Robert Cruickshank elected president of the Northwest Progressive Institute for 2014

Spring has often been called the sea­son of renew­al, and we’ve always thought it’s as good of a time as any to recal­i­brate and reor­ga­nize. To that end, each March, before we file our year­ly report with the Sec­re­tary of State’s office, our board holds its annu­al meet­ing. The prin­ci­pal busi­ness of this meet­ing is the elec­tion of NPI’s direc­tors (for terms of two years) and offi­cers (for terms of one years).

NPI’s 2014 annu­al meet­ing was held ear­li­er today. At that meet­ing, we reelect­ed three of our cur­rent board mem­bers (Gael Tar­leton, Ralph Gorin, Kath­leen Reynolds), hon­ored two depart­ing board mem­bers (Mar­tin Chaney and Rob Dolin), and elect­ed a new mem­ber of the board (Kim Allen, who read­ers from NPI’s home­town know well as one of our sev­en city councilmembers).

We also chose our offi­cers for the com­ing year. For the first time in many years, NPI has a new pres­i­dent: Robert Cruick­shank.

Robert is cur­rent­ly a senior cam­paign man­ag­er for Democ­ra­cy For Amer­i­ca, the per­ma­nent peo­ple-pow­ered cam­paign that Howard Dean found­ed ten years ago at the end of his bid for the U.S. pres­i­den­cy. Pri­or to that, he was a senior com­mu­ni­ca­tions advis­er to for­mer Seat­tle May­or Mike McGinn.

Robert is well-versed in the pol­i­tics of Amer­i­ca’s Left Coast, hav­ing lived and trav­eled exten­sive­ly in both Wash­ing­ton and California.

He grew up in Orange Coun­ty and grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley with a B.A. in His­to­ry in 2000. He received his PhC in His­to­ry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton after attend­ing grad­u­ate school there dur­ing the 2000s. He returned to Cal­i­for­nia and was for sev­er­al years the Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Direc­tor for the Courage Cam­paign, one of the Gold­en State’s lead­ing pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions. He and his wife Rose now make their home in Seat­tle with their son Ian.

Robert exem­pli­fies the qual­i­ties that we val­ue in our board and staff mem­bers. He under­stands the impor­tance of think­ing crit­i­cal­ly and think­ing long-term, beyond the next elec­tion cycle. As a his­to­ry major, he knows that we are doomed to repeat our mis­takes as a move­ment unless we learn from them. He appre­ci­ates the need for refram­ing and teach­ing refram­ing skills. And he has pro­vid­ed stead­fast encour­age­ment over the years as NPI has tak­en on Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry. I’m glad to be able to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with him.

Robert suc­ceeds State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gael Tar­leton, who is our new Secretary.

Gael has been a tremen­dous­ly effec­tive leader for NPI since assum­ing the pres­i­den­cy in 2011, and I deeply appre­ci­ate all of the guid­ance and coun­sel she has pro­vid­ed to myself and to NPI’s staff and con­trib­u­tors. I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to advance the com­mon good with her as NPI’s Sec­re­tary, and I am also very grate­ful to Ralph Gorin for faith­ful­ly dis­charg­ing the duties of that office for so many years.

Kath­leen Reynolds, who has been with NPI since 2007, is con­tin­u­ing as Trea­sur­er. Kath­leen brings a very strong work eth­ic to the caus­es that she is involved in, and we are incred­i­bly for­tu­nate to have her as a board mem­ber and as an officer.

I also want to rec­og­nize our depart­ing board­mem­bers Rob Dolin and Mar­tin Chaney for their ser­vice. Rob became a father only a week ago, and we are hap­py for him and his wife Hillary as they begin an excit­ing new chap­ter in their lives.

As one of NPI’s found­ing board mem­bers, Rob has been instru­men­tal in help­ing improve the orga­ni­za­tion’s gov­er­nance and oper­a­tions. Rob has a keen inter­est in new tech­nolo­gies and is a depend­able prob­lem-solver. We have all ben­e­fit­ed from his cheer­ful dis­po­si­tion and his con­struc­tive ideas.

Mar­tin has been with us since 2012, and has repeat­ed­ly stepped up to keep NPI on track and run­ning smooth­ly, from host­ing board retreats to sup­ply­ing need­ed audio­vi­su­al equip­ment when we need­ed it. Mar­tin con­tributed a great deal to the suc­cess of our events dur­ing his ser­vice as a board­mem­ber, par­tic­u­lar­ly last year’s Spring Fundrais­ing Gala and Tenth Anniver­sary Picnic.

We have Mar­tin to thank for con­ceiv­ing and orga­niz­ing the gala’s suc­cess­ful Dessert Dash, which has become an annu­al tradition.

(If you weren’t there last year, make sure you expe­ri­ence the Dash this year by buy­ing a tick­et to our 2014 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala!)

I am very pleased that both Mar­tin and Rob will con­tin­ue to be involved with NPI in the com­ing years through our Advi­so­ry Coun­cil, which we cre­at­ed last year to help guide the work of our staff and board. Rob and Mar­tin were appoint­ed to terms on the Coun­cil today, along with retired found­ing board mem­ber Steve Zemke and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Luis Moscoso. In the ensu­ing weeks, we’ll be announc­ing sev­er­al more appoint­ments to the Coun­cil, so stay tuned for that.

Build­ing a non­prof­it is dif­fi­cult, chal­leng­ing work, and it can’t be done by one per­son. That’s why I’m grate­ful every day to work with a team of peo­ple who are equal­ly com­mit­ted to rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing grass­roots pol­i­tics, so that our gov­ern­ment, our laws, and our com­mu­ni­ties reflect the val­ues that our nation was found­ed upon.