Hilary Franz to deliver opening address at NPI’s 2019 Spring Fundraising Gala in Renton

Spring is in full swing and so are plans for our eleventh Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, which will take place on Fri­day, April 26th, 2019 in Ren­ton. With the big evening quick­ly approach­ing, we are delight­ed to announce that Wash­ing­ton Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Hilary Franz will deliv­er the open­ing address at this year’s gala.

Hilary Franz has led Wash­ing­ton’s Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources since Jan­u­ary 2017, when she suc­ceed­ed Okanogan ranch­er and mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gist Peter Gold­mark. She is the state’s four­teenth Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands.

A native Cas­ca­di­an, Franz has been com­mit­ted to the work of build­ing a more sus­tain­able region for decades. She has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in both the non­prof­it sec­tor (with orga­ni­za­tions like Future­wise, Wash­ing­ton Envi­ron­men­tal Coun­cil, and Con­ser­va­tion North­west) as well as the pub­lic sec­tor (as a Bain­bridge Island City Coun­cilmem­ber and a mem­ber of numer­ous boards and commissions).

As Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands, she has been an out­spo­ken advo­cate of increased fund­ing for geo­log­ic haz­ards research and fire­fight­ing readiness.

Only a few hours ago, Com­mis­sion­er Franz tes­ti­fied before the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate’s Ways & Means Com­mit­tee in sup­port of a bill (Sen­ate Bill 5996) that would estab­lish a ded­i­cat­ed source of rev­enue for com­bat­ing wild­fires and equip­ping fire­fight­ers with essen­tial tools need­ed to keep com­mu­ni­ties safe.

“Our fire­fight­ers and sci­en­tists have giv­en us the blue­print to tack­le our wild­fire and for­est health cri­sis, now it’s time for us to give them what they need to get the job done,” said Com­mis­sion­er Franz. “Wild­fire affects us all… we must all do our part.”

Com­mis­sion­er Franz has always felt a close con­nec­tion to the land. Her fam­i­ly has owned farm­land in Pierce Coun­ty since the 1930s, and she has been rais­ing three sons on a his­toric farm on Bain­bridge Island for almost twen­ty years. We deeply appre­ci­ate her pas­sion for envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and sus­tain­able farm­ing, and we’re very hap­py to have her as part of this year’s speak­ing program.

Com­mis­sion­er Franz joins a diverse, dynam­ic line­up of speak­ers at this year’s gala.

Our recep­tion host will be Burien May­or Jim­my Mat­ta, a cham­pi­on of work­ing peo­ple who was elect­ed along with three oth­er pro­gres­sive can­di­dates (the Burien Fan­tas­tic Four) in the fierce­ly con­test­ed local elec­tions of 2017.

Our mas­ter of cer­e­monies (ses­sion sched­ul­ing per­mit­ting) will be Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra, a trail­blaz­ing law­mak­er who serves on the board of NPI’s new char­i­ta­ble sib­ling, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Foundation.

And we will be pre­sent­ing El Cen­tro de la Raza­’s Estela Orte­ga with a Lynn Allen Award for indis­pens­able con­tri­bu­tions to pro­gres­sive causes.

We’re biased, of course, but we think this is one of the best speak­ing pro­grams we’ve ever put togeth­er. We hope you’ll con­sid­er join­ing us on April 26th. If you haven’t yet bought your tick­et yet, we urge you to do so now.

A house­hold tick­et admits all the mem­bers of an imme­di­ate fam­i­ly and is a good val­ue if you plan to attend with your spouse or chil­dren. (The gala is a fam­i­ly-friend­ly event, and young peo­ple of all ages are welcome!).

These are our tick­et rates:

• Indi­vid­ual ($75, admits one person)
• House­hold ($125, admits an entire family)
• Liv­ing Light­ly ($25, for stu­dents and activists on lim­it­ed incomes)

We hope you’ll help us make our biggest event of the year a suc­cess by buy­ing your tick­et and join­ing us in Ren­ton at the end of the month.