The Whole Damn Pie

A mission for shared prosperity, cultural representation, and impactful community work.

Episode Summary

Colleen discusses housing solutions for Seattle’s Native homeless community to running a retail business centered on Indigenous art, highlighting her mission for shared prosperity, cultural representation, and impactful community work.

Episode Notes

Colleen Echohawk  

 

A mission for shared prosperity, cultural representation, and impactful community work.

 

Colleen Echohawk is a self-described aggressive optimist, incredible extrovert, and someone who sees the glass as not only half full, but overflowing with abundance. For her, the whole damn pie means having a lot of joy. Filling her life with beautiful dog walks, hanging with family and friends, singing karaoke, reading good books, and watching shows with her husband.  

 

Doesn’t seem too much to ask right? But she’s also a believer in shared prosperity and she’s not afraid to step up and do the scary things in life—whether that’s running for mayor of Seattle, building housing units for Seattle’s urban native homeless, or running a native retail business. Over the last two decades, Colleen has done all this and so much more as part of her commitment to helping marginalized populations and native prosperity.

 

Key Takeaways:

Native disparity: In King County, less than 1% of the population are native, yet they make up over 15% of the homeless population.  

Inspiring her kids: Colleen’s passionate about helping her children to understand truth, showing them that native people can be in office, and teaching them to not be afraid to take risks.

Changing the native narrative: She’s CEO of Eighth Generation, a Seattle-based art and lifestyle brand that is creating products by inspired natives, not native-inspired products.  

The Whole Pie means joy: Listen in for how Colleen achieves the whole damn pie.

 

If you enjoy listening, be sure to follow us so you’re the first to know when we add new episodes. While you’re there, please leave us a review — we’d really appreciate it. 

Eighth Generation

Produced by Larj Media  

Episode Transcription

Colleen: [00:00:00] I recently had an opportunity to speak in front of a hundred native women, business owners. Wow. It was an incredible experience. And one thing I just said, just, it just flew out of my mouth on the stage. I was like, you know, imagine if one of us was Jeff Bezos and the whole room just starts laughing because we understand prosperity in a different way. We would not hoard wealth. 

Amalia: Hi, I am Amalia Martino and welcome to the Whole Damn Pie. Today, I am so excited to get to talk to my friend, Colleen Echohawk, who is just a trailblazer. She is a self-described aggressive optimist, which carries her through all of the things that she steps up to do in life, whether it's running for mayor of the city of Seattle, building housing units for the urban native homeless population in the city of Seattle, To running a retail business and whatever comes next for her, [00:01:00] she is somebody that we all should know. And I love this conversation where we get real about aspirations and money.
For me, the whole damn pie really changes from day to day, but generally it means, you know, not having to make trade offs in my life, not having to sell, being able to challenge myself and want for something more. 

And I'd love to know, Colleen, what does the whole damn pie mean to you? 

Colleen: I want a lot of joy. It's been a focus of mine. I went through a pretty hard couple of years. My brother died really unexpectedly and it was bad. It was really bad. I had a hard time. And then the world right now. It's just like, you know, we're on the one year anniversary today, we're recording of the just tragedy of what's going on in the Middle East. And so there's that heaviness plus the election. And so I just lately been feeling like, you know what, I want to do joyful things right now. I need to fill my life with like good walks with my dogs and hanging with my family [00:02:00] and with friends and singing karaoke at my house and reading good books and watching a show with my husband. So what I want in my pie today is a lot of joy. 

Amalia: Okay. 

Colleen: And a lot of fun. 

Amalia: Okay, that's funny because if I were to describe you, I would describe you as joyful. Like you show up very joyful. 

Colleen: I love that.

Amalia: You do. You have a happy voice. You have a happy presence walking in the room. 

Colleen: I'm an aggressive optimist. I just feel like I just, I've always like, I'm just lucky that I'm always pretty happy and I feel very like things are going to be okay and that.

