As a board member since 2020 and board chair since 2025, Ben Waltz has guided the Minneapolis-based Agate Housing and Services through a merger integration, a devastating fire, the closing of a 100-year-old building, and ultimately to its first balanced budget in years. Waltz, a senior product owner at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, applied data-driven analysis, along with a sense of compassion, when the board faced the decision to close a shelter in August 2024. When the Metro Inn fire displaced 16 households weeks later, Waltz helped staff focus on rehousing residents while managing crisis response. Executive director Kyle Hanson calls Waltz “one of the steadiest and most sensible voices for the organization during turbulent change.”