Public servant with a mischievous streak
Karen Maree Lynch, public servant: b Christchurch, February 13, 1963; m David Filer; d Wellington, July 9, 2015, aged 52.
KAREN LYNCH, often called Kate, was a valued public servant, highly respected in the capital and further afield by her peers and by ministers. She died in Wellington recently after a brief illness.
Known for her red hair and fierce intellect, she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 5 but confronted her condition with determination and insight, never letting it interfere with a life filled with creativity and adventure.
The second of five children of a New Zealand diplomat, Lynch grew up overseas in New York, Singapore and London, where she attended More House, a Catholic girls’ school in Knightsbridge, winning just about every arts, history, biology and music prize on offer – usually with distinction.
Back home, she gained a BA (Hons) degree at Otago University and later a Masters in political studies at Victoria University of Wellington – no mean feat for someone losing their sight.
With the help of friends who read from and recorded articles and files, she presented a thesis on New Zealand’s role in the International Whaling Commission that earned her another Distinction.
During her 20s, Lynch worked at the State Services Commission and for various cultural bodies. In 1996, not long after finishing her MA, she joined the New Zealand Employment Service at a time when significant changes were occurring to vocational services. Later she worked on labour market and employment relations policy. Her career ended with short stints at the Public Service Association and Ministry of Social Development. A competent and knowledgeable government employee over two decades, Lynch contributed to some significant employment-related policies.
When Pathways to Inclusion, the foundation document for the Department of Labour’s vocational services, was launched in 2001, Ruth Dyson called her ‘‘an outstanding public servant’’. Colleague and friend Gordon Pryde said Lynch was genuinely interested in people as individuals, able to be strategic and look at the long-term situation without ever losing sight of the immediate impact on service users and her colleagues.
Fearless, bright and caring, she was known for mentoring younger people and new team members.
With her health deteriorating in the early 1990s, Lynch herself identified a longer-term option – a combined kidneypancreas transplant not then available in New Zealand and still in the experimental stage in Australia.
She became the first Kiwi to cross the Tasman to receive this transplant, at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital.
Had staff known how unwell she had become in the lead-up to the operation in 1993, they would not have gone ahead – but she rewrote medical records, then and since. The transplanted organs gave her a miraculous 22 more years.
As her eyesight deteriorated, Lynch took on the first of three guide dogs, who helped ‘‘humanise’’ her workplaces, and gave joy and humour to her and husband David. Known for her sense of mischief, Lynch was quick to see the funny side of what was happening around her – even when others might have been shocked.
She once turned up to a Budget lockup to be confronted by a person gesticulating in front of her; on realising what was happening, she had to explain gently that sign language, while a nice thought, did not really help those who were partially sighted.
Art remained a constant for Lynch, and she also played the piano and wrote poetry. Considering a career change at one stage, she was accepted into the Wellington Polytechnic school of graphic design. She loved the challenge but as her eyesight deteriorated she was unable to meet the course requirements.
She continued to attend life-drawing classes for years, making more than one nude model – particularly the males − a little nervous by how close she, and her dog, needed to sit. She held a public exhibition of paintings at Finc Cafe, and many of her friends and relatives now hold examples of her work.
Always stylish, she loved clothes, especially shoes, consistently turning up in high heels to her yoga class where her guide dogs were role models for the classic postures.
An intrepid international traveller, Lynch had just returned from a trip to Canada and the United States with her husband when she was hospitalised with a virulent infection of unknown origin.
She fought the illness as bravely as she had handled earlier crises.
Despite the best efforts of intensive care staff, she became increasingly unwell and died on July 9.
Fearless, bright and caring, she was known for mentoring younger people and new team members.