As head of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota, Sue Abderholden “brought the muscle of love to bear on our mental health systems,” said Kirsten Anderson, the executive director of AspireMN.

“Sue is fearless, and she is incredibly capable,” Anderson said. “She is deeply committed, based on her love of people and her resolve that we can build what’s needed and we can always do better. … The ferocity that is associated with her and her legacy comes from an incredible amount of love.”

Abderholden, 71, of Minneapolis, retires on Wednesday after 24 years as executive director of NAMI Minnesota.

During her tenure, she has been a driving force behind major legislative reforms that transformed the state’s mental health system, successfully advocating for the passage of more than 20 laws that protect the rights of Minnesotans with mental illness.

Among her impacts:

• laws that require mental health training for teachers;
• mental health screenings for people entering jails;
• expanded crisis and community-based services;
• strengthened mental health parity protections;
• limiting solitary confinement in prison for individuals with mental illnesses.

“When Sue shows up, she shows up — as a professional and as someone who is a deep believer in the future we can build together,” Anderson said. “She believes in people. She believes in family members. She believes in her friends. She believes in our elected officials. And she also believes in democracy as being able to be the vessel of what makes life better for everybody.”

When Abderholden was hired at NAMI Minnesota in October 2001, the organization had a $160,000 budget and 2½ staff members — “and the only other full-time person quit my first day on the job,” she said.

The St. Paul-based organization now has a $3 million budget and a staff of 35 and is recognized as one of the most effective and respected mental health advocacy organizations in the nation.

Abderholden was instrumental in making NAMI an organization focused on adults and children — not just adults, Anderson said.

“The majority of NAMIs across the country do not pick up children’s issues and pursue them,” she said. “That was never a question, of course, with NAMI Minnesota. Sue decided that it would be inclusive of all people who have experienced mental illness and all the people who love them in those equations.”

One of Abderholden’s final achievements, according to Anderson, was “going through, truly, hundreds of pages of state statute to remove some really icky words” that were used to describe children with mental illness.

“Sue just said, ‘Our statutes don’t have to have these yucky words. We can do better,’” Anderson said. “So she just went through them line by line. She didn’t ask anybody else to do it. She just did it. Those words are gone. We’re talking about children who are mentally ill, and words matter. To me, it’s representative of just one more gift that she is sharing with children and families and our wider community, demonstrating once again that we can do things better. It’s just a matter of our political will.”

Studied pre-medicine at Macalester

Abderholden grew up in Antioch, Ill., and attended a Catholic boarding school in Lake Forest, Ill. She moved to St. Paul in 1972 to attend Macalester College, graduating in 1976. She double-majored in political science and pre-medicine, but she didn’t get into medical school.

“You have to remember that this was 1976,” she said. “The first question from the first medical school was, ‘Do you plan on getting married?’ I said, ‘Well, I hope to someday.’ And they said, ‘Well, you’re not serious.’ When the second medical school asked the same question, I’m, like, well, I know the answer. So I said, ‘No,’ and they said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

A doctor at the former Ramsey Hospital in St. Paul, where Abderholden was doing research on stress ulcers in burn patients, suggested that she work at Dakota’s Children, a West St. Paul residential center for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“I never turned back,” she said. “I still have a picture of all of them in my office as a reminder to me. I mean, it literally changed my life. I loved working with those kids, but I also saw how hard it was for parents to leave their children there. It was a state-of-the-art group home. It was the only alternative to the institutions at the time. And it was really hard. We had no community services for them. These kids were barely allowed into schools yet.”