Love & Wisdom
Most Influential: Ones to Watch
Seattleites whose actions are soon likely to affect our city and our daily lives
Common SenseShe had been in office only a few months when Seattle City Council member Sally Bagshaw earned a citywide high-five for seeking to delay a proposed (and controversial) Dale Chihuly museum project at the Seattle Center. Convincing the center that it should at least entertain other proposals for how to use the former Fun…
Most Influential: Founder Kim O’Donnel
Kim O'Donnel is not only a writer, but the founder of Canning Across America
“It was like spontaneous combustion.” That’s how Kim O’Donnel describes the response to her off-the-cuff Twitter suggestion that maybe there should be a national day dedicated to canning. O’Donnel, a former Washington Post food writer who moved to Seattle two years ago (and who at the time of her Twitter post had canned only once…
Most Influential: Sandra Jackson-Dumont
Deputy Director of Education and Public Programs/Adjunct Curator, Seattle Art Museum
Four years ago, when Sandra Jackson-Dumont was working at the Studio Museum in Harlem, she received a call from then-director Mimi Gates at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). Gates was looking to fill a deputy director position for community outreach at SAM. “I recommended several people,” Jackson-Dumont recalls. “Then she called back for me.” Just…
Most Influential: Speight Jenkins
Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins is a hands-on ambassador
Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins is a hands-on ambassador. Now in his 28th season, Jenkins attends every performance, greets patrons as they arrive and seizes every opportunity to create new opera fans—even when he’s 30,000 feet in the air. “I’ve never gone on a plane flight [on which] I haven’t convinced someone to try…
Most Influential: CEO Ben Huh
Pet Holding CEO Ben Huh knows the secret recipe in this era of Facebook
The road to business success on the Internet is littered with the corpses of those who have tried and failed: sock puppets, online lackeys, search engines. So you’d be forgiven for thinking that a guy with a simple website filled with pictures of cats and funny sayings somehow slipped under the radar to become a…
Most Influential: Broker Laura Miller
Former restaurateur Laura Miller is the go-to agent for chefs seeking something more than kitchen he
If they ever create a James Beard Award for brokering restaurant deals, Laura Miller is a shoo-in. In a town where restaurants open more frequently than Twilight sequels, even in a bad economy, Miller is the go-to agent for chefs seeking something more than kitchen help. A former restaurateur, Miller likes to work with chefs…
Most Influential: Our Selection Panel
We couldn’t have identified the region’s most influential people without the assistance of our 2010
We are grateful to:Nancy Auer, M.D., board of trustees chair, Swedish Medical Center; John Carlson, KVI-AM commentator; Bob Frause, CEO, the Frause Group; Daisley Gordon, executive chef, Campagne and Cafe Campagne; Stacy Graven, executive director, Meydenbauer Center; Linda Hartzell, artistic director, Seattle Children’s Theatre; Leslie D. Helm, editor, Seattle Business; Alvin Alexander Henry, director of…
Most Influential: Football player Jake Locker
Quarterback for the University of Washington football team
He stayed. Jake Locker could have taken the money and run unimpeded to the nearest wealth management firm. As one of the best college quarterbacks in the nation last year—on a so-so team—Locker had the talent to jump from college football to the National Football League. But he chose to honor his commitment to the…
Local Authority: Nancy Pearl
Local librarian and literary critic Nancy Pearl goes global with her new book
NAME: Nancy PearlOCCUPATION: Author; National Public Radio commentatorTV PRESENCE: Book Lust with Nancy Pearl, a monthly show on the Seattle ChannelLOCAL LITERARY STRENGTHS: “You really get a palpable sense of place from Northwest writers.”ON SETTING BOOKS IN THE NORTHWEST: “You have to live through a Seattle winter to really capture the place.” Does anyone know…
The Most Influential of 2010
From the arts to sports, from high tech to low profile, we single out those who had an impact on our
Publishing a list of the region’s most influential people is an exercise that obviously invites response. And we welcome it. Ultimately, we hope this list provides insight and context to what was happening all around us this year. We try to recognize people and organizations across as many disciplines as possible, thus ensuring a broad…
Most Influential: Real Change’s Tim Harris
People person Tim Harris is Executive Director of Real Change newspaper
Tim Harris is a people person. “I think that people are sacred,” he says. “When I see people being dehumanized, it pisses me off and makes me want to do something about it.” He founded Seattle’s Real Change newspaper in 1994 to advocate for low-income individuals and provide job opportunities by recruiting them to sell…
Most Influential: F5 Networks CEO John McAdam
CEO John McAdams web traffics F5 Networks from shambles to fortune
When John McAdam became CEO of F5 Networks 10 years ago, the company was in shambles. Demand for its product, which helped manage Web traffic, plummeted after the dotcom bust, and its share price, which had reached a high of $160 the year before, had dropped to less than $10. McAdam reinvented the company, focusing…
Most Influential: Co-founder Tad McGeer
Tad McGeer is Co-founder, President, and Chief Engineer of Aerovel Corp.
In aviation, big jets get all the glory, but Tad McGeer’s development of lightweight, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) demonstrates not only that good things can arrive in small packages, but that they can do so safely and, if his latest project succeeds, economically and reliably. McGeer’s work with the In-Situ Group dramatically advanced the state…