About Teresa Heinz Kerry
Teresa Heinz Kerry brings an extraordinary range of experience and talent to the campaign trail for her husband. She has been deeply involved with a number of issues that are equally important to her husband, including the environment, children, women's issues, and health care and wellness. She has been an outspoken advocate for human rights, and a strong supporter of the arts.
Born in Mozambique, fluent in five languages, she has combined compassion and common sense to become a force for innovation and social progress as leader of one of the nation's largest private foundations. After studying in South Africa and Switzerland, she moved to the United States to work for the United Nations. In 1966, she married Senator John Heinz, with whom she had three sons. Shortly after celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in 1991, she lost her husband in a plane crash.
Turning down offers to run for her husband's Senate seat, she became chair of The Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Under her leadership, the Heinz foundations are widely known for developing innovative strategies to protect the environment, improve education and the lives of young children, broaden economic opportunity, and promote the arts.
She started advocating for women early, attending the first meeting of the Women's Political Caucus in Pennsylvania in 1972. She established the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement in 1996 to educate women about pensions, savings, and retirement security.
Their mutual interest in environmental issues brought Teresa and John together. She was first introduced to John Kerry by Senator Heinz at an Earth Day rally in 1990. In 1992, she ran into Kerry at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where she was representing U.S. non-governmental organizations. In 1993 they began dating, and were married in the presence of her three sons and his two daughters on Memorial Day in 1995.
Teresa has received numerous awards and 10 honorary degrees for her many works. In September of last year, she was presented with the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism, for her work protecting the environment, promoting health care and education and uplifting women and children throughout the world. She was recently elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In addition to her three sons and two step-daughters, Teresa is the almost inordinately (but understandably) proud grandmother of one grandchild.
