By Candice Richardson
The Seattle Medium
Lawrence Garrett is full of energy, pacing back and forth in his office as he talks. He asks if I mind but he’s had a full day in meetings, often sitting, and he says he wants to get his blood moving. As the Executive Director of Advancing Leadership, a non-profit organization in Federal Way, Garrett is often meeting with various people throughout King County who range from high school students to members of city councils, to corporate executives. His mission: “to build a better community.” His method to accomplish it: overseeing a program that brings together a diverse group of individuals willing to work together to create positive change year by year, project by project.
“We arm people with knowledge and skill sets to make our communities a better place to live, a safer place to live, a more enjoyable place to live, a vibrant place to live,” says Garrett, who is Advancing Leadership’s first African American Executive Director in the nearly 20 years the organization has been in existence.
“I went through the Advancing Leadership program in 2010 and really bought into the idea and concept of community-based leadership programs where you infuse community engagement and support with the idea of leadership training at the same time,” Garrett states.
According to the Howard graduate, who studied political science and economics, Advancing Leadership was a refreshing experience after a brief stint at a lobbying firm in Washington D.C. and working in sales, securities and investments. He migrated his way to Seattle primarily due to Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans just seven months after he settled there in January 2005.
“The city would never be the same again and I wanted to get as opposite from the Southeast as possible. What’s opposite of Southeast? The Northwest,” Garrett says with a chuckle. “I think I was just looking for a fresh start somewhere else.”
After settling in as a Business Consultant at Roberts and Associates, an insurance firm in Tacoma, Garrett was offered the opportunity to join Advancing Leadership’s nine-month program which gathered professionals across different industries together once a month for a unique style of leadership training.
“It was a model I hadn’t heard of before,” states Garrett. “I was really fascinated by the idea of having different industries and different backgrounds of individuals being part of the same cohort because all my work experience in regards to conferences and trainings was typically people who were in your field already. But to have medical people and people in the education industry, people from the fire department and people from Fortune 500 corporations…to have such a blend of backgrounds and diversity of perspective and thinking was really fascinating to me.”
Shortly after graduating the program Garrett was offered a seat on the board and in 2014 was named Executive Director.
“Advancing Leadership has had a very positive impact in the Federal Way community for many, many years, and recruiting and finding Lawrence to fulfill the leadership void was a huge success story,” says Federal Way’s Chief of Police Andy Hwang, who graduated from the program in 2000 and formerly held position as President of the organization. “[Advancing Leadership] gives you an opportunity see other disciplines and how it all works together to keep the community healthy and secure. You learn that no one entity can do it alone and that we are all in it together.”
What makes Advancing Leadership so special, says Garrett, is the fact that participants don’t just sit in a lecture style conference for nine months. They become hands-on in the environment of the community learning about the different “eco-systems” of their city including how city services, agencies, and departments work, the current economy of the city, as well as the education system, tourism and diversity. Because of this, Garrett says participants have a stronger insight and perspective on how to trouble shoot problems in the community.
“My participation in Advancing Leadership definitely broadened my knowledge of this community’s history, resources, and the way the city operates,” says Robin Corak, CEO of Multi Service Center who sat on Advancing Leadership’s board with Garrett in 2012 and is a 2004 graduate. “I have a much better awareness and appreciation of the vast diversity of individuals residing in our community.”
One way Garrett says Advancing Leadership connects leaders to the community is through the Community Project. The Community Project acts as a hands-on learning lab requiring participants to utilize everything they’ve learned over the course of the program as it relates to leadership, teamwork, and community to reach a shared goal while addressing a stated need in that community and creating lasting impact. Each year the Community Project differs and past projects have included everything from elementary tutoring programs and public murals to last year’s partnership with South King Fire and Rescue to create a “Save A Life Saturday” where hundreds of local diverse residents were invited to learn CPR in several different languages.
In 2004 the community project was to create an off-shoot of Advancing Leadership called Advancing Leadership Youth (ALY) which was specifically designed to nurture leadership skills in teenagers. The program is comprised of high school sophomores and juniors who come from a variety of cultures and economic backgrounds. Like Advancing Leadership, ALY participants meet once a month and complete a community project before graduating from the program. Students who participate in ALY can also get high school credit.
“The growth [for ALY participants] really happens on a mentoring and coaching level,” says Garrett. “They learn how to navigate through social spaces while uncovering hidden rules and roles people play is a vital skill that’s far too often overlooked.”
“Many of our kids, especially from marginalized backgrounds are not taught the social cues necessary to thrive in spaces that were not built for them,” Garrett continued. “They learn networking. The larger your network, the wider you can travel through various interest and talents you possess. And they learn how to negotiate…The goal is to uncover our own value while discovering how that is valuable to someone else and then presenting the opportunity or ‘value exchange.’”
While both the Advancing Leadership and ALY programs have reached positive milestones, seeing over 900 graduates in the adult program and over 450 graduates in the youth program, Garrett maintains that expanding diversity of the program which is roughly 65 percent White, remains his main challenge and number one goal.
“Part of the challenge there is getting more people involved and applying for our program.” says Garrett. “We should be an organization that is reflective of our community…For the last two years it’s been a personal campaign of mine to personally reach out to what I would refer to as ‘silo communities,’ those who are not necessarily groups with established power or have access to it. It’s an ongoing campaign and what I’ve found it takes time to build relationships and to build trust.”
“Lawrence is a passionate, vibrant, charismatic leader [who] cares deeply about Advancing Leadership and the participants who go through the program,” Corak says. “Lawrence has a knack for connecting businesses and people in the community to Advancing Leadership, particularly those who haven’t been previously engaged and aren’t typically engaged in our community in these types of programs. Under his leadership, Lawrence has broadened Advancing Leadership’s visibility.”
And that visibility is quickly expanding beyond the city of Federal Way. Having received support from Highline College and naming South King Fire and Rescue as 2016’s Community Project recipient, Garrett aims to spread awareness that Advancing Leadership is a program that is designed to serve the greater community of King County, not just one city.
“If someone from outside of Federal Way city limits, was looking at Advancing Leadership and was just trying to get an idea of who are we, my response would be that we’re a capacity-building organization that uplifts, supports every other organization,” says Garrett. “These are stakeholders in our community. We’ve permeated the culture of how people see and do things here. When you invest in us, you invest in everything else.”
