Senior Associate Editor


Jim has a passion for getting people engaged with their communities and in the decisions that affect their lives. Since moving to Seattle in 1976, he put that passion to work for a direct-action neighborhood organization, a community development corporation, a local foundation, a health care cooperative, and the University of Washington.


He was appointed the first director of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods in 1988 where he served under three mayors over the next 14 years. He helped design the participatory process that helped shape the Sustainable Seattle comprehensive plan. Jim now shares the lessons from that work as an internationally-recognized speaker and consultant and author of Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way.

Jim’s contributions have been recognized with an honorary doctorate from Grinnell College, the Public Employee of the Year award from the Municipal League of Martin Luther King County, and an Innovations in American Government Award from the Ford Foundation and Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.