
Lead faculty member of coaching and high performance at Boston College and author of four books.Cathy Utzschneider, Ed.D., M.A., M.B.A, is the founder of MOVE!, the goal-setting methodology and certification for professionals -- i.e. executives, athletes, coaches, doctors, and professors.
Rooted in physical goals, the method helps people achieve professional and personal goals with PACE: Perspective, Achievement, Calm, and ultimately Excellence.
"MOVE! has helped me achieve promotions, strengthen teams, and run marathons." - Francesca Dominici, Ph.D., Professor at Harvard University and co-director of the Harvard Data Science Initiatives.
"MOVE! is better than The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." - Dr. Inez Kelleher, Orthopedic Surgeon.
Rooted in physical goals, the method helps people achieve professional and personal goals with PACE: Perspective, Achievement, Calm, and ultimately Excellence.
"MOVE! has helped me achieve promotions, strengthen teams, and run marathons." - Francesca Dominici, Ph.D., Professor at Harvard University and co-director of the Harvard Data Science Initiatives.
"MOVE! is better than The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." - Dr. Inez Kelleher, Orthopedic Surgeon.
Although MOVE! was originally used for athletic goals, many people have used it since for all kinds of goals: for achieving sales goals, creating businesses, earning promotions, strengthening team performances, and writing books.
As a testament to the method in the athletic world, MOVE! has produced over 75 national age-group champions, 6 world age-group record-holders, 18 Olympians and Olympic Trials runners, 16 Boston Marathon age group winners and dozens of personal bests in the Boston Marathon.
Cathy is a masters athlete herself who understands the importance of achieving goals with life balance. She developed the goal achievement method while building her coaching practice, teaching at Boston College, raising a family, and competing as a masters runner, beginning with sponsorship from New Balance.
For the past 20 years, Cathy has won nine USATF national age group championships, a silver medal at the Nike World Masters Games, and a gold medal at the North American World Regional Championships. She achieved a No. 5 world age-group ranking in the mile in 2005. She began swimming in 2014 and has medaled in various National Aquathlon Championships representing Team USA. She won the age-group bronze medal in the National World Aquathlon Championships in 2017 and in 2019, Cathy finished second in her age group in the Barbados 1.5K swim. In 2019, she was inducted into the Phillips Andover Athletics Hall of Honor. In 2022, she won a Woman of Influence award by WISE, Women In Sports and Events.
Cathy is a thought leader, writer, speaker, and educator on goal achievement. She is the author of M.O.V.E!: How Women Can Achieve Athletic Goals At Any Age (2011), Mastering Running (2014), Mastering The Half Marathon (2014), and High Performance in Midlife (2020). In 2011, she wrote the marathon training book for John Hancock, the Boston Marathon sponsor. She is lead faculty of Coaching Today's Athlete at Boston College and has taught high performance classes at BC since 2006. Her courses focus on ethics and sports leadership, sports and business management, personal and professional transitions, and individualized writing courses. She is also the author of a major column in National Masters News titled “Transitions In Training.”
Cathy frequently speaks to professionals, organizations, and students. Her engagements include her alma mater Middlebury College, Beth Israel Hospital, and Fortune 1000 Leadership Conferences. During her years at Boston College, she has collaborated with many BC coaches and student-athletes on performance improvement. She is the Communications Advisor for USATF Masters Track and is also on the board of New England Sports for Women.

Cathy graduated with high honors in English from Middlebury College and went on to earn a master’s degree in health science, an M.B.A. and an Ed.D. in physiology and performance from Boston University. Her doctoral dissertation compared national- and world-class masters runners who started running at a young age to those who started after 30.
She is certified as a coach by USATF (Level 1), U.S. Masters Swimming (Levels 1-3), International Sports Sciences Association (Strength and Conditioning) and by the Burdenko Water Training (Levels 1-3).
Cathy is married with two children and lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
She is certified as a coach by USATF (Level 1), U.S. Masters Swimming (Levels 1-3), International Sports Sciences Association (Strength and Conditioning) and by the Burdenko Water Training (Levels 1-3).
Cathy is married with two children and lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.