Barrows received his bachelor’s degree from Willamette University, Salem, in 1957. In 1961, he received his law degree, also from Willamette University.

While attending college, Barrows worked part-time as a management assistant at Oregon Fairview Home, chief page in the Oregon House of Representatives, management trainee in the Public Utilities Commissioner’s Office, athletic publicity director from Willamette University and sportswriter for the Salem Statesman newspaper.

Barrows is a U.S. Army veteran. His past and present civic activities include: chairman, Freedom of Expression Foundation; chairman, Budget Committee, Beaverton School District; member, Governor’s Commission for Women; chairman, Oregon Recreational Trails Advisory Council; chairman, Parents Committee on Sex Education, Oregon Board of Education; member, Board of Directors, Portland Repertory Theater; and member, Board of Directors, American Red Cross Pacific Northwest Regional Blood Services.

Barrows and his wife, Pat, have two children and five grandchildren.

Daniel Bernstine was appointed President of Portland State University, effective August 1, 1997. Prior to that time, he served as Dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School for 1990 to 1997. He served as General Counsel to Howard University 1987 to 1990 and the Interim Dean of Howard University Law School 1988 to 1990.

President Bernstine graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. degree in 1969, from the Northwestern University School of Law with a J.D. degree in 1972 and received his L.L.M. degree for the University of Wisconsin Law School on 1975. He received Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea in 1999 and from Waseda University, one of the top two private universities in Japan, in 2003. In addition, President Bernstine was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree from Nizhmy Novgorod Linguistic University in May 2004.

From 1972 to 1973, President Bernstine was a staff attorney with the Office of the Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor and from 1974 to 1975, he was the William H. Hastie Teaching Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

From 1975 to 1978, President Bernstine was Assistant Professor at Howard University Law School. He joined the University of Wisconsin Law School faculty in 1978 and was on leave of absence from Wisconsin while serving as General Counsel and Interim Law School Dean at Howard.

President Bernstine has been a visiting law professor at the University of South Carolina; the University of Bridgeport; the Inter-American Comparative Law Institute at the University of Havana Law School in Havana, Cuba; and Justus-Liebig-Universitat in Giessen, Germany.

He has served as a hearing officer for the District of Columbia Public Employees Relations Board, as a consultant to the American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences Clear Writing Program, and as an advisor to the District of Columbia Public Service Commission.

President Bernstine has served as a member of the National Conference of Bar Examiners Multi-State Torts Drafting Committee and the American Law Institute. Additionally, he has served on the Association of American Law Schools Committee on Accreditation and the Supreme Court of Wisconsin Board of Examiners.

President Bernstine is a member of the Board of Directors of the Portland Business Alliance. He is the former chair of the Board of Directors of the Urban League of Portland and former board member of the United Way of Columbia-Willamette. Among his other activities, he served as a member of the Governor’s Commission on Postsecondary Education and Financial Aid.

In 2005, President Bernstine was awarded the Michael P. Malone International Leadership Award in recognition of his work in internationalization in higher education. He was given the International Citizen Award by the Oregon Consular Corps in 2004.

Deborah Boone was born and raised in Portland. She attended the University of Washington majoring in Oceanography and later changed her major to painting and transferred to Portland State University. She graduated from PSU with two Bachelors of Science in Art and Psychology.

Deborah has worked for the last sixteen years as a legislative assistant to seven individual legislators, the past eight in House District 32. She is the Co-owner of a construction company with her husband and she has owned and operated a restaurant and catering business. She has worked as a watershed council coordinator for six years, taught parenting classes and a welfare-to-work program at Clatsop Community College and worked as an educational assistant in Seaside schools.

Deborah served as a Clatsop County Commissioner and was appointed by Governors to the Oregon Ocean Resources Management Task Force, Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, Healthy Stream Partnership and the Oregon Children’s Trust Fund Board. She served on Doernbecher Children’s Hospital Foundation Board, was a member of Head Start Policy Council, and was a founding member of the Oregon Chapter: National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse. She serves her community as a volunteer firefighter.

Deborah and her husband live on the family tree farm and have raised two children.