You know, I've until, like I mentioned, my brother passing, I'd really never experienced depression. I just have been very fortunate to have that outlook on life that the pie is for everyone. Let's all enjoy it. Let's go for it, you know? And so, I think it's served me well in the spaces that I've been, that have been pretty bleak. It's just been a blessing and something I fall back on. I'm like, I don't want to be [00:03:00] in the pessimistic space. Like, it's just, yeah. 

Amalia: You're the glass that's half full. 

Colleen: Glass is like overflowing with abundance. 

Amalia: Oh, that's the aggressive part. Okay. 

Colleen: Yes. 

Amalia: Okay. It's overflowing glass. Okay. You've dedicated over two decades to helping marginalized populations and Native prosperity. Can you tell us about your personal journey? I would love to know what motivated you to actually even start this work. 

Colleen: Oh, I love that question. You know, I grew up with parents who were very, very much, like, if you can help, you should. And they were very clear about you got to do that and they led by example so much so that we have this funny story in our family because I grew up in really rural Alaska and my dad, he was from Oklahoma from our reservation in Pawnee, Oklahoma, and he came out to Seattle and he hitchhiked all the way to Alaska. Wow, this is in the early 70s. So he has a fondness for hitchhikers. So if we were in Alaska, and there was a hitchhiker somewhere, he would have [00:04:00] to pick that person up. And it would drive my mom crazy. And because we had six kids in a big, huge van. And we used to travel all the time and throughout Alaska.
And one time we saw these hitchhikers way ahead. And my dad's like, we're gonna pick them up. My mom's like, no, we don't want to. And us kids were like, Let's do it, because who knows what's going to be there, and we keep going, keep going, keep going, and eventually we saw that these hitchhikers were actually two moose that were on the road. And so, I just shared that, because that was what would happen. My dad would pick someone up, and then, honestly, sometimes they stayed at our house for like three years. 

Amalia: Wow. 

And so, I grew up with, you should give money away, you should give your, my dad would, you know, see somebody that didn't have a coat, he would take his coat off and give him a coat. Like, it was just very in your face. My mom was always making food for our huge family, plus everyone else who could come. And she was just, we have abundance and we're going to share it. I mean, we're very like lower middle class, but to them, you know, cause they didn't come from very much. [00:05:00] My dad  had a pretty good job, but they had a thousand children. So anyways, it's just was, that's what you do. And so when I came here to Seattle, I worked at the American Indian High School and Middle College. It's no longer around anymore. And then I worked in public health and serving the native community there. And then I was very fortunate to fall into the work at Chief Seattle Club and just loved it and loved getting to serve those amazing people down there.

Amalia: Yeah, but you did some pretty amazing stuff at Chief Seattle Club. Yeah. Like, from what I understand, you, I would say single handedly, but I know you won't let me say single handedly, you were really responsible for like establishing housing. 

Colleen: Yeah. When I got down to Chief Seattle Club, I was actually on the hiring committee. I wasn't even thinking about the job, but then I got encouraged to put my name in and then I got hired and I was there for about six months and then started realizing like, wow, like our folks, they're not getting sick. service from the mainstream housing systems. I can remember looking at the data at one point where there had been like [00:06:00] 19 of our cheese saddle club members, they're all native, had gotten the actual call like, hey, you can get housing. Like calls back, we're going to go, it's going to happen. Only two of them made it through. 

Amalia: Oh wow. 

Colleen: And I thought, what is going on? And just like, as we looked at all of the data and we looked at the systems, we realized even if they got that call, there were so many barriers or so many things they had to manage. And then also like the housing was just not culturally attuned to the needs of Native people who have been pushed off of housing and land for a hundred plus years in this country. So, so I always say that there's just no reason for Native people to trust mainstream housing systems. Like it doesn't make any sense because we've been pushed out and harmed through those systems for a long time. So we started thinking about what we could do. And I just thought, man, we should just do our own housing. So there was, as you can imagine, a thousand barriers and a lot of things. And that, again, the aggressive optimism just kind of held me. And I always remember too, I love, I love to [00:07:00] mention this point is that at one point, I talked with a friend of mine, Daniel Malone, who leads DESC, Downtown Emergency Service Center, and they have lots of housing.

