Seattle's Most Influential People

SUSTAINABILITY
Pied Pipers on the Green
Neva Welton and Vic Opperman, founders, SCALLOPS (Sustainable Communities All Over Puget Sound)
Bio: New York native Welton, 52, founded Sustainable Bainbridge in 2007 and is co-author of Global Uprising, Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century: Stories from a New Generation of Activists. Opperman, 50, a native of Hawaii, is principal of Opperman Design and was founding president of Sustainable Ballard in 2004. 

Why they’re on the list: In a few short years, SCALLOPS (scallopswa.org) has grown to more than 50 neighborhood groups throughout Puget Sound by focusing on neighborhood-specific endeavors such as Sustainable Ballard’s recent bike-rack design contest; it also issues “Undriver Licenses” for those who pledge to cut down on their driving. When describing the genesis of SCALLOPS, a network of grassroots community-based environmental groups that helps neighborhoods develop sustainable practices, Welton says, “We were a group of activists just sitting around a kitchen table, realizing that everyone is so isolated.” So Welton, Opperman and others—including Frank Hoffman of Port Townsend’s Local 20/20—started an informal network of communities that seek to develop sustainable best practices, with solutions to fit their individual neighborhoods. “We work on how to empower a neighborhood, not an agenda,” says Opperman. 

What’s next: Welton and Opperman see the SCALLOPS model as a new paradigm of organizing. They see no reason why the network shouldn’t continue its exponential growth throughout western Washington. “I’ve been in a lot of living rooms,” Opperman says of her organizing efforts. Steve Hansen

NIGHTLIFE
Night Watchman
Steven Severin, co-owner of Capitol Hill’s Neumos and Moe Bar, investor in Pike Street Fish Fry and Liberty
Bio: Severin, 37, learned the music business at Seattle’s long-gone club, RKCNDY, first as owner Lori LeFavor’s assistant, then as a booker. The Arizona native has since gone on to book shows at just about every club in town. He also runs Wake Up Productions.

Why he’s on the list: Even after years in the business, Severin told himself he’d never own a nightclub—a small bar would do. Then he was asked to be one of three managing owners at Neumos (with Mike Meckling and Jason Lajeunesse), seemingly one of the last locally owned clubs standing on the Seattle music scene. His most recent project is Moe Bar, an unusually comfortable hangout for Capitol Hill that opened in 2007, where Severin says the patrons are just as likely to be Microsofties as they are punk rockers. Moe Bar has also become something of a clubhouse for area dogoodniks: The spot has hosted events for the Seattle International Film Festival, the teen music/art center Vera Project, even Governor Chris Gregoire. 

Biggest influence: Linda Derschang, the Queen Midas of Nightlife, behind Linda’s Tavern, Viceroy and Smith, among many others. “Linda showed people that you could open up a bar, become successful, and not become ‘The Man,’” he says. Steve Hansen

SPORTS
Storm Troopers
Anne Levinson, chair of the Seattle Storm’s new ownership group
Bio: The 50-year-old Kansas native has served as deputy mayor and legal counsel to the mayor under former Mayor Norm Rice; chair of the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission; and founding judge of Seattle’s Mental Health Court. In the ’90s, she helped bring the city its first professional women’s basketball team, the now-defunct Seattle Reign.

Why she’s on the list: Levinson forged Force 10 Hoops, composed of local businesswomen, philanthropists and fellow Storm season-ticket holders Lisa Brummel, Ginny Gilder (a 1984 Olympic medalist in rowing) and Dawn Trudeau, and negotiated the $10 million purchase of the Storm. Levinson says Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett, who bought the Sonics and the Storm in 2006, had rejected previous bids to buy the Storm. However, as a soap-opera-ish rift over keeping the Sonics in town opened wide in the summer of 2007, Levinson began closing in on a Storm purchase. Key to their success, says Levinson, was taking a positive tack with Bennett. “We had to make the case that we could do things differently, whatever negative things they’d been through [with the Sonics]”—including not playing out the Storm’s negotiations in the papers. After six months of low-profile finessing, 
the Storm was officially purchased in January 2008. “None of us ever woke up in high school thinking, ‘We want to be a sports team owner,’” marvels Levinson. “When we grew up, there was not a lot of opportunity to compete [in sports], few opportunities to coach, fewer to manage and none to be owners. Now we have five of the best women in the world in the game playing for the Storm…and women as owners. It’s just pretty remarkable.”

What’s up next: Renegotiating the KeyArena lease (which extends through 2010), increasing season-ticket holders and broadening sponsorships. Says Levinson, “We’re not saving the team if we don’t put it on a solid financial footing. We want to make sure it is not at risk again.” Shannon O’Leary

DINING OUT
Head of the Table
Scott Staples, chef and restaurant owner
Bio: Staples, born into a Colorado restaurant family (his father, Dixon, owned three restaurants near Denver), has labored in many of the best restaurants in Colorado, Boston, New York and Seattle, and spent a year in Italy learning from Gualtiero Marchesi, the first Italian chef to earn three Michelin stars. Scott and his wife, Heather, who live on Bainbridge Island, opened Restaurant Zoë (named for their now 8-year-old daughter) in 2000, and Quinn’s in 2007 (named for their 5-year-old son). 

