YWCA’s 2020 Women of Achievement Honorees
YWCA Spokane is proud to announce its 2020 Women of Achievement Award Honorees.
These 8 women will be honored throughout the month of September as well as at YWCA Spokane’s new Women of Achievement Spotlight event, held virtually on Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 6:00pm in place of YWCA�s annual awards luncheon.
To be awarded a YWCA Women of Achievement Award, a woman must embody YWCA Spokane�s mission of eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. Selected honorees give generously of themselves to make Spokane a better place for all to live.
The winners of the 2020 Women of Achievement Awards are:
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- Karli Ingersoll, Arts and Culture Award
- Latisha Hill, Business and Industry Award
- Nicole Jenkins-Rosenkrantz, Carl Maxey Racial and Social Justice Award
- Bonnie Bush, Community Enhancement Award
- Jan Swanson, Education Award
- Maria Cullooyah, Government and Public Service Award
- Debbie Brinker, Science, Technology and Environment Award
- Gabby Dansereau, Young Woman of Achievement Award
For 38 years, YWCA Spokane has celebrated successful women in the community for their achievements along with their commitment to giving back to the Spokane community. Established with the goal of increasing community awareness and appreciation for the diverse contributions of women leaders in Spokane, YWCA Spokane has honored 256 women in the region. To learn more about this year’s award honorees click their name above.
THE AWARDS CELEBRATION AND BENEFIT FOR YWCA SPOKANE
Traditionally, recipients of YWCA Spokane�s Women of Achievement awards are celebrated at a luncheon that has evolved into YWCA Spokane�s largest annual fundraising event, as well as Spokane�s largest and most prestigious celebration of women. Due to the public health crisis, YWCA Spokane will honor the achievements of this year�s honorees through a free virtual WOA Spotlight event held Thursday, October 1st at 6:00pm.
Take home meals (heavy hors d’oeuvres & champagne from Masselow�s Steakhouse and other Northern Quest Resort & Casino restaurants) will be made available to purchase and enjoy the night of the virtual event. A virtual paddle raise opportunity will also be made available. All proceeds raised support YWCA Spokane�s critical services for domestic violence victims and their children, including emergency shelter, counseling, legal services, job readiness, child care, and Pre-K programs for low income children.
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2020 Women of Achievement Award Honoree Bios
ARTS & CULTURE � KARLI INGERSOLL
For Karli Ingersoll, pursuing her passion is a way of life, and for over a decade she has done just that�followed her passion while working tirelessly to create opportunities for other artists across the region to do the same.� As an advocate in every facet of the arts community, Karli has been a mover and a shaker, supporting local artists by providing space, encouragement, and opportunity in addition to maintaining her own vibrant practice.� She has been a fierce and effective advocate for arts and culture throughout Spokane and the Inland Northwest Region.
Karli partnered with her husband Caleb to co-found the Bartlett, an all-ages venue that quickly became the heart and soul of the Spokane music scene.� Through this venue and their newest music venue, Lucky You Lounge, Karli has recruited, promoted, and encouraged queer artists and artists of color, highlighted local talent, and developed a space of opportunity and presence for emerging artists.� In a male dominated industry, she has been a beacon of support for female artists and has contributed to the growth and vibrancy of the local music scene in Spokane.� As an arts advocate, she has pushed local newspapers to provide more locally-focused coverage and has fostered a music ecosystem that is supportive, collaborative, and willing to take risks.
Karli has served on the Spokane Arts Commission for 6 years, becoming a widely respected leader. Using her expertise in marketing, visual art, music, and event planning, she further advocates on behalf of arts and culture in our region.� Additionally, she writes and curates a blog called Collect, which is focused on showcasing local creativity and talent across all art mediums.� Through this platform she has reached a broader community with live videos called �Collect Sessions� and hosts secret shows that bring new, exciting talent into the spotlight.� In addition to this work, Karli contributes to the visual arts through her freelance graphic design work at local award-winning advertising agency Chapter & Verse.