And he's built lots of housing. I remember him looking at me one day going, listen, I was sort of just like, oh, it's overwhelming. And you know, I've never done it before. And he said, Colleen, building housing is not rocket science. And I held on to that phrase. It's not rocket science. Okay, I can do it. And yeah, so we built housing.

It was amazing. It was great. And I have so much joy driving by and looking at it. And then since I've left, the Chief's Cattle Club has built a lot of other housing and taken over buildings. And I think they have well over 400 units of housing now with a goal in five years to have functional zero of Native people experiencing homelessness. I was very happy to have them. play that initial role of just being a catalyst to getting us into housing. 

Amalia: So that's amazing because I know Native community is so overrepresented in the homeless population. 

Colleen: Yeah, we have, I think it's over 15 percent of the homeless population are Native [00:08:00] and we make up less than 1 percent of the population in King County. So it's just terrible disparity. 

Amalia: It's terrible. Yeah. Okay. So you know, made a small dent, I guess. No, you made a huge impact. So you went from Chief Seattle Club and then you decided to run for Mayor of City of Seattle. And this wasn't just like a, I'm going to throw my name in the hat. Let's see what happens. Like. You ran a really strong and really smart campaign. 

Colleen: Yeah, yeah. 

Amalia: And you got a lot of backing. What did you see that you thought that you could improve? 

Colleen: Well, back to how I grew up. That if you have a skill, if you have a resource and you can give it, you should. And at the time, our three biggest issues were housing and homelessness and police accountability, public safety. These issues were things that are near and dear to my heart and that I had been an effective leader in. I had a lot of success in serving the homeless community. I had been, was building housing at the time and also [00:09:00] had served on the community council. community police commission for many years and had led a chief of police search, a national search. It was a really interesting process. I had learned a lot and had been in that space and cared a lot about it. And so those were the issues in the city. I had people reaching out to me every single day and I thought, you know what, let's do it. And I also felt like I want my kids to see a face like mine running for office.  I wanted them to see that you take a risk, you go for it. If you see there's a need, like why the hell not? So like, sometimes I'm on a board. I've been on many boards over the years and we'll have somebody come in and they'll immediately start giving their opinion and talking about whatever's going on without having any knowledge or context of what is actually happening. When I see that, I think we need to have some wisdom. in our community about what we know, what we don't know. And when I see people just jumping into something and they don't have the history and the knowledge and the experience, it's [00:10:00] surprising. And I want my kids to see you build out your career, you build out your wisdom, you build out your knowledge.

And then when you have the opportunity, you go for it and you go hard. And so I went all the way in, I quit my job, I teach Seattle club. I felt like, you know what, I'll have other opportunities in my life. And also Chief Seattle Club was in a great spot. We had raised all the money we needed for the housing.

And so I jumped into the race and the impact of it is long reaching, you know, like. I ran into this woman I've known for a long time who's experienced homelessness for a long time and is now in housing. And she said to me, remember when you ran for mayor, it was so amazing, I loved it, I loved it. And then one day she told me, she's like, you know, I'd never voted before.

Amalia: Really? 

Yeah, she had never voted before. And she said like, when it was you, I knew I had to register to vote. And I can remember, I was thinking in my head, I'm like, I can't remember you being at registration voting like parties being held, you know? But she had never actually turned in a ballot. But because I was a Native woman like her, and because I knew her and I knew the [00:11:00] community.

Colleen: And I think, wow, if we only did that, I know we did more, but if we only did that, if we only encouraged more Native people, more women, more brown women to jump into actual voting, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. So, it was an amazing experience. I highly recommend anybody who ever thinks about wanting to run, do it. Like, it's hard. 

Amalia:Yeah. Yeah.

 I mean, but, you know, life is hard. You just go through it and you learn and you get a good team and you go through it and I loved it. And I'm gonna run again someday. 

Amalia: You will? 

Colleen: Well, my kids are a little bit older. 

Amalia: Okay. 