Why he’s on the list: The stylish Quinn’s, Staples’ second restaurant, which opened on Capitol Hill late last year, brings a new concept of dining, the “gastropub,” to the city. At Quinn’s, Staples’ shamelessly meaty (think roasted bone marrow and killer fries fried in beef fat) cooking is upscale-but-not-uppity, thoughtful but still pub grub. He sweetens the deal with a whopping 14 beers on tap. Many Seattle diners were already aquainted with Staples, flocking to his Belltown bistro Zoë for its approachable, pitch-perfect Northwest fare. Staples waited seven long years to debut Quinn’s, but boy, it was worth the wait.

Next up: Staples is starting a catering company, tentatively named Scott Staples Catering. 
Biggest influences: Famed NYC restaurateur Danny Meyer, who’s known for his emphasis on service and hospitality, and other restaurants. “I get a lot out of traveling to different cities and seeing what people are doing. I’m inspired by small, independent businesses that give you a sense of who owns it. Not necessarily high-end dining.” Allison Austin Scheff

EDUCATION
Majority Owner
Lisa Macfarlane, director of external affairs, the League of Education Voters
Bio: The 52-year-old New Jersey native got involved with school levy issues in 1995 following the fourth failure of a Seattle school levy and bond campaign, due to a requirement that such measures pass by a 60 percent margin. The following year, when a levy failed with 58 percent of the vote, McFarland says, “I was seeing red. I ripped the hose off at the gas station and drove to the [Schools First] campaign office,” she recalls. She took leave from her job to help rerun the levy campaign, and has worked on every levy campaign since. By 2000, she and Nick Hanauer founded the League of Education Voters (LEV).

Why she’s on the list: Macfarlane, along with her LEV colleagues and the powerful state teachers union, helped pass House Joint Resolution 4204, the constitutional amendment that enables school levies to pass with a simple majority. (Bonds still require a 60 percent margin.) After years of lobbying, HJR 4204 squeaked through Olympia with the required two-thirds majority in both chambers. The legislation was ratified by voters last November, but again, just by a hair. It relied on absentee ballots to get it over the top. “We won in overtime,” says Macfarlane.

Biggest influence: Her days in the late 1970s when she was a VISTA volunteer at a maximum-security juvenile correctional facility in South Carolina. “I know what happens to kids when they don’t get opportunities,” she says. Steve Hansen

MUSIC
Indie Act
Fleet Foxes, expanding the Seattle sound
Bio: Fleet Foxes was born when Robin Pecknold, 22, lead singer/songwriter, and Skye Skjelset, 22, guitarist—who began their musical collaboration while students at Lake Washington High School—joined with Seattleites Casey Wescott, 27, keyboardist; Christian Wargo, 31, bassist; and Josh Tillman, 27, drummer.

Why they’re on list: After signing with iconic Seattle indie label Sub Pop in January, they followed up in April with their much-blogged-about EP release Sun Giant, and then in June with their first full-length, self-titled album, helmed by famed Seattle producer Phil Ek. It’s earned them superlative ink and air play (online, on radio and on TV), and they’ve quickly become a much-sought-after live act—some critics have hailed them as “America’s Next Greatest Band.” While they sidestep the hype, maintaining an appropriately Seattle low-key attitude (Pecknold’s older sister, former Seattle Weekly music writer Aja, still serves as their tour manager), we believe Fleet Foxes’ ethereal, layered harmonies of vocals, guitars, mandolins, organs, dulcimers, tom-toms and more, often labeled “baroque harmonic pop” (think Beach Boys meets Band of Horses), have earned them a spot on Seattle’s long playlist of original sounds.Shannon O’Leary

TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Predictability
Oren Etzioni, Ph.D., founder of Farecast
Bio: Etzioni, 44, is director of the University of Washington’s Turing Center, where work is under way on topics such as natural language processing, data mining and Web search. He holds a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University, but more interesting: He was the first Harvard student to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science (in 1986).

Why he’s on the list: Etzioni is a pioneer in the area of “Web 3.0,” which he sees as an era when computer sophistication can help people make better use of the vast body of information on the Web. “We want to use the power of the machine more on our behalf,” he says. Farecast.com, which he founded in 2003, is an example of the potential of this technology. It allows travelers to search for airline ticket prices and find predictive advice on whether to buy now or wait, depending on trends in pricing. The idea came to him during an airplane flight, when he discovered, through talking to other travelers, that everyone had paid a different price. “As a computer scientist, I thought that maybe there was a way to model pricing and help people get the best price,” he says. Microsoft bought Farecast in April for a reported $115 million. 