Frank E. Brawner served as the chief executive officer of the Oregon Bankers Association and independent community banks of Oregon from 1975 to 1998. He was named Executive Vice President of the two organizations in 1975. He became President of the Oregon Bankers Association in 1992.

From 1991 to 1998, he also served as Executive Vice President of the Oregon Mortgage Bankers Association. He was secretary and a founder of the Northwest Intermediate Banking Schools and was a member of the Pacific Coast Banking School Board of Directors. He was the co-founder of the Oregon Bank Director’s College.

Frank was Vice President / Marketing for the Oregon Mutual Savings Bank from 1966 to 1975. He served as assistant to the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives in 1965. Prior to that, he was a loan officer and manager of three branch offices, Coquille, Ontario and Portland for the American Investment Company 1955 to 1964.

Brawner, a veteran of the United States Navy, was a registered lobbyist in Oregon from 1965 to 2001. He is past Chairman of the Oregon Capitol Club, an organization of professional lobbyists.

He has been very active in numerous civic and service organizations. He is currently a founding Director for Oregon Coast Bank, Newport and he is Board Member for the Tillamook Peoples Utility District.

Kim Duncan has a long career in marketing, communications, government relations, strategic planning and project management. In her current capacity, as TriMet’s Executive Director for Marketing and Customer Service, she serves on TriMet’s leadership team with six other Executive Directors and the General Manager. Her division is composed of three departments, an annual budget of eight million dollars and is responsible for all advertising, promotion, sales, consumer research and analysis, and direct customer service. Ms. Duncan’s division has twice been recognized by the Federal Transit Administration as having the best transit website in the nation, and last year won the American Public Transit Association gold award for outstanding promotion.

Prior to joining TriMet, Ms. Duncan spent nearly ten years as the Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Planning at Oregon Public Broadcasting where she was responsible for all external and internal communications, long range planning and state and federal government relations. Her department twice won PBS’s national, coveted “Integrated Marketing” award.

Ms. Duncan has extensive experience as a lobbyist for public agencies including time spent representing Portland’s regional planning organization, Metro, before the state legislature. She also served as Oregon’s Deputy Secretary of State under Clay Myers and as the first director of the state Government Practices and Standards Commission. Her career began as an intern with then State Senator Vic Atiyeh, followed by service on the staffs of US Senator Mark Hatfield in Washington DC, and in the office of Oregon Governor Tom McCall. She also has consulted on and managed campaigns.

Ms. Duncan received her masters in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1980 with a concentration in international trade. She was also awarded a Kennedy Fellowship and had the opportunity to teach and research as a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Her undergraduate degree in political science was awarded in 1969 from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

Long active in community activities, Ms. Duncan was twice elected to her local school board and lead the community effort to create and fund a new high school in response to Measure 5 funding and school consolidation. She currently serves on the State Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission, on the board of the Portland YWCA, and on the Willamette University Alumni Board. She has previously served on the board of Oregon’s World Affairs Council, created a business lecture series which continues under the sponsorship of Willamette University; was an elected Oregon delegate to the National Women’s Year Conference, 1978; served on the board of the Oregon Governor’s School and has worked on numerous ad hoc community committees.

She served on the PBS national marketing committee, is currently a member of the APTA Marketing Steering Committee and slated to chair the organization next year, and represents TriMet on a variety of community and state organizations concerned with transit. She is a frequent lecturer and presenter about public sector marketing strategies, and her division is recognized nationally for the comprehensive integration of its research results to its marketing programs.

She married and the mother of two sons: one is in the Peace Corps based in Madagascar and her youngest son is a college senior. Her father-in-law is a former two time speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives.

Dave Frohnmayer has served since July 1994 as President of the University of Oregon, the states 129-year-old Association of American Universities flagship institution. He formally served as Dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.

Dave graduated magna cum laude form Harvard College (A.B., 1962), attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship (B.A., 1964; M.A., 1971) and received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley (1967). He holds two honorary doctoral degrees and was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.