Colleen: I have a 17 and a 15 year old. And so when they're off to college, we'll see what happens. We'll see what's out there.

Amalia: I have no doubt. I will be casting my vote if I can. I don't live in the city of Seattle. Otherwise, you'd have got mine. 

Colleen: Yeah, thank you. 

Amalia: Yes, I know a lot of people who Many people who, when they found out you were running, said to me, Oh my gosh, like she gets it. She knows, like she gets it. I think that's one thing is like in this age of politics where everything's just like this [00:12:00] personality contest.  I was talking about this morning with my husband. Was that like, does the truth even matter anymore? Like, truth does matter. It matters a lot. And you can't just say things that are unfounded or that sound good in a moment because, like you said, things have lasting impact.

Colleen: I was just listening to a Call Her Daddy podcast with Vice President Harris on yesterday, and my daughter and I were listening to it, my 15 year old. And she made a point. She's like, part of the reason that she was, is running is just like, truth matters. And we have a former president who's running right now who says whatever kind of things that come out of his mouth that are factually untrue.

Amalia: Yes. 

It's not like the media is trying to be super mean to people, but literally, untrue. And I was so glad that my daughter was picking up on that. And it's something I'm trying to really teach my kids is understand truth, understand history, and try to do all you can to be a person that wants the real story.

Amalia: Be curious. 

Colleen: Yeah, be curious. 

Amalia: Yeah, I love it. [00:13:00] Okay, so we're moving on from the mayor. Well, it's still to come. You know what? It's still going to happen. 

Colleen: I want to put it on my bio. I'm working on a new website, but I want to like put on my bio, the time I came in third, because my kids are always like, remember when you came in third? Because they're little teenagers. 

Amalia: That's such a big deal! 

Colleen: But, oh god, yeah, I'm proud of it. 

Amalia: You should be. 

Colleen: Of course I want to win, I wanted to win it, I wanted to be the mayor. I love winning. 

Amalia: Me too, me too. 

Colleen: But you don't always win. I didn't win, and there'll be a time I'll win again, but it was such a good experience, but I love, my kids are so funny about it.

Amalia: There's offspring keeping you humble, Kamala. 

Colleen: Oh yes, that's true. But I will say, speaking of that, because the other thing on the Call Her Daddy podcast that my daughter and I talked about was they talked about how Governor Huckabee in Arkansas called out and said, Oh, Kamala doesn't have children to keep her humble. They talk about that on the podcast, and she says, Well, I'm not trying to be humble. 

Amalia: There's a whole bunch of us women out [00:14:00] here who are not aspiring to be humble. 

Colleen: Yeah.  I'm ready to run the show. I think it's important and I think it's important to love and support people and work for the vulnerable, but you don't have to be like, I have to be humble. White men have not thought that for a lot of years. 

Amalia: No, absolutely. Yeah. So, no, they have not. 

Colleen: Love all you white men out there, but it's just the reality. 

Amalia: Well, I mean, I, okay, so we're going to, I mean, I bet you experience this running a retail based company, which is so completely different. I experienced this in all of my entrepreneurial groups that I'm in that are majority who don't look like me and their sensibility of business is so completely different than mine. The amount of conversations I have just about tax dodging and loopholes. It's like, What? Like, why wouldn't you pay your taxes? Like, why do you not want to? 

Colleen: Like, so let me just share that. I was very lucky after running for mayor to get a call from my friend, Louis Gong, who had founded this company, 8th Generation. [00:15:00] And he said, Colleen, I think that you should be the next CEO. And I was shocked. You know, he had sold the company to the Suquamish tribe, one of our local tribes in the area. And he said, come be the next CEO. And I was just stunned. I'm like, what? It wasn't, retail was not in my mind, but business had been in my mind because I had the experience of running a nonprofit, supporting folks who just were having just the most difficult and hard times in their lives, you know, as they were homeless. And so I'd experienced helping the downstream issues, you know, supporting people. And honestly, like, a lot of what we did was Band Aids. And Band Aids are important. I'm not against that, but I'm, I'm like thinking, how do we solve this whole issue, right? And how do we ensure that, you know, those folks experiencing homelessness have the whole damn pie? Because I believe in a shared prosperity. So I had done that nonprofit work and thought, this is not the solution to systemic poverty in my community. And then I have served as a board member at the Seattle Foundation. I'm still there and I believe in the work, but I also think [00:16:00] the philanthropic model is not going to be the answer to systemic poverty in my community.