Karli is a role model for breaking a path and bringing others along with her.� Her ability to dream big while remaining grounded and active are dynamic attributes that allow her to see those dreams become reality.� She is committed to growth in the arts community and also as an artist and individual; constantly assessing and reassessing her knowledge and motivation, she inspires others through her balanced work ethic.� In addition to her willingness to encourage and advocate for other artists, Karli has maintained her own practice as a musician through her bands Super Sparkle and Cathedral Pearls, and her graphic design, letter work, and painting have become part of the backdrop of downtown Spokane.� In 2019, she launched a solo project, Windoe, with the release of her album �Great Prize.�� Through this project, she was able to reconnect with her passion for writing and making music along with the fearlessness and vulnerability she experienced as an artist at the beginning of her career.
Karli believes in the value of the creative process and seeks to support others in achieving fulfillment through their craft.� She is truly an example of a leader.� In a 2019 article for the Spokesman Review, Karli states, �I see it as so valuable to do things that you�re passionate about,� and in her song �Slow it Down�, she croons �Slow, Slow it down, Keep your feet on the ground.�� This dynamic commitment to living her passion and supporting others in fulfillment of their passions while maintaining her �feet on the ground� approach to getting things done makes Karli the powerhouse she has become in contributing to the arts in our region. YWCA Spokane is honored to present Karli Ingersoll with the 2020 Women of Achievement Award for Arts and Culture.
Business & Industry – Latisha Hill
It is with great pride that YWCA Spokane announces Latisha Hill as the Business and Industry Award Honoree for the 2020 Women of Achievement awards. Latisha is a tireless advocate for the community and has exemplified the values of hard work, leadership, and commitment to excellence since she began working at the age of 16. Today, Latisha has risen through the ranks at Avista, moving from an intern to a senior leadership role as Vice President of Community and Economic Vitality.
Latisha is a Spokane native who has earned a bachelor�s degree in Communications from Washington State University and a Master�s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Eastern Washington University. She has worked in several roles since joining Avista in 2006, including operational and business policy support for multiple areas of the Avista service territory. Latisha completed the Willamette Executive Utility Management Program and the Finance for Non-Finance Executives Program at Wharton Business School.
Latisha has a remarkable ability to find solutions to complex problems. Most recently, Latisha has led the redevelopment of the University District South Landing development that resulted in the zero-energy Catalyst Building that is currently under construction. During this project, she was able to balance the needs of the neighborhood, developer, community, and clients to produce the most dynamic private development in the region.
Over the past decade, Latisha has participated in efforts to move the community and region forward and foster economic development and vitality by serving on several community boards and committees, including the Group Health Foundation, Visit Spokane, University District Public Development Authority, Northeast Public Development Authority, the Washington State Transportation Commission and Greater Spokane Incorporated. Her early accomplishments include serving as a Lilac Princess in high school and starting Rogers Students Reach Out, a group that serves the community and helps with fundraising. Later, she worked for four years at AHANA, a local nonprofit focused on minority business development, which gave her an appreciation for the broader community ecosystem.
She is known for her caring and honest approach, her intelligence and tremendous passion, her energy and strategic nature, and her sense of humor. Latisha is a hard worker and a self-described “volunteer junkie.” In addition to serving her community through various committees, she also finds time to mentor young people and students, often connecting them to other community leaders and opening important doors for their future.
Throughout her career, Latisha has credited several key mentors and supporters for their coaching and feedback: her mother, her grandparents, teachers, and community leaders like Roberta Greene. She learned early on that working together with others in the community enabled her to accomplish far more than she could alone. Latisha�s commitment to improving the community around her is evident in her meteoric trajectory that has ranged from roles in government to community board leadership and urban planning. YWCA Spokane is honored to celebrate Latisha as one of this year�s outstanding Women of Achievement Award honorees.
Carl Maxey Racial & Social Justice – Nicole Jenkins-Rosenkrantz
As a leader and woman of color, Nicole Jenkins-Rosenkrantz knows unjust and inequitable systems firsthand. She is a dedicated and passionate activist, educator, and administrator. In her role as Community Partnerships Manager at Spokane Public Schools (SPS), she has been instrumental in transforming the culture and direction of the school district. As a womanist and leader, she is committed to empowering others and creating equity for students of color.
