‘I’m ready:’ Sue Abderholden, longtime advocate for Minnesotans with mental illness, is stepping down

Sue Abderholden grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s, the granddaughter of Lithuanian immigrants and the only girl in a family of boys.

“I always joke that because there were five boys and me, they didn’t have time to treat me any differently,” Abderholden said. Because of that, there was no question that she would go on to college and a career. Her eventual career, however, was not the one anyone anticipated.

Abderholden’s parents were the first in their family to go to college. ”They made their expectations clear,” she said. “It was, ‘You’ll be a lawyer or you’ll be a doctor.’”

Following their advice, Abderholden studied pre-med and political science at Macalester College, but met resistance at medical school interviews. “The first question was, ‘Do you plan on getting married?’” she recalled. “This was in the ‘70s. I said, ‘Yeah. I hope so someday.’ They said, ‘Then you’re not serious.’ When I went to the second med school, they asked the same question, so I thought, ‘I know the answer to this.’ I said,  ‘No,’ and they said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

Abderholden didn’t let that hold her back. She found a job working at Dakota’s Children, a small residential facility for kids with severe physical and intellectual disabilities, where she could put her commitment to helping others into action.

“It was at that time one of the only alternatives to the state institutions,” she said. “I loved working with the kids. I loved working with the families. It felt like I was really making a difference in their lives.” That early experience led Abderholden to take on other jobs leading nonprofits serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including PACER Center and The Arc Minnesota.

For the last 24 years, Abderholden has brought her commitment to helping others to her work as executive director of NAMI Minnesota, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of children and adults with mental illnesses and their families. Under Abderholden’s leadership, NAMI Minnesota has successfully advocated for the enactment of laws that protect the rights of Minnesotans with mental illness, and has become a leading force in the fight to eliminate stigma around mental health. 

Each legislative session, Abderholden has been a steady presence at the State Capitol, working with lawmakers to craft bills that have made Minnesota a national standout in its protections for people with mental illness. When she’s not at the Capitol, Abderholden meets with NAMI members, interacts with the media and leads advocacy campaigns for causes related to mental illness.

Related: Minnesota’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference by the numbers

But even the most tireless advocate knows when it’s time for the next adventure. This spring, Abderholden, 70, announced her plans to retire. Her last day at NAMI Minnesota will be Oct. 15, 24 years to the day she stepped into the role. “I’m starting to count the days,” she said. “I’m ready.”

The nonprofit has yet to name her replacement, but she’s confident that the board will find someone capable of taking on the role that she created from scratch.

‘Let’s give this a try’

When Abderholden started at NAMI, the nonprofit had two full-time and one half-time employees. Because she’d  already worked in leadership roles at The Arc and PACER, Abderholden knew that some people would see the NAMI job as a step down. But she was inspired by the organization’s mission and she saw its potential.

“I wanted to be an executive director, and I wanted to create change,” Abderholden said. “If I’d known how bad of shape it was in financially, I might not have taken the job. But mental health issues were important to me. I said, ‘Let’s give this a try.’”

On Abderholden’s first day on the job, the only other full-time employee quit. She had no choice, she said, but to think of her glass as half full: “I decided to see this as an opportunity.”

Abderholden hired a colleague from PACER to fill the newly open position, and the two of them got down to the business of building up the largely volunteer-led organization. When NAMI Minnesota eventually moved to a larger office on Transfer Road in St. Paul, Abderholden said it felt like a big step. “It was like, ‘We are finally moving up. We’re not going to have to wash the coffee pot in the bathroom anymore.’”

From humble beginnings, NAMI has grown into a healthy nonprofit with 37 employees and an annual budget of around $3 million. Part of Abderholden’s strategy for growing NAMI Minnesota was to focus on changing public policy: “That’s how you get media. Media doesn’t cover a family education class. They cover public policy. So I made it a point that anytime I saw something happening at the Capitol, I’d reach out to reporters.”

Abderholden spread the word through a weekly e-newsletter. “I started a little email saying, ‘This is what happened at the Capitol this week,’ because I knew it wasn’t covered anywhere.” This eventually helped get word out that changes were afoot. 

“People with mental illness and their family members didn’t think anything was happening at the Capitol because it wasn’t getting covered,” she said. “I decided that if people knew that change was happening, that would help energize them and help build a movement.”