And then I think there are many answers, but one of them is business and entrepreneurial spirit and getting out there and doing it. So when Louie calls me, there was this kind of thing in my gut because I'd already, I do have another small business that I own with my husband called Headwater People Consulting. But I knew I didn't want to do that full time. And so he called me and said, let's do it. And my kids were in the car and they're like, mom, you have to do it. They heard Louie asking me about this. And I was like, why? And they were like, no, it's just the coolest job. You're going to have so much fun.

 It's going to be a great thing. But what I heard behind that was they saw themselves represented in our company in a way that they do not see themselves anywhere. So at 8th Generation, we work only with native artists and designers. They trust us to take their art and design and move it into the home goods space.

 So we're known for our blankets. We are the only native home company, well, actually there's only native home company in the [00:17:00] Pacific Northwest. 

Amalia: Okay. 

Colleen: Now that produces. wool blankets. In the Native community, we give each other blankets in traditional ceremonies and graduations, weddings. And so now you can buy from a Native owned company and you know that that, that blanket has been designed by a Native person.

We also do all kinds of things in the kitchen space and then accessories. So we're kind of, I always say we're like home goods. We're kind of like anthropology without any fashion. But we really have amazing jewelry and scarves. So it's been a wonderful journey to be eighth generation. I believe it is part of my ethos and identity and hope for the community to be in business. 

And to your point, as you're mentioning, like, you know, being in those rooms with entrepreneurial groups, whatever, I'm always kind of surprised when I like, for instance, go to the Seattle Chamber meetings. I'm almost always the only Native person there. We're really lucky to have on the Seattle Chamber board, the chair of the Muckleshoot tribe, but he's busy, right? So he doesn't come to all the meetings. Like, and I [00:18:00] was like, man, this is crazy. These are the folks that have the power and influence through their business and through their dollars. And we'll get into these conversations about a payroll tax, for instance. Now, me, I'm like, hey, if I can contribute to affordable housing so that the folks that work for my company can actually live in the city, hell yes, I will be happy to have a payroll tax. But we have these huge businesses and we have folks who did not grow up like I did with a shared prosperity idea. I recently had an opportunity to speak in front of a hundred Native women business owners. 

Amalia: Wow. 

Colleen: It was an incredible experience. And one thing I just said, just, it just flew out of my mouth on the stage. I was like, you know, Imagine if one of us was Jeff Bezos and the whole room just starts laughing because we understand prosperity in a different way. We would not hoard wealth. I have ambitions to build generational wealth, but I am purposely and I'm thinking in my head, like, how, how do I like build out these dollars so that I [00:19:00] can give away 5 million here and 5 million here and set my kids up and my grandkids up for success. But I'm not talking billions of dollars. 

Amalia: Right. 

Colleen:You know, I'm talking about a few million for them so that they can do it. And it's, and it's bizarre to talk about the whole damn pie issue to talk about it in that way because I have nowhere near, well, I'm getting closer to a million dollars. Right. But I don't have that yet, but we have to talk about it.We have to..

Amalia: Normalize it. 

Colleen: And normalize it. 

Amalia: Somebody told me once like. You might be the only one there, but you have the responsibility to be seen and to be visible for someone you don't even know who's looking. And I think it's really important for us to have these conversations to say like, yeah, I want X, Y, and Z in the bank.

I want to make sure that my future generation is taking care of. No, I'm not talking about like the next Paris Hilton, but I'm talking about like, you know, come on, like, why is that not okay for me to want when most everybody else in this city, that's how they bought their first house. 

Colleen: Right. 

