My hope for the Eastside | Rob McKenna

Published 11:57 am Thursday, February 5, 2015

T he Eastside is quite simply the best place in America to live, raise a family and pursue a career.

My hope is that the factors that have made possible our unparalleled quality of life will grow even stronger in years to come. Among the most important factors are strong public education, a thriving technology sector and a vibrant community life characterized by outstanding volunteer leadership.

I moved to Bellevue with my parents in 1977, as a high school sophomore. The Eastside was a vibrant community in those days, as it is today. However, the same 100 or so people seemed to run everything. They were and are great people, there just weren’t enough of them.

Moreover, despite the Eastside’s growing diversity, few community leaders at that time were people of color or immigrants, and very few were under 40.

As a young lawyer, I served on several committees, but I noticed that I was nearly always the youngest person involved, usually by more than a decade or two.

At the same time, I regularly was asked by other community leaders where they could find other younger people to recruit into civic leadership roles, and by many young professionals who I met how they could become involved. A group of us came together to create a networking organization we called Forum Eastside, and that led us to design and launch Advance Bellevue, a leadership program intended to jumpstart the civic engagement of younger people in our community.

Not long after that, a similarly-minded group to our north created Leadership Institute. Over time, it became obvious that a combined organization made the most sense and the rest, as they say, is Leadership Eastside history.

Many of graduates of Advance Bellevue, Leadership Institute and Leadership Eastside have worked hard to recruit and encourage younger and more diverse individuals who reflect the Eastside’s vibrancy and its future. These individuals often come from companies in our burgeoning high-tech sector, and they understand what our high-tech companies need to be successful – especially an educated workforce of life-long learners who turn to our higher education institutions again and again throughout their careers to update their skills for a fast-paced economy.

Congratulations on its 10th anniversary, and best wishes for many more years of making a difference in our communities.

Rob McKenna is a former Attorney General of the state of Washington.