Nicole is the drafting author of the SPS resolution on racial equity, which the school board unanimously passed in June. Her previous 17-year tenure with the Spokane County Juvenile Court showed her how the judicial system negatively and disproportionately affects students of color. She saw that students of color are arrested and expelled from school at higher rates than their white peers, a matter the racial equity resolution addresses.
While drafting the resolution, Nicole collaborated with the governance board, district administration, and families of school-age children. Through it all, she navigated difficult conversations and developed a shared mission. The racial equity resolution is a bold and proactive systematic change that was made possible by Nicole’s leadership and dedication.
As both a strong leader and team player, Nicole builds authentic relationships with others. Her servant-leadership style inspires collaboration and her voice and actions promote change.
Nicole’s love for our community and her commitment to equity is evident through her involvement with local organizations. She is a member of the Diversity Advisory Council at SPS, a board member for the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, President of Just Lead Washington board of directors, and is on YWCA Spokane’s Race and Social Justice Committee.
Through her kindness and compassion, Nicole exemplifies the ideals and attributes of humanitarian and social justice work. She has dedicated her career to improving the lives of others. Despite enduring resistance and oppression, she remains unwavering in her beliefs and commitment to serving our community. Nicole promotes equity and social justice everywhere she goes and truly embodies the mission of YWCA and this award. YWCA Spokane is honored to present Nicole Jenkins-Rosenkrantz with the 2020 Carl Maxey Racial & Social Justice Award.
Community Enhancement – Bonnie Bush
In her 39 years of service to Spokane County, Bonnie Bush has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of marginalized youth. As the Juvenile Court Administrator, Bonnie brought innovative, proactive, inclusive, and positive change to the juvenile justice system. Her aspirations were twofold: preventing youth from entering the court system in the first place and building a more equitable system overall.
Bonnie’s career with the Juvenile Court began in the 1970s, and by 2004 she became the first female Director of Spokane County Juvenile Court. She soon implemented the eight core strategies of the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative, which helped reduce the use of secure detention by 50% and promoted community alternatives instead. She also became a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory and received a grant for a Racial and Ethnic Disparities Site Coordinator, which brought diversity and implicit bias training to Juvenile Court.
In 2008, Bonnie partnered with the West Valley School District and wrote and received a grant to organize Community Truancy Boards. This model helped interrupt the school to prison pipeline by focusing on early and strategic intervention, working to prevent youth from entering the court system. It was so successful that Community Truancy Boards are now legislatively required in most Washington school districts.
In 2015, she partnered with Spokane Public Schools (SPS) and co-wrote a Washington Partnership Council grant, which led to a team from Spokane competing in Georgetown University’s Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities Certificate Program, with the Juvenile Court participating in two Georgetown University Capstone Projects. In 2016, in collaboration with the Spokane Police Department, Child Welfare Services, and SPS, the Capstone team launched Project READY (Reducing Exclusionary Actions and Disparities for Youth) to reduce schools’ reliance on exclusionary discipline actions and address inequitable treatment of minority students. In 2017, another Capstone team entitled Supporting LGBTQ Youth implemented elements of the Center for Children and Youth Justice Protocol for Safe and Affirming Care. This project helped implement more inclusive policies and procedures in Juvenile Court.
Bonnie represents character, strength, and grace. Her kindness, humor, and creative ingenuity are staples of her career. All of those who had the privilege of working closely with Bonnie say they were professionally and personally inspired by her devotion to our community and youth. One of Bonnie’s mentees, Nicole Jenkins-Rosenkrantz (2020 Carl Maxey Racial and Social Justice Award Honoree) noted how Bonnie taught her “how to lead in strength and confidence while laughing at awkward situations.” Bonnie utilizes her voice and stays true to her personal doctrine, teaching others�like Nicole�to do the same.