Amalia: [00:20:00] That's how they built their first, whatever, million dollars. Yeah. So I totally understand why Native inspired and Native made goods are really important. But what's the alternative? What is the alternative out there for people who are looking? 

Colleen: Yeah. So a little context. I can remember very vividly when Louis Gong started putting out on eighth generation products and on social media, inspired natives, not Native inspired. And number one, I was just like, yes, hell yes, inspire natives, like, let's change the stereotype, right? And then Inspired Native is not Native inspired, and that was mind blowing to me as well, because for what we have known, um, as Native art and design in this world, much of it has been Native inspired, meaning that there were non Native people who were artists and thought, this is, I'm going to be inspired by Native art and design, and I'm going to create this blanket or this picture or this pottery and it's going [00:21:00] to be Native inspired. And a lot of people say, well, what, what's, what's wrong with that, right? Like, we evolve as a species and we grow and people get inspired by all kinds of things. And why can't we non Native people have a part of that? Well, we have to go back, right? We have to go think about in my own community, I'm an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. Our original homelands were in Nebraska and Kansas. And it was in the late 1800s that we moved from Nebraska and Kansas to our reservation in Oklahoma. And throughout the years we lost thousands and thousands and thousands of people. We experienced. And we all need to remember that there was an American genocide that happened in our country. And my family was a part of that. And so going from, you know, 15, 20,000 people in the 1800s, by 1910, there was only 630 Hawaiian people left that I'm a direct descendant from. 

Amalia: Wow. 

Colleen: And so, you know, when I hear non Native people say, I'm so inspired by, you know, Native art and design and I've made this, you know, whatever, like it, it, it's painful for me [00:22:00] We've lost so much culture, we've lost so much art, we've lost so much ceremony that it's important for it to be in the community, especially now when we're kind of coming, we've turned the corner, I believe, in Indian country to being able to not just be in the survival mode, to go towards thriving. And so we need the time and we need the space to reclaim our art and design. The other thing that we have to remember in this country, it wasn't, you know, from the late 1800s through 1950s that we were literally called the vanishing race. They thought we would be gone. They thought that I would not be here to be in this room with you talking and this podcast. So there has to be room for Native people to claim our art and for non Native people to leave it alone for right now, you know, and, maybe forever, you know, and that's okay. I think that we have ways in the community to ensure that that art is remaining stable and also to see it evolve. So, I am [00:23:00] really honored to get to lead this company now. you know, work with all these Native artists from around the country. And, I gotta say one other funny thing about this is that so what happens for us is that we work with a Native artist and they send us some kind of beautiful art and we and they say, we'd love to make a blanket or we tell them, we're like, Hey, we just did this recently. We're, we're making these little, like, kind of lunch boxes. They're kind of like the bento box. They're so cute. So we said, Hey, we want to do this. And so she sent us. All these ideas and we collaborated together and we are making these cute little lunchboxes are coming out early next year, but we're getting those made in China or India.

Colleen: I can't remember at the moment, like it's native design. Let me ask you, like most lunchboxes that you buy here in this country are not made in this country. 

Amalia: Correct. 

Colleen: Now, what we get criticized from a lot of people is like, Oh, well, you're not like hand painting these lunchboxes and like creating a, you know, a native economy. I'm like. Yes, I am creating a native economy, and the native economy has every [00:24:00] right to play in the global economy, in the global market. We're like every other company in this country who designs products and gets, and has them made somewhere else. And so I guess, you know, people would just like to put us in this like stereotypical box of like Native people, just like, you know, sitting around a fire, braiding each other's hair, singing some song with a drum. 

Amalia: Hand crocheting. 

Colleen: Hand crocheting, yes. 

Amalia: And lunchbox. 

Colleen: Weaving and hand painting a freaking lunchbox. And like, no, do not put us there. And also. Think about what the business community is missing when we do not have Native people leading in the CEO Fortune 500 suites. Like, we have to have more people of color, more Native people, more Black people, more brown people, more women in those spaces in order for our country to be the kind of country that we want to be and be the kind of people that we want to be. I could tell you story after story of like, how we're discriminated against in this space. Oh, [00:25:00] like Seattle people. Good, well, meeting Seattle people. They're like, your story is so beautiful. I really wish there was like seats that we could sit down and just enjoy it. And in my head, I'm like, this is not a museum. Like people would like to keep Native art and design and people in the museum space. That's why that's comfortable. Yes. No, we are. 

