Southwest Initiative Foundation CEO resigns

By Linda Vanderwerf

June 19, 2014 at 1:26 PM

HUTCHINSON - Long-time Southwest Initiative Foundation President/CEO Sherry Ristau has announced that she will be resigning from her position later this summer.

Ristau is leaving to be the president/CEO of the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend, serving communities along the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities area of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Rock Island and Moline in Illinois.

Ristau has spent her entire career in rural Minnesota and has worked for the Southwest Initiative Foundation for longer than 20 years. She has been CEO for the past 17 years.

The foundation’s assets have grown from $23 million to $63 million since she took leadership in 1997.

By Linda Vanderwerf

In 42 years in the newspaper industry, Linda Vanderwerf has worked at several daily newspapers in Minnesota, including the Mesabi Daily News, now called the Mesabi Tribune in Virginia. Previously, she worked for the Las Cruces Sun-News in New Mexico and the Rapid City Journal in the Black Hills of South Dakota. She has been a reporter at the West Central Tribune for nearly 27 years.

Vanderwerf can be reached at email: lvanderwerf@wctrib.com or phone 320-214-4340

Southwest Initiative Foundation CEO resigns

HUTCHINSON -- Long-time Southwest Initiative Foundation President/CEO Sherry Ristau has announced that she will be resigning from her position later this summer.