most influential
Most Influential People of 2018 Nominations Now Open!
Nominate someone you think is making a positive impact in our city today.
Our city is undergoing tremendous challenges, many of them related to growing pains, even as the city—and country—continues to grapple with ongoing issues of race, inclusion, gender equity, gun violence, immigration and environmental concerns. In our annual Most Influential People story in our November issue this year, we want to celebrate the people who are…
Seattle’s Most Influential People of 2014
51 people (plus a machine, an ordinance and screaming fans) are making Seattle what it is in 2014
It’s been a year of superlatives–highest minimum wage! First Super Bowl championship! Biggest transportation boondoggle!–and behind each high point (and low ebb) are people turning the wheels of power or agitating at the grassroots. Ten years into Seattle magazine’s Most Influential list, we present our picks for the movers and shakers of the year. Love ’em…
Most Influential: Mike McGinn and Dow Constantine
Mayor McGinn and Executive Constantine made their mark
One sports a revolutionary’s beard, a feisty personality and a bike habit. The other evidences a Boy Scout mien, a let’s-get-along approach and a well-exercised iPod. Both have nearly one year in office, Mike McGinn as mayor of Seattle and Dow Constantine as King County executive. Each has made his mark—by notably different methods. First-time…
Most Influential: King-5 News Susannah Frame
King-5 News Investigative Reporter Susannah Frame
When Susannah Frame launched her “Waste on the Water” series in March, detailing a state ferry system financially running amok, she unleashed a wave of citizen ire seldom seen in Seattle. Among her revelations: a decades-long tradition of reimbursing some ferry employees—mostly relief and so-called “special project” workers—for their time and mileage to and from…
Most Influential: Partners on the Cascadia Center
Partners Miller Hull Partnership, Point 32, Schuchart, and The Bullitt Foundation collaborate to dev
The adage “If you build it, they will come” is in full experimental application at the corner of 15th Avenue and E Madison Street on Capitol Hill, where the city’s largest Living Building project is beginning to show signs of life. A collaboration among the Miller Hull Partnership (architect), Point32 (developer), Schuchart (general contractor) and…
Most Influential: Consultant Mike Donlin
Program consultant for Seattle Public Schools' prevention-intervention services, Mike Donlin spearhe
The Pew Research Center reports that 30 percent of U.S. teens say they have been affected by hurtful text messages, Facebook posts and the like. Mike Donlin wants to cut that number to zero. A program consultant for Seattle Public Schools’ prevention-intervention services, Donlin spearheaded creation of a new cyberbullying curriculum this year for Seattle…
Person of the Year: The Police Officer
We are not accustomed to seeing police officers as victims
We are not accustomed to seeing police officers as victims. Or as villains. But the past year in the Puget Sound region has focused our attention on law enforcement personnel so relentlessly, so vividly, that no year in recent memory can compare. Between October 31 and December 28, 2009, six officers—one from the Seattle Police…
Most Influential 2010: Dave Ross and Tom Douglas
Radio host Dave Ross and Restaurateur Tom Douglas show their patriotism and democracy
On April 1, Dave Ross, host of The Dave Ross Show on KIRO-FM, opened his morning broadcast with the news that One Reel, the nonprofit organization that runs the Fourth of July festivities at Lake Union, had failed to secure a corporate sponsor and was canceling the event. It was no April Fool’s joke. “It…
Most Influential: Zoran Popovic and David Baker
Computer Scientist Zoran Popovic meets Biochemist David Baker to collaborate on a video game that en
The meeting of University of Washington computer scientist Zoran Popovic and biochemist David Baker reads a bit like a sci-fi adventure: Computer scientist meets biochemist; computer scientist and biochemist collaborate on a video game that enables tens of thousands of people to contribute to scientific research by folding three-dimensional protein configurations on their home computers;…
Most Influential: Group Health Cooperative
Insurer and Health Care Provider, Group Health is the highest-rated commercial health plan in Washin
In September, Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative learned it’s the highest-rated commercial health plan in Washington state—and in the top 50 nationally—in a new ranking by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. With more than 600,000 members and more than two dozen medical centers throughout Washington state, Group Health has become a destination for health care…
Most Influential: M.D. and CEO Mitchell Gold
Mitchell Gold is CEO of Dendreon Corp. rocked into national headlines
Mitchell Gold and the company he heads, Seattle-based Dendreon Corp., rocketed into national headlines this year when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Dendreon’s Provenge as a treatment for late-stage prostate cancer. The value of the company’s stock multiplied more than 10 times as analysts estimated the drug could generate about $1 billion in…
Most Influential: CEO Paul Davis
Coinstar CEO Paul Davis spent much of 2009 fighting legal battles with movie studios
Penny-pinching consumers looking for cheap entertainment have flocked to Redbox DVD-rental vending machines and, in a year’s time, catapulted Bellevue-based Coinstar—Redbox’s parent company—onto the corporate big screen. Earlier this year, Redbox—originally a creation of McDonald’s but acquired by Coinstar last year—had grabbed 25 percent of U.S. video-rental sales, up from 18 percent a year earlier,…
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