Amalia: Consuming it as a, as a patron of the arts is comfortable. 

Colleen: Yes, but not using it, not having it in your home, not buying from a Native owned business. Our number one question we get asked is, I'm non native, can I buy from your store? And we have to ask ourselves, like, why is it not the norm to have Native art and design in every single home in this country? Right. So, I could, word,  I could rant on this.

Amalia: I mean, it's that double standard, right? It's a double standard of, do all the things, but also I don't know, like, anybody else can manufacture anywhere, like, why is there another standard and yet another barrier that you should, quote [00:26:00] unquote should, which I talked to my daughter a lot about that word. We can eliminate that word from your vocabulary. What you should be doing, it's like what you are doing. 

Colleen: Yeah. 

Amalia: Right. Which is very impressive. You've mentioned a couple of times, and I know of you that you serve on a lot of boards. 

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah.

I've had a lot of conversations about the importance of women and women of color serving on boards. But I think it's also intimidating for people if you've never done it before. So, can you talk a little bit about Your experience on boards and why you would recommend it for other people. 

Colleen: Well, I mentioned earlier, I'm an aggressive optimist. I'm also like an incredible extrovert. Like I just have a lot of energy for hanging out with other people.

Amalia: You sure do. 

Colleen: I just love it. If I'm home alone, I'm just like, what am I doing? It's just, you know, again, I just like people and I love being around people and I love our community. And I, I have, you know, 500 ideas a day and two of them are good. So I like to like put some of them out there, you know, and I think a Native voice is important in those spaces. And I take that very seriously. I think that myself and other Native people who've [00:27:00] been serving on major boards for the past 10 or 15 years, we were the kind of the start of making it more normal. And now we can have others coming behind. And I do see myself as like a, You know, like, the Seattle Foundation was the first Native person to ever serve at the Seattle Foundation.

And think about that. We are in Coast Salish territories. Yes. We are  a lot of that money that's in the Seattle Foundation was built on the backs of Native communities. And timber and Native community. And so I take it seriously. I have a good time at it. I try really hard to just show up. And then I also feel like there's times too when I just am like, you know what? I'm not ready to fight that battle today. I'm tired. I recognize that I cannot take on every single issue that's going to come up. I'll give you an example. I recently abstained on a vote at the Downtown Seattle Association. I did that in the executive committee, but when it came to the full board, I just was like, you know what? I'm not ready to do this right now. I'm not, I don't have the energy. I don't have the space. You know, you can look at the record and say, abstained over here. And so I think just having like a good understanding of [00:28:00] yourself and, and, what you can do and what you can't do and giving yourself grace for those moments when you're having a hard time and you, the, the opportunity will come back around to fight for that battle. So I just want to encourage everyone who might be listening to get on those boards. I know that here in Seattle, the United Way King County has an opportunity for folks who've been underrepresented on boards to, to get on those boards. Learn about boards, learn how to be on a board, and they'll help place you on a board.

Amalia: Oh, that's awesome. 

Colleen: So, it's a great networking opportunity. Our company is about to have products placed in all 15 PCC stores here in Washington State. That happened because of a board connection I had. 

Amalia: Yeah. 

So, like, when you're thinking about business, you're thinking about the entrepreneurial kind of connections and networks, it happens a lot on boards, not all of them, but a lot of them happen on boards.

Colleen: That's great. I'm happy to serve. 

Amalia: That's great. I need to follow your lead a little bit there, I think. I want to go down this lane because I observe this in you, like I said, I observe you as being very [00:29:00] joyful, and now I understand about your aggressive optimism, is that what you call it? Okay, I love this. But I also recognize in you that you have a really large family. You've talked about your family growing up. Yeah. But I see you really paying that forward now with your family. Whenever, I mean, I don't get to spend a whole lot of time with you, but whenever I see something you're doing online or something, you are always surrounded by a lot of people in your family.

