Former Kohler Co. executive Natalie Black Kohler, 74, of Oostburg, died Sept. 10 at her home.
Kohler was the wife of Herbert Kohler Jr. and a guiding leader for Kohler Co., the Kohler Foundation, the legal profession and a wide variety of community philanthropic organizations.
Natalie was a 1978 magna cum laude graduate of Marquette University Law School. She received a degree in economics and mathematics from Stanford University in 1972. She was also a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Program for Management Development in 1982. She joined Kohler Co. in 1981 as a member of the legal department after previous employment since 1978 as an attorney with the Milwaukee law firm of Quarles & Brady, specializing in securities and general corporate work.
Her roles at Kohler included general counsel, guiding the company through a historic stock recapitalization; and senior vice president of communications, which culminated in construction of The Beacon, Kohler Co.’s state-of-the-art global communications headquarters. She was inducted, with her husband Herbert, into the Wisconsin Advertising Hall of Fame in 2019.
In addition to being a member of the Kohler Co. Board of Directors from 1987 to 2022, and a member, then President of Kohler Foundation from 1998 to 2022, Kohler was served on numerous professional boards and organizations, including member of the American, Wisconsin and Sheboygan County Bar Associations; Chairman of the Committee on Corporate Law Departments for the Section on Business Law of the American Bar Association; and on the Board of Trustees for Marquette University from 1993 to 2013. She served on the Board of Directors for Johnson Controls, Inc. from 1998 to 2018, and was a member of the Policy Advisory Board of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University since 1991. Natalie was on the Board of Trustees for the Medical College of Wisconsin from 1997 to 2009, and on Boards of the Sheboygan County YMCA and The Milwaukee Ballet Company.
Kohler started the Black Spring Foundation, Inc., a non-profit that focuses on literacy, education, hunger, and improving life for animals. She also gave to the Sheboygan County Food Bank, the Sheboygan County Humane Society, and Sheboygan Public Education Foundation.