As word of the legislative changes got out, people became inspired to get involved, she said. NAMI Minnesota was founded by family members who wanted the best for their loved ones who struggled with mental illness. With a scrappy nonprofit on their side led by a tireless advocate, they could feel the momentum building.

Not long ago, Abderholden was going through some old newsletters when she saw a quote from a rural state legislator who’d met with a group of NAMI parents. “He said,” she recalled, “’These families came down here, and yes, we’ll do anything. Just call off the mothers.’” Aberholden had seen this kind of energy at The Arc and PACER, too. “We called them ‘The NAMI Mommies,’” she laughed. “They were strong and fierce and really wanted to make a difference. We channeled that passion.”

A legacy of commitment

The movement NAMI fueled has led to multiple improvements in the lives of Minnesotans with mental illness. Under Abderholden’s leadership, NAMI Minnesota has helped to advocate for significant legislative change, including a revision of the state’s civil commitment act; laws restricting the use of seclusion and restraints in schools; and legislation requiring teachers to learn the warning signs of mental illness in children.

In recent months, Abderholden has been taking stock of NAMI’s accomplishments, and the many small steps it took to achieve them. “When we did the bill restricting the use of seclusion and restraints, we worked on it for about two years before we got it introduced. It was very hard to get it passed and there were a lot of things we didn’t include at that point. Then, as we implemented it, it was like, ‘We can do this now.’ 

I never thought it was all or nothing. I always felt, ‘Let’s get a little bit of something passed and then we can build on it.’”

Shannah Mulvihill, executive director and CEO of Mental Health Minnesota, said when she first met Abderholden, she was intimidated.

“My first impressions of Sue were that she was a powerhouse to be sure and that she had such a broad knowledge base,” Mulvihill said. “As someone new, I wondered, ‘How am I ever going to catch up and keep up to her, given that we’re supposed to be partners in leading some of this work?’”

Abderholden sees herself differently. “I really don’t view myself as a power broker,” she said. “I view myself as someone who listens to people’s stories, tries to figure out what the barriers are that they face and how we can fix them. I see myself more as a problem solver.”

Kirsten Anderson, executive director of AspireMN, said that she appreciates Abderholden’s understanding that seemingly little things, like changing the language used to describe mental illness, can make a big difference in how the world sees people who live with these conditions. 

“One of the great things Sue did this session is she spent I don’t know how many hours removing language from a statute that describes children with mental illness or serious mental illness as, ‘children with emotional disturbances,’ or ‘severe emotional disturbances,’” Anderson said. “She took the time to go through all of the pages and get that removed. It’s those little things that really make a difference.”

Time to move on

For years, leading NAMI Minnesota felt like a dream job for Abderholden. But then something started to shift. In 2021, Lee Keller, Abderholden’s husband of 40 years, died unexpectedly. The loss changed the way she looked at the world. 

“We never know how long we have on this earth,” Abderholden said. “I’ve put my heart and soul into this organization. I routinely work six, seven days a week during the session. That’s fine – it’s my choice – but I also felt like it was time to take care of myself.”

Abderholden said she wants to leave while she still feels satisfied by her work. “I really do love what I do. There are things I won’t miss, like grant writing, things like that. I will absolutely miss the public policy piece, but the job is more than that.”

She is looking forward to unstructured time and visiting her daughter in California in the springtime, “when she tells me it’s the most beautiful, but I never could go because it’s during session.” (Abderholden’s other daughter lives in Minneapolis.) She also wants to read books, go to exercise classes, see friends and just take a deep breath. “I joke that I will spend the first three months taking naps.”

Mulvihill said she’s having a hard time processing the fact that her friend and colleague will soon be stepping away from the work that has consumed so much of her life. “Honestly, I’m thrilled for her. I think it’s an exciting time for her to set all of this aside a bit and do other things in her life, but I’m going to miss her, and so will others.”

Abderholden said she’s confident that the work she started at NAMI will continue. “I don’t think NAMI will falter without me,” Abderholden said. “My mother-in-law always told me, ‘You can be replaced.’ It was a joke, but I do know I’m not irreplaceable.”

NAMI’s new executive director might do things differently and build on new strengths, she said. “But they will find someone who will find their own path and keep on doing this important work.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Abderholden is the granddaughter of Lithuanian immigrants.

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Editor’s note: This article first appeared on MinnPost and was written by Andy Steiner, a Twin Cities-based writer and editor. She can be reached at asteiner@minnpost.com. It is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.