Colleen: Yeah. 

Amalia: Can you tell me about your family now and like how you carry that forward? 

Colleen: Yeah. Thank you for asking a question. My husband always says that. My sisters and I especially, there's five of us, I'm the oldest of the five sisters, and they're all brilliant. Like, they're all equally brilliant and impressive.

Colleen: They are equally brilliant. But my husband always says, you know, part of what your secret sauce is, is that you're never alone. You know, that you always have this backup of these, this incredible sibling group. And I just feel so blessed. Like, I don't know, like, we don't, we, there is very, very rarely a disagreement. Like, we get along. My [00:30:00] sister, Lael, she lives in D. C. now, and we're only like 15 months apart. And we used to fight like cats and dogs in high school. Sure. Now it's like, I cannot wait to see her. I'm so excited. Like, all my best ideas happen around her. When I ran for office, she was in DC, but she pretty much helped run the campaign. She has a lot of political experience. She was always like, Colleen, she's an optimist too, but she's a little more grounded probably than I am. And she's like, most people don't win on their first run. She was very like trying to keep me grounded. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Colleen: You know? And and anyways, she's, she's fabulous. My sister, Abigail, who was here and who I just have to mention was just named top 100 by Time Magazine. 

Amalia: I saw. 

Colleen: I'm so proud of her. 

Amalia: Wait, did I see this? 

Colleen: You probably saw it on my social media because I was like sharing it like crazy. She's one of, she's the smartest person I know. She's so freaking smart.

Amalia: Tell us what the work that she does. 

Colleen: So her work has been focused on reclaiming data. And that's really important for communities of color and especially for [00:31:00] Native people because we've been misrepresenting the data for so long. So she's. known for her data sovereignty work and taking back the data. That means everything from collecting it ourselves to interpreting it, to doing the research, epidemiology, like she's all in it. She served on huge national committees during the COVID crisis to make sure that the vaccine was going to be equitably distributed. She's largely responsible for ensuring that 8 percent of Native people in King County got vaccinated. We have a lot of fear about vaccinations in our community. Yes, with good reason. I think the main thing about her, she's an incredible storyteller. I mean, she is incredible communicator. 
My sister Elizabeth is a fitness instructor and also works at our company Headwater People Consulting and is an incredible facilitator and mediator and just brings a sense of this is how you lead and how you should lead. She's an amazing coach. Our youngest sister Halal is an amazing chef. Our [00:32:00] youngest sibling uses they, them pronouns, and they're just doing incredible work in supporting the queer indigenous community. And then we have two older brothers. Before my mom and dad got together, my mom had two older, our youngest, our oldest one passed away a couple years ago now. And then my older brother, Ted, he's the love of our lives. He's like, he was just so supportive. 

Amalia: When I look at you and your family, I am an only child. I feel like this is the piece when I'm going through my leadership journey that can feel very isolating and lonely and scary that I don't know what it's like to have that support system and that ecosystem.

Colleen: Yeah. 

Amalia: I'm so jealous, but I'm also so like, I can see why you show up like you do because your cup is so filled. 

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah, I'm very blessed. I love it. I have an incredibly supportive husband. 

Amalia: Yes. 

Colleen: I've worked really hard in the past like three years of having just like my good core solid group of friends who aren't trying to get anything out from me by just being there. That's been [00:33:00] really wonderful. So yeah, I love it. I love getting older. I love getting to look back on the career a little bit and then think about what's going to happen next. It's just, it's a good time in my life.

Amalia: Colleen has a lot of energy and a lot of family support and she's just overall brilliant. When I think about our conversation, I think about how I'm inspired to maybe, step out of my comfort zone a little more. She talked about the boards that she has served on. And to be honest, I've maybe only served on one or two in my life. And I feel like I'm at a point in my career where maybe I have something more to offer. And it's time for me to step up and see how that maybe rounds out the whole damn pie for me.