What else he’s doing: One project is TextRunner, an effort to advance Internet searching even beyond what Google has managed. With TextRunner, users can ask specific questions—“Why is Seattle appealing?”—and find a list of probable answers. That simply makes sense, he says: As computers grow increasingly powerful, the fast but relatively simple search methods of search engines such as Google are bound to need refinement. Douglas Gantenbein

POLITICS
Bus Boy
Thomas Goldstein, executive director, the Washington Bus
Bio: Frustration with the political process led the 43-year-old Columbia City resident to run for an open seat on the Seattle City Council in 1997 (he lost to Peter Steinbrueck). He also founded the Service Board, a nonprofit that provides high-school-age kids mentoring in public service.

Why he’s on the list: Goldstein has been leading the get-out-the-enthusiasm Washington Bus project since 2007, which injects youth into progressive politics though volunteering, doorbelling and voter registration. “It’s a win-win. We build votes with young people. And we get young people engaged in the [political] process,” Goldstein says. The literal bus rolls into various Washington cities on any given Saturday, flooding locales with high-school- and college-age volunteers who go door to door for a selected candidate. “When we roll into a neighborhood, we can energize a campaign,” Goldstein says. “We will be a margin of victory in elections across the state.”

Next up: The relentlessly positive activists who ride the bus are just now entering the political system—and are beginning to realize they are the ones who can affect change from the divisiveness of old politics to a politics of substance and hope. It is this message that energizes Goldstein’s work. He believes it will be the future currency of politics. Will he run for office again? “Never say never,” he says. But for now, he’s happy driving the Bus. “I have a skill set to get people to step up and do things that need to be done,” he says. And given today’s political climate, that’s never been more necessary. Steve Hansen

ENVIRONMENT
Stream of Conscience
BJ Cummings, coordinator, Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition
Bio: The 41-year-old Cummings, raised by a social worker and a labor organizer, grew up in New York City and came to Seattle in 1993, via Los Angeles and a master’s degree in geography from UCLA. She’s worked along the Duwamish River for 15 years. 

Why she’s on the list: This year the DRCC, an alliance of groups affected by ongoing pollution and cleanup plans for the Duwamish River, released its far-reaching Visioning Project: Think gondolas and water taxis, seafood-harvesting areas, affordable riverside housing (with dog runs!) and a revitalized industrial base. Since 2001, Cummings has coordinated community involvement in the DRCC. Cummings and company work with federal and local agencies and polluting parties, deciding how the Duwamish River cleanup will occur and who it will benefit. The results of the cleanup will serve as a litmus test for whether or not Governor Christine Gregoire’s plan to restore health to Puget Sound by 2020 will work. “If we can’t clean up the areas in proximity to our industrial and urban centers, we won’t be able to clean up the rest of Puget Sound,” says Cummings. 

Biggest influence: The people living along the river. “They are the forward-thinking and under-recognized environmental leaders of our community,” she says. “They see the need to protect the environment for people, rather than from people.” Yemaya Maurer

ARCHITECTURE
History Detective
Eugenia Woo, architectural preservationist and Googie fan
Bio: The 41-year-old Los Angeles native, who has a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Washington, worked for Seattle’s Historic Preservation Office (1998–2004) before joining Tacoma-based preservation firm Artifacts Consulting. She’s a founder of Docomomo WeWa (Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement in Western Washington), the local chapter of the Paris-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving modern architecture.

Why she’s on the list: Woo was one of the most visible pleaders in the first-successful, then-failed effort to save Ballard’s 1964 Manning’s/Denny’s restaurant from the bulldozer, arguing it was a rare example of futuristic “Googie” architecture. She has a cold-case investigator’s tenacity—and an evangelist’s enthusiasm—when it comes to preserving our modern architectural legacy. “It’s like that show History Detectives, except Elvis Costello isn’t singing along,” jokes Woo about her work. Happy endings also are harder to achieve. With Manning’s bulldozed, she hopes to have better luck with a literal blast from Seattle’s architectural past, the UW’s nuclear reactor building. Docomomo WeWa, along with a host of other supporters, is supporting the nomination of the 1961 building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Next up: Creating an oral and photographic history of Northwest modern architects. Audio segments will be streamed at docomomo-wewa.org, and the entire project will be donated to the University of Washington Libraries’ Special Collections. 
Biggest influence: “I tried law school for a little bit [and] there was a preservation case…. What the developer wanted to do was build this 50-story skyscraper above Grand Central Station. At that time, I hadn’t really developed my whole preservation persona, but I thought, ‘That’s just wrong. Why would anyone want to do that? That would just completely ruin the building.’ That was definitely a defining moment in my life.” Shannon O’Leary