Teresa Heinz Kerry

Personal life In addition to Portuguese (her native language), Heinz speaks English, Spanish, French, and Italian. She is Roman Catholic. John Heinz died in a plane crash on April 4, 1991.

In 1990, Teresa Heinz met Senator John Kerry at an Earth Day rally. This was the only reported time the two met before John Heinz's death. In 1992, Teresa Heinz met Kerry again, this time at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Heinz was a member of a State Department delegation appointed by then-President George H. W. Bush. Heinz and Kerry were married May 26, 1995, in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Following her marriage to Kerry, Heinz retained the name Teresa Heinz. In May 2004, she said: My legal name is still Teresa Heinz. Teresa Heinz Kerry is my name... for politics. Just so people don't ask me questions about so and so is so and so's wife or this and that. Teresa Heinz is what I've been all my growing-up life, adult life, more than any other name. And it's the name of my boys, you know ?... So, that's my legal name and that's my office name, my Pittsburgh name. She indicated that she had undergone several lumpectomies and would be following up with a targeted type of radiation therapy treatment called accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI).

On July 7, 2013, Heinz was taken by ambulance to Nantucket Cottage Hospital after showing symptoms consistent with a seizure. She was described as being in "critical but stable" condition. Heinz was then flown to Massachusetts General Hospital for further medical treatment and tests. Her condition was upgraded to fair the next day, and doctors were able to rule out a heart attack, brain tumor, stroke, and other triggers. On July 11, she was transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital to continue her recovery. Heinz was released on July 17, 2013, from Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. She recovered at home after some limited out-patient treatment.

Philanthropy Heinz has served as chair of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. She has also served on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.

Environmental programs and advocacy Heinz has contributed to the environmental movement through many programs and outreach efforts. In 1990, she co-founded the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning (later known as the Alliance for Healthy Homes, it has since merged with the National Center for Healthy Housing), through the first environmental grant of the Vira I. Heinz Endowment. In 1992, she was a Delegate to the Earth Summit, representing Non-Governmental Organizations.

In 1993, with Kerry and environmentalist academic Dr. Anthony Cortese, she co-founded Second Nature, which brings "Education for Sustainability" to college campuses. In 1993, she founded the Heinz Awards, including a category for Outstanding Contributions to the Environment. In 1995, with a $20 million grant, the Heinz Endowments provided initial funding for The Heinz Center,

Since 1996, Heinz has hosted an annual "Women's Health and the Environment" conference series. She founded Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research, which annually awards eight $10,000 awards for doctoral dissertation support and eight $5,000 awards for Masters' thesis support for research having "public policy relevance that increases society's understanding of environmental concerns and proposed solutions." Heinz is a board member of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Women's economic security programs and advocacy In 1995, the book Pensions in Crisis: Why the system is failing America and how you can protect your future (later republished as The Pension Book) was published, with support from the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation, and a foreword by Heinz.

Spurred by the issues uncovered by Pensions in Crisis, Heinz and her foundation created the Women's Retirement Initiative to "extend that investigation and examine how the dynamics of our pension and retirement system contribute to the disproportionate rate of poverty among older women."

Politics Like her first husband, Heinz was a registered Republican for most of her voting life, and she remained a registered Republican despite being married to Kerry. In January 2003, she changed her registration to the Democratic Party.

In 2003, Heinz was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Pennsylvania's Most Politically Powerful Women".

Heinz is said to have been encouraged to run for her first husband's vacant Senate seat after his death. Heinz declined and refused to endorse Republican Congressman Rick Santorum's 1994 bid for the seat. She publicly denounced him as the "antithesis" of her late husband, and later called him "Forrest Gump with attitude." It was rumored she would challenge Santorum in 2006 (as a Democrat), but she did not enter the race, and the Democratic nomination went to State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., who went on to defeat Santorum.

In a 2004 interview, Heinz criticized George W. Bush's Iraq War policy, stating, "Our first priority was terrorism. We have now made enemies of people who were our friends, and even our allies distrust us. And that's a terrible thing."

Heinz has a reputation in the media as a very direct personality. In an interview published in USA Today in July 2004, Heinz was asked about the differences between then-First Lady Laura Bush and herself: "Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job — I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger — because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about." Heinz retracted the statement later, saying she was "sincerely sorry" for the remark. "I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a schoolteacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children", Heinz said. "As someone who has been both a full time mom and full time in the workforce, I know we all have valuable experiences that shape who we are. I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as first lady, and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past."

As the wife of the presidential nominee, Heinz spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.