A week before retiring, in August of 2018, the Board of County Commissioners of Spokane County honored Bonnie for her 39 years of service to Spokane County. Over her career, Bonnie has created and adapted programs to meet the needs of our at-risk youth. Through all of the pushback and roadblocks that come with system reform, Bonnie remains dedicated and passionate about improving Juvenile Court.
Bonnie has been an influential leader and an agent of change. She is truly deserving of this recognition as her life’s work has been to enhance our community. YWCA Spokane is honored to present Bonnie Bush with the 2020 Women of Achievement award for Community Enhancement.
Education – Jan Swanson
Throughout her life, Jan has demonstrated leadership and innovation in the field of education by solving a critical need in the community and raising the bar to improve the lives of women and children. Her school sought and achieved accreditation in 1989 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) – the first early childhood program to do so in Eastern Washington. Since then, the elementary school has also been accredited by AdvanceED and formed partnerships with Whitworth University’s Gifted and Talented Education program along with Prodigy Northwest.
Jan began her work to provide high-quality early childhood education for Pacific Northwest children when she founded her own early learning center in 1989, first called North Wall Child Development Center (now North Wall Schools). Jan has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education and a Masters degree in Gifted Education, both from Whitworth University. She is a K-12 certified teacher, and her teaching experience spans preschool, elementary school, high school, and college. She taught classes and wrote written curriculum for the early childhood education program at Spokane Falls Community College.
Throughout her career, Jan has worked to empower women in the workplace, paying them higher salaries than the standard child-care rate. In her eyes, employees were not babysitters or caregivers–they were all teachers and were treated as such. They were expected to have a BA in Elementary Education or an AAS in early childhood or credits in those fields.� Every staff member including herself was expected to take more credits toward professional development each year and to teach the new material to the others. They were given paid preparation time to develop challenging and interesting lesson plans, funding for educational materials, and additional support from a parent-teacher organization. She has been employing credentialed teachers, most of them women, for almost 40 years. Jan was a proponent of flexible work schedules, allowing for part-time employment while employees finished their education. She also supported her employees� use of the childcare facility for their own children in support of a positive work-life balance.
Jan has been at the forefront of anti-bias education throughout her career. She formed an early connection with Mukogawa’s Japanese school, where children exchanged dolls with students, learned some Japanese, and performed music together. Also, Mukogawa students from Japan did internships at North Wall Schools. The school also works internationally with a non-profit dedicated to the education of rural children in Guatemala. In the early 1990s, when the school was expanding from K-3rd grade to 6th grade and replacing its literacy program, Jan noticed an obvious bias in what the publishing companies had to offer: the books had no or very few pictures or stories of children of color. She pressed the educational bookmakers to produce anti-biased literature. She and the other teachers sought out and found materials that better reflected the history and culture of North America.
Jan has spent her career becoming a pioneer in the field of Early Childhood Education in Spokane and an advocate for showing respect to children.� She initiated classes for staff, parents, and college students in Positive Discipline.� Jan modeled and expected each staff member to model positive discipline with children. The school was able to demonstrate the effectiveness of speaking to children with the same respect and affirmative language as we expect to be spoken to as adults and seeing children cooperate and participate in respecting themselves, others and the environment because of choice rather than threats or intimidation. Eliminating the words,�no� and �don�t�, was a challenge for all in the early 80s when spanking was still popular in many homes and some other private programs. Her education in psychology taught her that understanding early brain development and appropriate attention to children are critical to their later success in learning. Her multi-age learn-at-your-own-pace approach has produced an array of successful graduates: doctors, lawyers, professors, inventors, software developers and marketers, writers, business owners, crane operators and even a space researcher. At YWCA Spokane, it is our honor to celebrate Jan Swanson and her outstanding achievements as our 2020 Women of Achievement Education award recipient.
Government and Public Service – Maria Cullooyah
At a young age, Maria understood a working knowledge of business and entrepreneurship to be key when achieving success in life. Maria�s biggest role models, her mother and late grandmother, encouraged her to get an education and return to the tribe to share her knowledge and expertise to help her community move forward. She did just that.
