woman who had strong beliefs about the importance of empowering Canadian girls and helping them to find their voice.

Karen was a role model for girls and women in her professional life. She was in the first class of 32 women accepted to RMC in 1980 when she was only 17. She graduated from RMC with a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering and later continued her education by earning a Masters degree in Integrated Logistic Support at Virginia Polytechnic and State University. Her military career steadily advanced with her promotion, at a young age, to the rank of Colonel. She also served as Deputy Chair of the Committee on Women in the NATO Forces. At the time of her death she was the Commander of 5 Area Support Group.

Karen was also a life-long supporter of the Girl Guide movement and a proud member of Girl Guides of Canada. As a senior ranking officer in the military Karen was regularly deployed to areas such as Bosnia, Germany and the Arabian Gulf, but her connection to Guiding remained constant. As she noted recently in an interview for a profile, “I move regularly with the Army, but I can always find a Guiding community wherever I live or work. There is a sisterhood in Guiding no matter where you are in the world. Guiding is the constant in my life. Honestly I could not imagine me, Karen Ritchie, without GGC.”

Karen lent her skills, leadership and passion to several areas of Guiding, including being a Unit Guider, working on the Planning Committee for Guiding Mosaic 2006 and serving on the Membership Recruitment Task Force. At the time of her death, Karen was a Board Member for the organization.

Karen will be remembered for her exceptional contributions to both GGC and the Canadian Forces.

In memory of Karen, members of the first group of Lady Cadets and the women of her graduating class have banded together to set up a “First 32″ camp fund in order to help send 32 girls to GGC’s upcoming Guiding Mosaic 2010, an event very dear to Karen’s heart and one in which she had been looking forward to taking part.. The cost to send one girl to camp is $900.00.

If you would like to make a contribution to this fund please contact Lynne Hodgson at Girl Guides of Canada, by calling 416-487-5281 x228, emailing her at hodgsonl@girlguides.ca or sending a cheque to Lynne’s attention at GGC, 50 Merton Street, Toronto ON M4S 1A3. When you make your donation please reference the “First 32″ Camp Fund.

All donations are tax deductible.

We get emails
Posted by rmcclub on November 4th, 2008

Comment worth repeating:

As Karen’s mother, I too like her father thought she was indeed, something special.
It has indeed been a very difficult time since that terrible day over two weeks ago. I want to add my sincere appreciation to all who have taken the time to post notices on this site, all of which have comforted both families. I had absolutely no conception of the scope of Karen’s influence on associates she met, even briefly. All of you who managed to come to the funeral and stopped to speak with us spoke of her unfailing dedication to the country she loved and to every person she met in her life. It has been a revelation to our family to understand just how much she actually managed to cram into each day of her very busy life, and still seek out individuals she knew needed her guiding hand.
As a daughter she became my very special friend and we shared many happy times together including this Canada Day when I visited her for the celebrations. Canada Day with Karen on ‘the hill’ has to be experienced. It is a happy memory that will remain with me forever.
Thank you to all who have emailed me personally, your kind words and thoughts will be forever with me during these difficult days.

Barbara Aaron
baaron@mts.net

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I have spoken to several members of my class as well as those in Col Karen Ritchie’s graduating class regarding a fitting memory for Karen. We all have many stories we can share that reflect our acquaintances / friendships with Karen over the years, but most of all but most of all we wanted something that had the potential to change the lives of other young women, the way RMC and/or Guiding did for many of us.

As you are aware, Karen lent her skills, leadership and passion to several areas of Guiding, including being a Unit Guider, working on the Planning Committee for Guiding Mosaic 2006 and serving on the Membership Recruitment Task Force. At the time of her death, Karen was also a Board Member for the organization.

After some thought, we decided that in honour of Karen’s memory and her dedication to guiding we would work with the Girl Guides of Canada to set up a “First 32″ camp fund in order to help send 32 girls (the number “32″ is from the first class of 32 lady cadets) to GGC’s upcoming Guiding Mosaic 2010, an event very dear to Karen’s heart and one she had been looking forward to being part of. The cost to send one girl to camp is $900.00 so the target for the fund will be $28,800.

I have worked the details out with GGC and attached is an article we worked on together to explain the fund. GGC will provide us with an update so we can report on how it is doing. The great news is that before we have even kicked this off “officially” we have two of the 28 positions sponsored!

I would appreciate it if you could include this article or a version thereof in the next edition of e-Veritas as well as Veritas. I am available at the coordinates below should you wish to discuss this further. Jacquie Doucette (RMC ‘85 I think) will be notifying Karen’s family about our actions.

14481 Linda Newton (RMC ‘84)

14481 Dr. Linda A Newton (RMC 1984) is an Adjunct research professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa. She holds a B.Sc. (RMC), and a M.Eng., Ph.D. from (New Brunswick). She has a research interest in Infrastructure Management, Quality, and Condition Assessment Methods in the Transportation discipline. She also works at Defence Construction Canada (DCC), which provides contracting, construction contract management and related infrastructure services to the Department of National Defence (DND). She was one of the first 32 female graduates of RMC.

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