Editor’s Note: This month and this week, NPI is cel­e­brat­ing its tenth anniver­sary. This is the sec­ond post in a sev­en-part series reflect­ing on NPI’s first decade. Each install­ment will be penned by one of NPI’s board members.

NPI has come a long way in ten years.  I moved to Wash­ing­ton State in 1997, but didn’t get involved in pol­i­tics until 2004 when Den­nis Kucinich’s first pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and Wash­ing­ton State’s can­cel­la­tion of the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry got me active. That involve­ment led to involve­ment in the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Democ­rats, where I met Andrew Vil­leneuve, who was already a key play­er there.

The two of us grew up polit­i­cal­ly togeth­er in many ways. I took on lead­er­ship roles in the 45th and became Chair in 2007 — a posi­tion I con­tin­ued in until I was redis­trict­ed out of the 45th in 2012. (Today, I par­tic­i­pate in the 5th LD).

I worked hard to devel­op a lead­er­ship team to run the orga­ni­za­tion, and Andrew was an essen­tial part of it, although he was simul­ta­ne­ous­ly build­ing NPI.

I don’t have polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence out­side of the Pacif­ic North­west, but the pol­i­tics here have always struck me as peculiar.

One of those pecu­liar­i­ties is the exis­tence of Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry. Wash­ing­ton is known nation­al­ly as a blue state with a pro­gres­sive tra­di­tion; it has been gov­erned by a Demo­c­ra­t­ic chief exec­u­tive for over thir­ty years. But what many out­side the Ever­green State don’t know is that for years, Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic ser­vices have been weak­ened by a series of ill-con­ceived right wing ini­tia­tives pur­pose­ly intend­ed to wreck state and local government.

As Robert not­ed yes­ter­day, it was­n’t until activists like Andrew Vil­leneuve and NPI alum Steve Zemke stepped for­ward to chal­lenge Eyman that his win­ning streak was snapped. Andrew had no angel investors, finan­cial back­ing, or team in place when he start­ed Per­ma­nent Defense in 2002 or NPI in 2003.

But he resolved that he could­n’t stay on the side­lines while Eyman suc­ceed­ed in hood­wink­ing so many of his fel­low cit­i­zens with false promis­es of a free lunch.

Since 2002, Eyman’s fail­ures have out­num­bered his suc­cess­es, and this is a tes­ta­ment to the work that NPI and oth­er pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions have been doing… in the courts and the court of pub­lic opinion.

And while this has been going on, not only have Andrew and I grown and matured, but so has NPI. Once an idea on the Web, NPI has become an estab­lished and respect­ed insti­tu­tion. Per­ma­nent Defense, which pre­ced­ed NPI as a reac­tion against right wing extrem­ism, became a part of some­thing larg­er ten years ago when Andrew trans­formed his real­iza­tion that pro­gres­sives need­ed to go on offense into a plan for some­thing more tan­gi­ble: a for­ward-think­ing think tank with the soul of a tech start­up focused on refram­ing and rethinking.

It’s been said that suc­cess­ful star­tups must even­tu­al­ly evolve to become inde­pen­dent of their founders and lead­ers, and I think that’s true.

As Chair of the 45th, I worked hard to build a lead­er­ship team that would car­ry on my vision of inclu­sive pro­gres­sivism, and Andrew has been doing the same at NPI. For much of NPI’s first decade, NPI was entire­ly run and gov­erned by its staff. But Andrew fore­saw that NPI would need some­thing more to go to the next lev­el, and com­mit­ted him­self in 2010 and 2011 to recruit­ing board­mem­bers for NPI.

Today, NPI has a strong and capa­ble board of direc­tors, which I am proud to be a part of. Our board includes State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gael Tar­leton, who cur­rent­ly serves as NPI’s pres­i­dent, Ralph Gorin, cur­rent­ly serv­ing as NPI’s Sec­re­tary, Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Par­ty Sec­re­tary Rob Dolin, Robert Cruick­shank, and for­mer long­time staff mem­bers Kath­leen Reynolds and Rick Heg­dahl. (Kath­leen serves as NPI’s Treasurer).

On Thurs­day, as NPI begins a new decade, it will cross the thresh­old with a board of direc­tors com­mit­ted to help­ing NPI’s staff real­ize its potential.

It’s an excit­ing time to be part of NPI and pro­gres­sivism in the Pacif­ic Northwest.

Mar­tin Chaney has served as a mem­ber of NPI’s Board of Direc­tors since June 2012. He serves as the 5th LD Democ­rats’ Coun­ty Committeeman.

Adjacent posts

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One reply on “Ready for a new decade: NPI to begin its next ten years with a capable, committed board”

  1. Sounds like this orga­ni­za­tion is going places. Kudos to all the peo­ple who’ve kept NPI going. Hope your next ten years is even better. 

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