Frohnmayer was elected Oregon’s Attorney General in 1980 and served in this office for 11 years. He was nominated by both major political parties for his third term. Frohnmayer is a national prize-winning author on the U.S. Constitution. As Attorney General, he argued and won six of seven cases before the United States Supreme Court, the most cases and best record of any contemporary state attorney general. Frohnmayer also served three elected terms in the Oregon House of Representatives, was a law professor at the University of Oregon School of Law and served as legal advisor to the university president. He has written and lectured extensively on state government and the state legislative function.

A Medford, Oregon native, Dave currently lives in Eugene with his wife, Lynn and three children. Two daughters have died from Fanconi Anemia. Dave and Lynn Frohnmayer are founders of the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund, Inc. This organization funds path-breaking genetic research and has sponsored 16 annual international scientific symposia on genetic research, cancer biology and stem cell transplantation and therapy. Dave is one of the founding directors of the National Marrow Donor Program. Lynn and Dave Frohnmayer have won two national awards for scientific research advocacy.

Currently, Mr. Garber is the publisher and Vice President for Community Newspapers. This role includes being publisher of the Gresham Outlook.

He was born in South Carolina, attended the University of South Carolina and earned a degree in journalism. He moved to Oregon in 1980 with his wife, Janet Pardo. He has served as publisher of the Springfield News and The East Oregonian (Pendleton). He has covered the legislature in some manner since the early 1980’s.

Mark and Janet have a daughter, Marie and they reside in Fairview, East Multnomah County.

Community newspapers include 22 publications in the Portland Metro area.

Oregonians in NE and SE Portland elected Avel Gordly to the Oregon State Senate in 1996, after she had served three terms in the House of Representatives. She was re-elected to a second Senate term in 2000, and to a third term in 2004.

A native of Portland, Avel Gordly is the first African-American woman elected to the Oregon Senate. Widely regarded for her commitment to basic human dignity, she introduced SJR 7 in the 2001 session, eliminating the remaining white supremacist exclusionary language from the Oregon Constitution. Oregonians passed the measure overwhelmingly in 2002.

Senator Gordly is a vocal proponent of tax reform and restructuring to provide stable sources of revenue adequate to meet the needs of our citizenry. She continues to lead statewide efforts to hold Oregon schools – public and private – accountable for multicultural competency, and Senator Gordly has championed efforts to integrate multicultural competence as a standard for teacher and administrator licensure through the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission.

Jim is a board level financial executive with extensive experience and expertise in the public sector as a legislator and statewide elected official and the private sector in the areas of economic development, asset management, debt management and banking.

He was first elected as State Treasurer in 1992 and re-elected in 1996 as Oregon’s Chief Investment Officer and Chief Management Officer overseeing its $50 billion portfolio and the state’s nearly $4 billion in outstanding bond issues while coordinating the central banking for state government.

He was first elected to Oregon’s House of Representatives in 1982 and then to Oregon’s State Senate in 1986. He sponsored and passed legislation that impacted Oregon on a state, national and international level.

He was also the Hearings Referee for the Department of Revenue and the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice.

Other state boards, corporate boards and affiliations include: Oregon’s Investment Council, President of the National Association of State Treasurers; Municipal Debt Advisory Commission; Short-Term Fund Board; Chairman of the Oregon Growth Account; Chairman of the Oregon Qualified Tuition Savings Board; Northwest Health Foundation Finance Committee; Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs; Oregon National Bar Association; National Black MBA Association and the National Association of Securities Professional.

Jim has a B.A. in Economics from Michigan State University 1969, an M.B.A. from Indiana University 1971 and a J.D. from Indiana University College of Law 1974.

The Reed Company, a management consulting firm, was founded by Barbara Karmel, Ph.D. in 1982. The Reed Company offers a broad array of services to professional firms and selected clients. Services range from strategic planning to conflict resolution and process management. As principal consultant, Dr. Karmel assists clients in reaching balanced decisions and developing strategy-based action plans.

Establishment of the Reed Company followed Karmel’s distinguished career as a professor of management in graduate business schools at Oregon State University, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University. Dr. Karmel is the author of research based articles and books on management, motivation and leadership. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and master’s degree and doctorate in industrial psychology and organizational behavior for Purdue University.

