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Today's Featured Biography
Suzan Russell Krannich
I am very fortunate to have a life which has vastly exceeded my expectations in every way. I’ve had challenging and fulfilling career opportunities, many world travels, loving and interesting friends, three wonderful husbands and satisfying opportunities to give back to the communities in which I have lived. After losing my husband of 23 years, Alan Kiepper, four years ago, I was married three weeks ago to Ronald Krannich, Ph.D. To have an opportunity to love again at this age makes me feel so incredibly grateful and blessed.
My passions include: music of all kinds especially classical, soft jazz and the sounds of the sixties, attending performing arts events and visiting museums. I love to travel, dance, play bridge and read and sail. Sitting around a table with good friends, good food and wine with intellectually stimulating conversation is the top of the mountain. Favorite places include Los Cabos, Mexico; Kennebunkport, Maine; Brevard Music Center, NC; Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the Kennedy Center. Outside the United States favorite places include: Hong Kong, Istanbul, Sydney, Santorini, Greece; Dubrovnik, Croatia; The Amalfi Coast, Italy; Sicily, Paris, London, and Cambridge, England
After graduating from high school I attended Oberlin College for one year until marrying my high school boyfriend, Michael Brenner, and transferring to Jackson College for Women/Tufts University while Mike completed his senior year at Harvard. After his graduation in 1965 we went to Cambridge, England, where he became a United States Churchill Scholar and I studied informally at Cambridge University. In 1966 we returned to the United States and I went to Mills College in California where Mike was working on his PH.D at the University of California/Berkeley. I received my BA degree from Mills in June 1968.
Following college I began my first career working in the medical field. I served as: a medical social worker in two large teaching hospitals, a faculty member of the University of Maryland Medical School, a senior health policy analyst at the Public Health Service in Washington, DC, the Executive Director of a Health Policy Committee in Washington and as Vice President of Public Affairs, Marketing and Corporate Communication of the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas.
I was amicably divorced from Michael Brenner in 1970 after six years of marriage and remained single until January 1987 when I married Alan Kiepper, whom I met in Houston, in 1987. At the time of our marriage, Alan was the CEO of the transportation system in Houston, Metro, and I was Vice President at The Methodist Hospital. One year later I began my own corporate communications consulting firm. In 1989 I decided to undertake a career change and began graduate school to become a psychotherapist. Just as I was finishing my first semester in graduate school, Alan was offered the position of President of the New York City Transit Authority, the largest transit system in the world. So off to New York we went and lived there for 12 years. I completed my Masters in Clinical Social Work (MSW) at New York University in 1992 and began practicing as a psychotherapist. Alan and I built a home in Garrison, New York, 50 miles north of Manhattan with a view of the Hudson River Valley, directly across the river from West Point. We loved living there but as my Mother grew ill in Catonsville and we felt increasingly isolated from our families we decided to move back to the Baltimore area and bought a house in Annapolis and moved there in 2002.
Alan and I both retired at that time and I devoted myself to projects that reflected my passions and gave something back to the community. I served as a Hospice Vigil Volunteer for five years, chaired several fund raising projects for the Baltimore Symphony, am serving as a Governing Member of the Baltimore Symphony and worked very hard on the 2008 and 2012 Presidential campaigns. I’ve taken piano lessons again and am an aspiring photographer. My IPad, IPhone, IPod and Mac computers are constant sources of pleasure.
In August 2009, with absolutely no warning and in a period of just three minutes, my dearly loved husband, Alan, died of a ruptured ascending aortic aneurysm. As a psychotherapist and Hospice volunteer, and having watched my Mother go through a prolonged dying process, I was no stranger to death and grief but nothing prepared me for the grief I would feel after Alan’s death. I never knew the human heart could hurt so much. For many months I thought I could not stand the pain for one more minute. But in time with the love of friends, grief groups and reflection, time began to heal my heart.
Three years later, in August 2012, I met Ronald Krannich, who was also a widower and had lost his wife of 33 years very suddenly. We began dating and happily became engaged in December 2102 and married three weeks ago, September 2013. These have been among the very happiest days of my life. We had three days of parties and celebrations, a beautiful wedding at the Catonsville Presbyterian Church followed by a reception at the Gibson Island Club surrounded by most of our close friends and family. Ron got his doctorate in Political Science with a specialty in Southeast Asia. He spent several years living in Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer, as a Fulbright Scholar and again at several other times in his life. He speaks the Thai language and loves that part of the world. He is taking me there for a month in December. As Ron is still running his publishing business in Virginia we are living during the week in his home on the Occoquan Reservoir and at my home in Annapolis on the weekends.
Life is very good. I look forward to seeing many of you in November.
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