Kathleen (Kathi) McShane has been Pastor of First United Methodist Church since July 2006. She came to Sacramento after four years as Associate Pastor of the San Ramon Valley United Methodist Church in Alamo, California.

Kathi was born in Oakland, and has spent her entire life in California. She grew up in the Armenian Orthodox Church, and her faith was influenced by her high school and college experience with Young Life, a non-denominational Christian organization.

She attended college at U.C. Davis, majored in Political Science, and interned for Assembly Speaker Leo McCarthy at his office in Sacramento. After college, Kathi attended law school at Boalt Hall (University of California, Berkeley) and practiced law for 16 years, in the area of business and real estate litigation. She began seminary at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley in preparation for teaching legal ethics, and instead discovered quickly a calling to ministry and particularly to preaching. She was fully ordained an elder in the United Methodist Church in 2001.

Kathi served for five years as Vice-President for Institutional Advancement at Pacific School of Religion, and continues as a member of the Board of Trustees there. She is a Co-Chair of the Order of Clergy Elders for the California-Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and is a member of the Board of Directors for Sacramento Habitat for Humanity.

Kathi is married to Buzz Heinrich, and they have one daughter.

Click here to view Pastor Kathi's blog.