Actively involved in business and community service, Dr. Karmel serves on the Board of World Forestry Center and has served on the Oregon Business Council Action Team on Higher Education, an outgrowth of her service on the Governor’s Task Force on Higher Education. She is former member of the Board of Directors of U.S. Bankcorp and U.S. Bank of Oregon. She has also served as Commissioner of the Portland Development Commission, Commissioner of the Portland Planning Commission, Director and Vice-President-Small Business for the Portland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. She has served as a consultant to Oregon Legislative Administration, Secretary of State, DCBS and DAS, as well as numerous state commissions established by Governors McCall, Atiyeh and Roberts.

Barbara is the mother of a daughter living in Missoula, Montana and a son and two grandsons in San Diego.

Ginny Lang has been with Qwest Communications since 1979, currently serving as the Director of Governmental Relations. She is responsible for developing and advocating telecommunications policy matters at the state level in Oregon and with the Congressional delegation, as well. She is also responsible for local government issues throughout the state.

Ginny oversees Qwest’s Foundation Program in Oregon, and has held a variety of positions with Qwest and its predecessor companies in sales and marketing, regulatory affairs and economic development.

Ginny received a B.A., and M.A. from the University of Washington and her M.B.A. from the University of Oregon. She serves on the Boards of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Capitol Club and Associated Oregon Industries. Ginny is involved in many community activities and has been a board member for a number of organizations, including the Oregon Trail Chapter of the American Red Cross. She is native of Spokane, Washington and resides in Portland with her husband, Phil Lang. She is an avid reader and enjoys traveling.

Lattimer became Marion County’s chief Administrator Officer in November of 2003. He served as chief information officer for the State of Oregon from 2001 to 2003. He supervised a professional / technical staff of 307 employees organized in nine sections. These sections delivered a variety of functions from state government. They include strategic planning; business analysis; voice, data and video networks; a mainframe and open systems data center; systems development; digital publishing and distribution; project management; technical education; geographic information services; and e-government.

From 1997 to 2001, Lattimer served as Oregon State Auditor. He supervised an audit staff of 80 financial and performance auditors. The audit staff preformed approximately 50 separate audits each year. These included individual agency financial audits; an annual audit of the state’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (including federal compliance audits); management and performance audits; and for the first time in Oregon, information technology audits.

He also taught a graduate level class in Public Policy Analysis for the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University.

In 1988, he was appointed Legislative Fiscal Officer by the State Emergency Board. Lattimer served in that position until 1997. He served a staff of 15-21 technical / professional budget and fiscal analysts. They provided support for the Joint Ways and Means Committee, the State Emergency Board, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and the Joint Legislative Committee on Information Management and Technology. He was brought to Oregon to open up the budget process.

In 1995, he was asked by the U.S. Agency for International Development to present a series of lectures on performance budgeting in Brazil.

From 1971 to 1988, Lattimer served as the executive director of the Illinois Commission on Intergovernmental Cooperation. The Commission’s membership was composed of the Lieutenant Governor, several state agency directors and a bipartisan group of legislators. He supervised a staff of 25 analysts and programmers who analyzed state and local finance, conducted program evaluations, worked to enhance the amount of federal funds used by Illinois state and local governments and calculated the State School Fund distribution formula. He managed offices in Springfield, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Susan Leeson served on the Oregon Supreme Court from 1998 to 2003 and on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 1993 to 1998. Before becoming a judge, she was on the faculty of Willamette University, teaching both in the law and liberal arts colleges. For several years, she also directed Willamette’s program in Urban and Regional Government. She helped initiate the dispute resolution program at the law school in 1984, participating in the design of the curriculum, teaching classes and co-authoring a dispute resolution text.

Justice Leeson has extensive mediation training. In addition to mediating civil cases pretrial and on appeal, she serves as a victim-offender mediator and trainer in Marion County. Justice Leeson’s community service includes two terms on the Marion-Polk Local Government Boundary Commission and one term on the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. She was a Judicial Fellow at the United States Supreme Court, in the office of Chief Justice Warren Burger. She clerked in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

She is the co-author of a constitutional law casebook and has published many articles on law and political theory. She lectures on the United States Constitution for the Center for Civic Education and trains school resource officers for the National School Safety Center on the law of search and seizure in the public schools.

