Kate attended Vassar College and graduated in 1964 with a major in political science. During the summers she attended summer school at University of Colorado in Boulder and interned at a Wall Street firm. Her first job out of college was with Chemical Bank. A year after college she married Dick Foster in 1965. They honeymooned in Portugal and Greece. The married couple first lived in New Haven where Dick received his PhD in Chemical Engineering at Yale and after his graduation the couple moved to Boston in 1967.