Eileen Kraus

Eileen Shanley Kraus (July 19, 1938 – July 1, 2017) was an American business executive who broke the glass ceiling to be the first woman to run a major bank in Connecticut. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 2002.

Early life and education Born to parents Janet and John Shanley, Kraus was raised in Maplewood and Short Hills, New Jersey, graduating from Columbia High School. Kraus graduated magna cum laude in 1960 from Mount Holyoke College, where she was class president. After training to become an executive secretary at Gibbs College, she married salesman Harold C. "Hal" Kraus in 1961 and moved from Northampton to West Hartford, Connecticut.

Soon after moving to Connecticut, Kraus was hired as administrative assistant to Secretary of the State Ella Grasso, who had contacted Mount Holyoke (her alma mater) seeking recommendations for a secretary. Kraus went on to attend Trinity College, where she worked in fundraising and earned a Master of Arts degree in political science in 1965.

Honors Kraus received numerous awards and honors in the 1990s and 2000s. She was recognized as Business Leader of the Year by the Hartford Courant (1990), a Woman of Merit by the Connecticut Valley Girl Scout Council (1994), and Laura A. Johnson Woman of the Year by the Hartford College for Women (1998). She was a 2002 inductee into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame and also received honorary doctorates from the University of Hartford and Charter Oak State College.

Personal life A resident of West Hartford since 1961, Kraus died of pancreatic cancer in 2017. Her children, Janet Kraus Giebutowski and Stephen H. C. Kraus, survived her.