She earned her Ph.D. in Government at Claremont Graduate School and her J.D. from Willamette College of Law.

Greg Merten is a graduate of Oregon State University with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering with a solid-state physics focus. The early part of his career was spent in the semi-conductor industry, first at Fairchild Semi-Conductor and then with Hewlett Packard Co., which he joined in 1972.

In 1981, he moved back to Oregon with HP and became involved in the development and commercialization of Inkjet technology for which HP shares the original patent. For most of the last 20 years, Greg had been responsible for producing the Inkjet operations which was responsible for producing the Inkjet cartridges worldwide, becoming a Vice President and General Manager at HP. He grew his organization from about 75 people on a single site in Corvallis in 1984 when the first Inkjet product was introduced, to about 10,000 people on six sites around the world in the year 2001.

Leading this phenomenal growth challenged Greg and his organization in about every conceivable way. Greg used this opportunity to become a student of leadership and organizational effectiveness, focusing on his capacity as a leader, the contribution of employee development to extraordinary results, and the nature and design of conversation as a source of increasing the rate at which people create and deliver value.

During the last year and a half of his career at HP (he retired October ’03), Greg focused on bringing some of the lessons learned in Inkjet to the rest of HP during and after the merger with Compaq, primarily in the area of leadership development. He currently continues to consult in the area of leadership and communications effectiveness in HP and elsewhere and frequently speaks about the lessons learned from these experiences to business and government groups.

Oregon State University has recognized Greg’s accomplishments by electing him to the Academy of Distinguished Engineers and he was named Business Person of the Year by the Benton County Chamber of Commerce for extraordinary leadership in the development of both the business and the people associated with it.

Greg is married to Diane Frishknecht and they have six children and nine grandchildren. In his spare time does woodworking, rides Harleys and John Deeres and serves in the community. He is the District Chair for Benton County BSA and he serves on the Board of Trillium Family Services where he chairs the Capital Campaign Committee.

Frank Morse was born and raised in Lebanon. After graduating from Lebanon High School in 1961, Frank went on to earn a Masters degree from Oregon State University and a Bachelor’s degree from Northwest Christian College. Frank has been married to his wife Linda since 1965. They have lived in Albany since 1972. They have two children, Kerry who has lived and worked extensively in China and Scott, who is a professor at Western Oregon University. Frank and Linda enjoy their five grandsons. Frank and Linda attend First Christian Church in Albany where they have both been active for over 30 years.

Frank Morse entered the Morse Bros. Inc. family business in 1972. He has been the Albany Division Manager, Vice President of Operations, Executive Vice President, President and then Chairman. When Morse Bros. Inc. merged with MDU Resources Group Inc., Frank continued as President until he retired in 2000. After retiring from Morse Bros. Inc., Frank then founded a new business, Environ-Metal Inc. where he serves as Chairman of the Board. The company manufactures HEVI-SHOT and supplies Remington Arms, which has an exclusive license in North America to co-brand HEVI-SHOT in Remington shotshells.

For Frank, community service is not only gratifying but also an important value to him just as it was to his family business Morse Bros. The “Building Strong Communities” theme of Morse Bros. had been his personal theme as he has invested himself in numerous community organizations and business related organizations. He has served as President of the Board of Albany Chamber of Commerce, Board member of the Albany Boys and Girls Club, Board Member of the Vern Catt McDowell Corporation, founding Director and Board Chairman of Greater Pacific Bank, Board member of Western Security Bank, Chairman of Cascade Employers Association, President of the Board of Oregon Concrete and Aggregate Producers Association (OCAPA), Board Member of Samaritan Health Services and Samaritan Albany General Hospital, Chairman of the Board of Northwest Christian College Trustees and Board Member of the Albany Boys and Girls Club Foundation.

Over the years, Frank has been honored for his business experience and community service. He has received the OSU Family Business Award, the OCAPA Rocky Award and the Associated General Contractors SIR Award. He received the Associated Oregon Industries Business Leader of the Year Award and an honorary Doctor of Humanities Degree from Northwest Christian College.

Frank loves the outdoors and his passions are family, fly-fishing, nature photography and vocal music.

As a member of the 73rd Legislative Assembly, Frank served on the Joint Ways and Means Committee and on the Ways and Means Subcommittees of Transportation and Economic Development, and General Government.

Delores was born in Toledo, Oregon to Alfred and Maude Lane. The youngest of eight children, lived and grew up at Chemawa Indian School, where her parents were employed. After graduation from Keizer Grade School, attending Serra Catholic High School she graduated from North High School, Salem in 1961.

Delores worked in various jobs throughout her working career, beginning with Prudential Insurance Company and retiring from 23 years of work with the federal government at the Social Security Administration in Salem, as an Operations Supervisor.

As an advocate for the Siletz Tribe, served on the Siletz Tribal Council from September 1975 to November 1979, when the tribe sought and reversed federal termination. She has been elected and served from February 1983 to the present time; she has served a total of 26 years on the council and has been Tribal Chairman for 20 years. In that capacity, Delores has been actively involved in tribal government, Indian commissions and boards, committees and in many other government capacities throughout her career. She has worked closely with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service and Administration for Native Americans, Department of Labor and several other federal agencies.

Delores has been and is currently a tribal delegate to the National Congress of American, Affiliated Tribes of the Northwest Indians, National Indian Child Welfare Association and the National Indian Gaming Association as well as the Chief Tribal spokesman. As chief negotiator for the tribe, has successfully negotiated Memoranda of Understanding, Self-Governance Compacts, Tribal Gaming Compacts as well as agreements with local governments.

She is married to Don Pigsley, a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe of Wagner, South Dakota, has two children Timothy and Quanna, a deceased son Troy and seven grandchildren.

Married to Earl Pryor, wheat and cattle ranch / Pryor Land and Livestock.
She has four children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She is fifth generation born in San Diego County, California and moved to Oregon in 1969.

Her previous employment includes the Oregon Department of Economic Development, Ports Division, Industrial Development Division and Oregon Film Commissioner. She has also been a partner in the Portland Hadfield Graphic Design Studio, and an Air Force Liaison for the General Dynamics Corp., in San Diego, California.

Currently she serves as the Gilliam county Judge, appointed in 1979. She is also the Chair of the Board of County Commissioners, County CEO and the Juvenile Court Judge and Probate.

Among her accomplishments and affiliations, Judge Pryor developed the Gilliam County Community Development Corporation Project; she is a member of the Office of the Rural Policy Advisory Board; she developed the Gilliam County Wheat Quality Initiative Project; is a Founding Member of Summit Springs Village, Inc.; she is Chair of the North Oregon Regional Corrections Facility Board of Directors; she was the President of the Association of Oregon Counties in 1997; Chair of the Association of Oregon Counties Transportation Committee for 14 years; she is a Founding Member and Chair of the Eastern Oregon Rural Alliance; a board member of the Mid-Columbia Council of Governments; Chair of the Lower John Day Partnership Area Commission on Transportation; and a member of Oregon Freight Advisory Committee.

Gretchen Schuette (pronounced shoo-tee) has a diverse educational background with an undergraduate degree in English Literature from Smith College, a Masters of Science in Botany from Central Michigan University and a Ph.D. in Geological Oceanography from Oregon State University.

She has served as a faculty member and administrator at three Oregon community colleges and as Oregon’s Commissioner of community colleges; Dean of Distance and Continuing Education; Director of Portland Area Programs for Oregon State University; Superintendent of the Gresham-Barlow School District and now the President of Chemeketa Community College since July 2001.

She has taken on numerous community leadership roles in the college service district of Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties. She was the first recipient of the Tenison Haley Outstanding Individual Contribution Award presented at the Oregon Diversity Institute Conference in November 2002; she received the Carolyn DesJardins Leadership Award at the 2003 American Association for Women in Community Colleges Conference and was appointed to serve on the State Board of Higher Education in January 2004.

Connie Seeley got her start in politics as a student activist at the University of Oregon. Since that time she has served in various development, organizing, and legislative staff positions. She has served as an Executive Director of a not-for-profit, district staff to Congresswomen Darlene Hooley and as leadership staff in the Oregon State Legislature. She has worked in five regular Legislative Sessions and five special Legislative Sessions.

Since her first Legislative session in 1997, Ms. Seeley has worked for 3 different Democratic caucus leaders, as well as the Senate President. Before taking on her the role as Chief of Staff to the Senate President, she was the lead legislative staff in the successful development of legislation such as the first College Savings plan bill (1997), development of a comprehensive Patients’ Bill of Rights (1999), and the Senior Drug Prescription Program (2001). Today she continues in her role as Chief of Staff to the Senate President, she has served in that position since January of 2003 when the Oregon Senate was evenly divided along party lines and a historical power-sharing agreement governed the Senate.

Connie lives in Portland area with her husband Martin Taylor and their 18 month-old daughter Addison.

As state director to Untied States Senator Gordon Smith for the past eight years, Kerry’s responsibilities include overseeing all of Senator Smith’s Oregon operations, managing a staff of 17 and serving as a top advisor on legislative and political matters.

A native of Reedsport, Oregon, Kerry is a 1981 graduate of Willamette University and a 1984 graduate of Willamette University School of Law.

From 1984 to 1985, Kerry served as a deputy District Attorney for Marion County Oregon. In 1985, Kerry moved to Washington D.C., accepting a position as Legal Counsel and Communications Director for then United States Congressman Denny Smith. In 1989, Kerry left Congressman Smith’s office to serve as Special Assistant and Director of Speechwriting to United States Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole. Kerry served in that capacity until Mrs. Dole left the Cabinet in December 1990.

From January 1991 through July 1996, Kerry served as Legal Counsel and Director of Speechwriting to United States Senator Bob Dole. Throughout this period, Kerry also served as a communications consultant to Mrs. Dole, in her capacity as President of the American Red Cross.

Kerry is the co-author of Senator and Mrs. Dole’s Autobiography, “Unlimited Partners: Our American Story”, published in 1996. He also assisted Senator Dole in the writing of “Great Political Wit, Laughing (Almost) to the White House”, and in the writing of “Great Presidential Wit”. Kerry recently collaborated with Senator Elizabeth Dole on the writing of “Hearts Touched with Fire; My 500 Favorite Inspirational Quotations”, which was published in October 2004. Kerry recently assisted Gert Boyle, Chairman of the Board of Columbia Sportswear in the writing of her autobiography, “One Tough Mother.”

Kerry resides in Beaverton with his wife, Becky and their two children, Kate 17 and Clark 7.

Born, raised and educated in Oregon, Gary was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1972 from the 53rd district in Klamath County and was re-elected in 1974, 1976 and 1978. He received the nomination of both the Republican and Democratic parties in 1976 and 1978. In 1979, he was elected by the House Republican Caucus to serve as the House Minority Leader. Gary was active in the National Conference of State Legislatures and served on the Executive Committee of the National Republican Legislators Association.

Gary retired after 40 years service with US West Communications and its predecessor companies. His final role with US West was the Director of Governmental Relations in Oregon. He lobbied for Pacific Northwest Bell and then US West for 17 years from 1980 to 1996. During 1991-1992, Gary served as President of the Capitol Club, the Oregon organization of professional lobbyists.

In January 1997, Gary was employed by Oregon Senate President Brady Adams as Special Assistant to the Senate President. In December 1999, he transferred to the Office of the Speaker of the House, Lynn Snodgrass where he worked as the Speaker’s Chief of Staff until the end of her term in January 2001. At that time, he began his public affairs consulting business. He worked the redistricting issue during the 2001 Legislative Session while on contract with the House Majority Office. In November 2001, Gary returned to work at the Oregon Legislature as Chief of Staff for then House Majority Leader Karen Minnis. He continues as Minnis’ Chief of Staff as she now serves as Speaker of the House.

Carl Wilson, a native of McAlester, Oklahoma, has been a Grants Pass resident since 1957. Carl joined the navy upon graduating from high school and spent most of his service time in Subic Bay, Philippines. After returning home, he went to work in the family radio business, working for his father at KAJO-AM in Grants Pass. In 1991, the Wilsons added KLDR-FM and along the way, Carl and his brother Matt, became majority owners of the company. Carl works on the programming/operations side of things and Matt, the sales side. Carl was a member of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1998 to 2002....including the five special sessions of '02. During his legislative stint, he was chair of the House Committee on General Government in his freshman term and was chair of the House Rules, Redistricting and Public Affairs committee the rest of the way.

Carl's lifetime hobby is riding motorcycles. He has ridden his beloved Harley Davidson all over the United States, especially in the last years...and finds riding the deep south and the plains states the most interesting of all.

Carl is married to Malinda they have two grown children living in Salem. They are proud grandparents of Abigail and Tyler.

The youngest of seven children raised in Kyoto, Japan, Junki Yoshida began his life with big dreams and humble beginnings. At the age of 19, he followed his lifelong goal and moved to America against his family’s wishes, determined to make his mark in his new country. Arriving in Seattle with only $500 in his pocket, Junki immediately cashed in his return ticket and bought a used Plymouth Valiant, his “home” for the next several months. He struggled to make ends meet and was twice hospitalized for starvation. However, he refused to give up.

After being denied admission to study theology at Seattle Pacific University due to his limited English-speaking skills, Junki split time working as a gardener and United Airlines kitchen employee. He eventually enrolled at Highline Community College, where he soon met his future bride, Linda and traded classes for karate lessons, an art he had learned as a young boy.

Years later, Junki opened several of his own karate schools throughout the Northwest. As the number of students in his classes increased, so did his martial art ranking (eventually earning a 7th degree black belt), leading to his prestigious appointment as Japan Karate Federation’s Chief Instructor for the states of Washington and Oregon by Grand Master Konishi in Japan. Soon after, he was asked to design and lead a police-training program based on his own defense-training program for law enforcement officers throughout the Northwest. The completion of this defense-training program eventually became a requirement for all correction officers’ certification, police in-service training and SWAT team instructor courses in both Oregon and Washington.

Despite these accolades, Junki, his wife and their three daughters desperately struggled to make ends meet. So, when the family received a stream of Christmas gifts from karate students one holiday season, the Yoshidas were forced to get creative with their gift exchange. Based on his family’s 60-year-old “secret recipe” Junki cooked up batches of teriyaki sauce, filled empty syrup bottles and gave them away as gifts. The family was surprisingly flattered when students began on insisting on refills only a few weeks later.

As word-of-mouth spread and demand grew, the Yoshidas decided to follow their friends’ advice and market the unique product in 1982. With very little help from banks, Junki managed to raise $150,000 from relatives, friends, and his father-in-law’s pension. Despite two near bankruptcies, Junki refused to accept failure with the hopes of so many loved ones relying on his company’s success. He continued to work out of his main karate school’s basement, filling bottles by hand with sauce made in a ten-gallon pot.

Even while facing incredible financial struggles, Junki never lost faith in the product he based his family’s entire future upon- Yoshida’s Gourmet Sauce. With persistence and humor, he eventually convinced the food buyer of a large grocery store chain to accept his product. Junki, himself, kept busy cooking samples for in-store demonstrations, using wild humor and crazy tactics to sell sauce to passing shoppers. Before long, his gourmet marinade found its way to grocery and club store chains throughout the country.

Sine the formation of his first company, Yoshida Food Products, Junki’s momentum and enthusiasm have never slowed. Over the past 25 years, he has gradually established a powerful conglomerate of 18 diverse companies with more than 200 employees under the Yoshida Group umbrella, generating annual revenue of more than $176 million.

Such a good fortune has allowed Junki the means to generously support an endless list of community and charitable organizations including the Kids on the Block Program’s annual Yoshida’s Sand in the City fundraising event. In addition to serving as a Port of Portland Commissioner, Junki contributes his energies as a board member of the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital Foundation, Ronald McDonald House Charities NW, Mt. Hood Community College Foundation and Children’s Cancer Association.

Often awarded for his incredible contributions and lifetime achievements, Junki continues to travel the globe as an internationally acclaimed motivational speaker, entertainment and inspiring others in search of the “American Dream.”