Mike Ritz to step down as executive director of Leadership Rhode Island

Mike Ritz, the executive director of Leadership Rhode Island, has many strong suits.

Perhaps reading a calendar, though, isn't one of them.

In November 2009, the organization's board coaxed him to head the organization.

"The agreement was I would do this for one year," he said Monday. "The intention was never to stay here."

Now, more than 12 years later, Ritz is stepping down as executive director to take a job in Washington, D.C.

On July 25, he will join the Gallup organization, coordinating its effort to bring strength-based practices into the federal workplace. Ritz has backed a similar initiative as part of Leadership Rhode Island, using a Gallup assessment to help workers find their strengths and employers to use those strengths. Gallup believes that workers who use their strengths perform better and create a more harmonious workplace.

Ritz's last day as head of Leadership RI will be July 22.

When he begins his Washington job, current deputy director Michelle Carr will take over as executive director. It's a job for which the organization has been grooming her for several years, Ritz said.

"She's the right leader for this moment," Ritz said, noting that Carr, a Cuban-American, has a strong background in diversity, equity and inclusion. "We also have the strongest team we've ever had here."

Mexico City, Army intelligence, Cable Car Cinema were stops along the way for Ritz

Ritz followed a rather circuitous route to the helm of one of the most trusted organizations in Rhode Island.

But a key juncture was wanting to see "Cremaster 3," a Matthew Barney film described as part-zombie movie, part-gangster flick, that was playing at the Cable Car Cinema, which closed its doors in 2018.

After finishing high school in Georgia in 1991, the then 19-year-old Indiana native moved to Mexico City to run his father's language school. That led to selling timeshares in Cancun before joining the Army in 1995.

In the service, he used his language-school experience and became trained as an Arabic and Spanish interrogator.

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When he left the Army in 1999, he founded his own company, Team Delta, teaching survival, evasion, resistance and escape skills to law enforcement officers, diplomats or anyone who wanted to learn what prisoners-of-war might go through.

For Ritz, the Team Delta work was on-again, off-again as he  pursued other opportunities, including coordinating medical care in the United States for members of the military of the United Arab Emirates, work that came to an end with the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

But, by then, the work had brought Ritz to Boston, where he and then-girlfriend Elaine Collins wanted to see "Cremaster 3," which was playing at the Cable Car. While in Providence, Collins scanned a real estate ad and realized they could buy a Victorian in Providence for the price of a townhouse in Boston.

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And so he and Collins moved to Providence, and Ritz pursued several jobs with non-profits, which led him to taking a leadership course at Leadership Rhode Island. Then he joined the organization's board, from which he agreed to a one-year stint as executive director 12 year ago.

"The wind calls, and I ride it," he said Monday. "It's very strange for me to do something for 12 years."

But Ritz, who also is on the board of the Girl Scouts of Southeastern New England, isn't quite saddling up the way he used to.

"I'm not moving. I'm staying in Rhode Island and in Providence," he said, adding that he will have an apartment in Washington, but will commute back and forth.

"I love this state, and I'm very invested here."