Above: Carol and Dane Harbaugh with Marshall Wallach in 2006
Gates Family Foundation’s longest-running current staff member, Carol Menard, was 35 years old when she interviewed for a temporary, part-time position with Gates Capital Management (GCM). Her sister, Peggy, had been working there for two years, when she told Carol about the opening.
“Tom (Stokes, then a Foundation trustee) asked me: ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ He actually wanted to know. I said, ‘I don’t know. I want to find a home – a job – that I can do for the rest of my career. So he hired me.”
Carol at the Cody building in 2004
The Foundation has been a home for Carol ever since. She celebrated the 25-year anniversary of her first day with the Foundation on November 18, 2023.
Carol’s first role with Gates was to copy the family trusts for GCM, as the family was in the process of moving its office from Colorado to Wyoming, after selling the Gates Rubber Company in 1996. She was recruited by the Foundation’s then-executive director, Tom Kaesemeyer, to assist him as he started setting up the Foundation in its current form – supporting both place-based grantmaking within Colorado (led by the Foundation board and staff), and family giving priorities (through family-directed funds).
Carol’s first task? Putting together a board book – hundreds of pages of financial and programmatic due diligence material about applicant projects, assembled by staff, which Foundation board members review prior to making grant award decisions.
“I never did finish copying the trusts – Tom needed me,” she said. “It was all paper. No scanner, no sorting. I laid everything out on the conference room table, and walked around – it would take a week to assemble the book. Now I can do it in two hours!”
Over time, Carol’s role has grown much larger. From a staff of five, she now serves as office manager for a staff of 11, coordinator of information technology services, provides grants management staffing for the family funds housed at the Foundation, and supports the Foundation’s overall grants management activities.
Where does Carol feel she’s grown the most? “It’s been the evolution of my perception of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion),” she said. “It’s really been just personal growth and awareness. I don’t even like calling it DEI because the term has become polarizing. It doesn’t really reflect what we’re doing here (at Gates) – we’re all on a path. Each person in our world is growing at our own rate.”
First full-staff Christmas lunch, hosted at the Denver Country Club in 2000. Left to Right: Karen Mather (GFF), Sharon Brown (GCM), Peggy Puetz (GCM), Carol Menard, Tom Kaesemeyer (GFF), June Gates and Charlie Gates
She’s seen a lot of grantmaking over 25 years. So what’s her favorite part? “It’s always the small grants,” she said. “The little rural towns, where they’re not going to find the money anywhere else. And the little things they do that have a massive impact. I was never as excited about giving major Front Range cultural institutions $1 million – but helping Main Street movie theaters convert from film to digital, those gathering places meant everything to those communities.”
Working for Gates for so long, Carol said one of her greatest joys has been the long-standing relationships that she has developed with the Foundation staff and the Gates family: “I’ve been able to develop two families. I credit Tom Kaesemeyer and Tom Gougeon for that. Even the people who are gone, have moved on – I think about them all the time.”
“Charlie Gates treated everyone the same, like they were the most important person in the room,” she recalled. “One day in his office, we started talking about tomatoes. He had a garden on his property, and we talked about gardening and tomatoes for about 15 or 20 minutes. It was something that was so important to my grandmother – so it just really struck me, that he spent the time. He treated everyone that way. I feel so fortunate that I knew him, and that I got to work around him.”
Carol and former GFF Senior Vice President for Education, Mary Seawell (2012 to 2023)
Her admiration for the Wallaches has deepened over time, as well: “Diane is an incredible woman. She can do everything, just like her dad. Knowing her kids, Marshall – and really all of the family members – the beauty of that is we can talk about personal stuff. Our kids. They check on me. When Christopher (Carol’s son) was in the hospital, they checked on me. It really is like an extended family, to me.”
We asked a few special people to share a few thoughts on Carol’s long tenure:
- Diane Wallach: “Long service has always been a Gates hallmark and you, Carol, represent that loyalty. 25 years, first at GCM then GFF and the Family funds. Congratulations and a huge thank you. Now, back to work as Charlie would say. He did make 50 years himself.”
- Valerie Gates: “Carol sets the tone for everyone arriving at the Gates Family Foundation. She’s always warm and welcoming, professional and effective. What a wealth of information she has, along with an archive of foundation history. Carol was my go-to person, a problem-solver and thoughtful listener with great insights, suggestions and solutions. As a trustee, I was continually grateful for her organizational skills which ensured I was prepared and fully informed for all my meetings. She also had great chocolates to offer a boost after a long day. Bless her! Carol is a treasured member of the Gates Family Foundation. Aren’t we lucky!”
- Dane Harbaugh: “There’s something about the warmth that Carol always brings when you first walk into the Gates Family Foundation office. After having gotten to know her during my undergraduate internship at 3575, I’m so grateful that I now get to connect with her frequently as a Trustee. Her commitment to the family is unwavering and mutual. I’m thankful that she cares so deeply about the Foundation and also for her friendship.”
- From Tom Gougeon: “Carol has been the essential glue for the Foundation across generations of family members and staff. She is the person with whom most of the world first interacts with the Foundation. It matters who is the face of the Foundation at the desk, on the phone, or through the many family funds. She has done an amazing job representing the Foundation to all of our partners and stakeholders, managing the family funds grant process, but also in caring for all the people who have worked for the Foundation or been involved through the family over decades.”
From all of us at Gates Family Foundation, Gates Capital Management and the Gates Family – congratulations and thank you, Carol!
A total of $1,110,956 committed to the 
In 2019, the Community Development program committed $932,500 in strategic grants to 13 organizations and $465,000 in responsive capital grants to 12 organizations. New impact investments supporting vibrant communities in 2019 included a $500,000 MRI to 
Our Focus Landscapes initiative, a key element of our Natural Resources program, underwent a comprehensive review, revision, and re-launch in 2019. This initiative was launched in 2011 to help Colorado achieve landscape-scale conservation through the protection of private lands in specific geographies. A great deal of progress was made in North Park, southeast Colorado, and the San Luis Valley, resulting in more than 200,000 acres of farm and ranch lands conserved, along with their associated ecological values. The strategic review process was done in close partnership with the land trust organizations representing those geographies, providing lessons-learned and an exploration of emerging opportunities. The revised Focus Landscapes initiative will first focus on two geographies: