Since February, Daly has been FSU's director of governmental relations.
By Mark Pudlow
Special to the Florida State Times
Over a dozen years, Kathleen Daly became something of an expert on the legislative process as chief assistant to Florida House Speaker Peter Wallace. Now she gets the opportunity to put that knowledge into action for Florida State.
Since February, Daly has been FSU's director of governmental relations.
"My biggest obstacle was to acclimate to being on the other side of the desk," says Daly, a pleasant and business-like 35-year-old.
Her job is to make the movers and shakers in government understand that FSU is more than just a nationally ranked football team.
She's FSU's chief lobbyist to the Florida Legislature, the state Cabinet and local governments in Tallahassee. She even helps keep an eye on Congress for issues that might have an impact on the university.
But she doesn't work alone. Daly and her counterparts at the other nine state universities work together with the State University System to present a unified front to the Legislature and the Cabinet.
She's a perfect fit for the job, says FSU Vice President for University Relations Beverly Burnsed Spencer, who ought to know. Spencer was a member of the Legislature from 1976 through 1988.
Spencer ticks off Daly's strong suits: experience, understanding the legislative process, connections and good relationships with the legislative staffs.
Though Daly has been immersed in the legislative process for a dozen years, her new job has had its share of learning experiences.
It's been a crash course. She was hired the month before the opening of the 1995 session of the Legislature.
While her husband, Reinhart Lerch, worked on his master's degree in interactive multimedia, Daly read, studied and met with people throughout the campus to learn more about the issues she'd be dealing with in the legislative session.
The main issue was competing for money with all of Florida's other needs -- like fighting crime and building prisons. It's not an easy task.
"Times have changed," she says. "We're not being funded at the rate we once were." But maintaining the flow of money, which Daly describes as "our lifeline," is essential.
"Education is a solution to a lot of the crime and welfare problems, and it would be a travesty to cut it to the quick," she says.
At the same time, Daly says, university leaders are aware of economic realities.
"We realize we have to tighten our belts like everyone else."
Daly may be a newcomer, at least full-time, to the Tallahassee area, but she's spent plenty of time in the state capital.
"I always knew I was coming to FSU," she says. "My mother was involved in politics locally, and she'd bring us up to Tallahassee" when she came on business. Daly graduated in 1982 with a major in communication and a minor in political science. Her brother also attended FSU.
Daly's family moved to Clearwater from Minneapolis when she was 12. She attended Pinellas Park High School and spent two years at St. Petersburg Junior College before enrolling in Florida State.
And though her job with Wallace was based in St. Petersburg, his work in the Legislature brought her to Tallahassee often.
The Legislature has completed its work for this year, but don't think Daly is taking it easy this summer. She's visiting key legislators in their home districts, including lawmakers who graduated from FSU.
And she's preparing for one more big change. In December, she and her husband are expecting their first child, a son. The baby's birth is coming at just the right time in this busy mom's life.
"I'll make it through football season, and I'll be prepared for a bowl game," she laughs.