Maria is a Spokane Tribal member. Her parents are Francis Cullooyah, Kalispel Tribal elder, and Raymond & Valerie Peone, Spokane Tribal elders. With five biological children, 3 she has taken as her own, and 2 beautiful grandchildren, Maria pursued a degree in Native American Studies from Eastern Washington University then transferred to receive her bachelor�s and an MBA from the University of Phoenix. For the last 12 years, Maria worked for the Spokane Tribe in the planning and economic development department in various capacities. Currently, Maria works as the Director of real estate development for the Spokane Tribe of Indians and seeks to enfranchise and better the living conditions of her entire community of people who have been traditionally shut out of many mainstream development opportunities due to systemic racism.
Maria is also the Assistant Director of Planning and Economic Development. She is a woman leader both within her native community as well as in the broader community and serves as a role model for generations of women to come. Serving on boards within her community and Spokane, WA, she has continued to gain experience and able to analyze and implement missions and goals.
Maria told the Journal she continues to be inspired by Spokane Tribal Chairwoman Carol Evans, the first female to have served in the role. �I had a lot of role models growing up, and the biggest thing they taught me was that you can�t sit and wait for things to happen,� she says. �You have to go for what you want and make things happen.�
Maria has developed multiple business ventures on behalf of her tribal government. She has played a key role in several community projects including the designation of the Tribe as a federal Promise Zone, Opportunity Zone and the revitalization of the city of Wellpinit. In addition, she helped facilitate the Children of the Sun Solar Initiative which was designed to provide 650 kilowatts of solar capacity, and eventually battery storage, to tribal homes and businesses that will save more than $2.8 million in energy costs over 35 years.
Maria was also a part of a national project known as the Learning/Action Lab for Community Wealth Building that began in 2013. Funded by the Northwest Area Foundation, this program fostered a peer learning cohort involving five Native organizations, including the Spokane Tribe which lasted until 2018.
Maria is unwavering in her commitment to creating real and lasting change in our community. As a member and employee of the Spokane Tribe, Maria was a part of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) during 2018 and 2019, now known as Common Future, that centered around issues of community wealth building and leadership development. Maria has represented the region at national alternative economic development conferences, and was a founding board member of SIMBA, the Spokane Independent Metro Business Alliance which organizes to create a more equitable and inclusive local economy.
Maria is known to be tough as nails and to never give up. She possesses a quiet leadership style and often does not receive recognition for her efforts due to her reserved nature. She is an authentic and transparent leader who doesn’t hide who she is as a mother and community member while in her formal roles of leadership.
Maria has a keen ability to help people navigate uncertainty and doubt with grace. Even when Maria has had to address her own family members being impacted by the scourges of drugs and alcohol that plague her people, Maria continues to show up for herself, and her community at large in order to push the envelope for greater economic prosperity and inclusion for her tribe. At YWCA Spokane, we are truly honored to celebrate the work and accomplishments of Maria Cullooyah, 2020 Women of Achievement award honoree for Government and Public Service.
Science, Technology, & Environment – Debbie Brinker
Debbie Brinker is dedicated to advancing healthcare equity and access in Washington State. As a faculty member at Washington State University School of Nursing since 2002, Debbie lives out her passion of training future generations of highly qualified nurses. Debbie is also committed to diversifying the nursing workforce in Washington by ensuring that all nurses have the necessary foundations to be leaders in the healthcare system and optimizing the healthcare experiences for a wide range of patients, families, and communities. Her years of work as a passionate educator, culturally competent mentor, and outstanding nurse leader align with YWCA Spokane�s mission, vision, and values.
Debbie began her career as a pediatric critical care nurse, caring generously for children and their families. Her direct care work included service in various U.S. locations, the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps, and medical missions in Ethiopia, but she eventually returned to her home state of Washington and settled in Spokane. After her return, she served in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Deaconess Medical Center for thirteen years. Moving away from direct care, and pursuing her passion for
By: YWCA Spokane
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