Staff Profile

I received an AA in English from Lower Columbia College, and received my BA in English and Ed. M from WSU Vancouver.  I graduated Magna cum Laude from WSU Vancouver and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. 

I'm also a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, and after college I worked for the Tribe as a proposal writer, Tribal language specialist, grants manager, and more.  I've served on a number of Tribal committees, including the technology, language, culture, personnel, and grant planning committees.  I was chairman of the Tribal education committee from 2004 to 2010 and have been a member of that committee since 2002.  In 2005 I was elected to the Cowlitz Tribal Council, and I'm currently serving my second term. 

Additionally, I've been the Cowlitz representative to WSU Pullman’s Native American Advisory Board, WSU Vancouver’s Diversity Task Force, and the Washington State Legislature’s Tribal Leader Congress on Indian Education.

I was drawn to a career in philanthropy because of its potential to mobilize people and resources in support of concrete efforts that measurably improve our world.

R. A. Long High School

Pirate.

Piracy continues to be a lucrative and fulfilling sideline, which I pursue evenings, weekends, and while on vacation. It has led me across the seven seas and around the world. I have traveled to every continent, including Antarctica (where I found that penguins are decidedly poor candidates for both looting and shanghaiing. They're too unmaterialistic to provide effective plunder and too adept at swimming to be easily confined to ship once shanghaied.)

Pillage first, then burn.

Study astral navigation methods, cartography, and ocean currents. Fencing, sailing, training parrots...

Mostly sea shanties.

Shanghai.

Where I hide me doubloons.