Profile: Community Involver

Photo by Jerry Davis

Seated at a conference table in the 1960s-era Wallingford offices of his iconic namesake burger chain, 83-year-old Dick Spady says he long ago moved beyond burgers to pursue other passions—including the one he’s speaking about today (though he does admit to eating at Dick’s Drive-In at least once a week). “We’re on the verge of a major discovery in social science—on the level of the printing press. Or the computer,” he says, emphatically referring to I-24, the Easy Citizen Involvement ballot initiative for King County that voters are likely to weigh in on this fall (barring a preemptive decision by the County Council to just adopt the measure).

In this era of e-mail and text messaging, I-24 seems like a throwback: It encourages face-to-face communication via a network of government-run, volunteer-led, small groups that would convene a few times a year to discuss local political issues and offer feedback to county government officials. Spady has been trying to interest state legislators in a similar initiative since 1980, traveling to Olympia and lobbying tirelessly nearly every year.

With no success there, he’s now floating the idea at the county level. Citizen communication is what our society is missing, believes Spady, who is passionate on the topic. But the key element, he says, is community: people gathering regularly and getting to know one another on a social level. Spady has been thinking about community and leadership since his studies at the UW’s Graduate School of Business in the late 1960s.

His conversation is replete with social-science terminology, and he gleefully tosses around phrases like “algorithmic networking social technology.” But he is serious about improving communication in society and government. Years of thinking along these lines has influenced the administration policies at Dick’s restaurants as well, notably regarding its legendary employee benefits, which include health insurance (even for part-timers) and college scholarships. Spady jokes about it. “I was going to school to get my doctorate so I could come back and make better hamburgers,” he says with a grin.