Obituary of Kathleen B Eisenhart

Kathy was born and raised in Philadelphia.  She attended The Cecilian Academy on a music scholarship and then the University of Pennsylvania on an academic scholarship, graduating with a degree in French Literature.  She was a member of the Chi Omega sorority.

Kathy had a long career in the telecommunications industry.  She worked in a variety of management positions at Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania and its successors, Bell Atlantic Corporation and Verizon, Inc.  She rose from management trainee to upper management ranks, and along the way she was often the first woman to hold each of her positions.  Her career took her in the late 1980s from Philadelphia to the Washington DC area, where she worked in Arlington, VA and established her residence in Annapolis, MD.  In the 1990s, Kathy was recruited by the global satellite communications company, Iridium LLC, to be its Director of Global Customer Care.  After Iridium went into reorganization, Kathy retired in 2000.

Kathy had many outside interests.  She had played the piano from childhood and never lost her fondness for music in general and her instrument in particular.  She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, where she chaired the search committee for its new Music Director.  The Committee’s choice, Maestro Jose Luis Novo, has been a transformative figure in the Orchestra and is very popular among the Orchestra community.

There were outside interests as well.  Kathy was an avid skier and tennis player in her younger years and had a lifelong adversarial relationship with the game of golf.  Along with her husband, though, she found herself most at home on the water.  The couple took up sailing in their Philadelphia years, spending summer vacations cruising the coast of Maine and Canadian waters.  After moving to Annapolis, they sailed their 35’ sloop, Sister Kate, on the Chesapeake.  When Kathy’s husband neared retirement in 2006, they bought a 44’ power trawler, Icy Devil, on which they cruised the waters of New England, the Chesapeake Bay, the North Atlantic and the Intracoastal Waterway.  Off the water, Kathy was an avid gardener, a pianist for her own enjoyment, an avid reader, a bridge player, and the trainer of all family dogs.

In 2012, Kathy and her husband moved to the Windmill Harbour Community on Hilton Head Island, SC.  They maintained a small condo in Annapolis and took their boat north to the Chesapeake most summers.

Kathy’s Annapolis associations included The Annapolis Yacht Club, Le Cercle Francais, The Four Rivers Garden Club and Old South Country Club.  In Hilton Head, her associations included The South Carolina Yacht Club, Country Club of Hilton Head and its Women’s Golf Association, and the Women’s Association of Hilton Head Island.

Kathy is survived by her loving husband of 52 years, Frank Eisenhart, a retired attorney, and by her son Jamie Eisenhart, a software engineer, who lives in Seattle with his wife Lynn (Chang) and their two sons, Theodore Felix and Calvin Kai Eisenhart.  She is also survived by her Irish Water Spaniel, Molly, who promises to be a good dog for her Dad.

Funeral arrangements are private.  A Celebration of Life will take place in Annapolis, MD in early spring.