A New Chapter in Environmental Works's Leadership

Dear Partners, Advocates, and Friends,
 
It is with a mixture of gratitude and sadness that I am writing to announce that our Executive Director, Roger Tucker, will retire at the end of 2020.  Please click here to read more about Roger's decades of service with Environmental Works, and plans for our executive director search. 

We look forward to celebrating Roger's tenure at Environmental Works with you when we can next all be together.  For now, please join me in raising a proverbial glass to thank Roger for his years of dedication and service.
 
All the best,

Dear Partners, Friends, and Colleagues,

After ten years as EW’s executive director, last year I notified our board of directors that I would be stepping down from the role at the end of this year. 

Please click here to read more about EW today, and our plans for the future.

I thank you all for your friendship and support, and for the compassion you show in your work.  I look forward to connecting with you through the rest of the year and beyond, as I continue to collaborate on projects as needed. Let's continue working together to engage people in making places where they can thrive.

Happy Holidays from Environmental Works!

July 2019 News: We Need Your Stories for EW's 50th!

Happy summer!  Read on for updates on our 50th anniversary preparations and how to get involved, and ICYMI!

#eworksseattle50: Share Your Stories, Reflections from Early EW Staff Member Brad Collins
We're approaching our 50th anniversary in 2020, and we need your help! Please send us your stories and photos with your memories of Environmental Works' past, present, and future. Share them with us through our 50th anniversary page, or email Gretchen to schedule an interview.

Brad Collins, EW's first paid staff member, sat down with us recently to share his memories of EW's early days. Brad was recruited on the UW campus for his community planning and activism skills. His work at EW shaped his professional path for decades after, as he continued to devote himself to community development and planning for municipalities. Brad remembers the all-hands-on-deck attitude of EW's founders, who sandblasted brick, removed firefighters' lockers, and dug out more than four feet of oil-soaked dirt from the interior of Fire Station 7 to transform it into the offices where we still provide services today.

ICYMI: In Case You Missed It

• Edmonds Waterfront Center groundbreaking: From Edmonds Senior Center Board president Bob Rinehart: "You think those drawings look wonderful? Just wait till you walk in the building. I guarantee you’ll be overwhelmed.”

• Fire Station 7 decked out for Pride Month

• EW welcomes Project Manager Mariana Gutheim

Spring 2019 News: GiveBIG May 8, Net-Zero Presentation May 16

Donate to EW between now and May 8 to fund our permanent supportive housing research project, working to make this proven model better with input from residents and staff!

Your 2018 GiveBIG donations made it possible for EW to retain an anthropologist, who collected insights from residents and staff at two facilities on which design elements they most value.  Your 2019 GiveBIG donation will support completion of research at a third permanent supportive housing facility, and creation of a user-friendly report to share findings on the most effective design features with housing providers, government officials, architects, contractors, and the general public.

Click here to donate, and here to read more about this project.  Thanks to sponsors Buchanan General Contracting and Hunt Engineering, and to project partners Catholic Housing Services, Compass Housing, Low Income Housing Institute, and Community House Mental Health Agency.

Interested in ultra-high energy efficient design?  How about innovative spaces and programs for people coming out of long-term homelessness, and addressing mental health issues and addiction?  Then please join us on Thursday, May 16, for our presentation in honor of Affordable Housing Week.  EW staff Christina Congdon and Bill Singer will share images and stories about Clare's Place, a net-zero permanent supportive housing facility designed by EW that will open this summer in Everett.  A project of the City of Everett and Catholic Housing Services, Clare's Place will generate all of its own energy thanks to a pilot grant from the Washington State Housing Trust Fund.  Bill and Christina will be joined by Scott Schreffler from GGLO, the design team for Washington's other project receiving a UHEE pilot grant from HTF: Housing Hope's HopeWorks Station II in Everett.

For more information or to RSVP (optional), please visit our Facebook event page.

49th Anniversary Earth Day Open House Launches EW Story-Gathering

Many thanks for joining us at our April 12 Open House, celebrating our 49th anniversary!  We loved hearing your inspiring, thoughtful, and funny stories about Environmental Works over the past several decades.

The Open House kicked off our story-gathering project in preparation for EW's 50th anniversary in 2020.  Do you have anything to share - anecdotes of EW's scrappy beginnings? EW projects or people who especially inspired you or made you proud?  If so, please contact us!  Submit stories and photos through our story-gathering page, or contact Gretchen to schedule a time to be recorded.

World Landscape Architecture Month

April was World Landscape Architecture Month!  Please check out our Instagram for beautiful images of projects designed by our talented new landscape architecture team.