It seems to be the season for graduation and change, and it’s no different for the 2009 Leadership Portland class, who graduated into Alumni-hood today. I went to the event at NW Natural, who graciously hosted the event, and was sincerely blown away by the amazing community projects the class put together.

Broken up into 6 teams, the 34 member class was give the charge of benefiting a community nonprofit with a project. The nonprofits who garnered the support from the teams were Open Meadow, Hands On Greater Portland, Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland, Young Entrepreneurs, Friendly House and Sowing Seeds of Success. From generating marketing concepts to creating a program gives kids needed dental services, all the projects gave back to the community in a meaningful way.

Congratulations, graduates. Thank you to the Portland Business Alliance for continuing such an important program for leaders, and the member companies who sponsored the class participation. Also, a big thank you goes out to the Leadership Portland Program Committee, made up largely of past graduates, who help put on the program days throughout the year.

Introducing the Leadership Portland Class of 2009:

Mayra Arreola, OAME; Ann Berryman, OMSI; Jeff Borlaug, Norris, Beggs & Simpson; Kacia Brockman, Energy Trust of Oregon, Kristen Brown, NW Natural; Rebecca Brown, Comcast; Toni Carlo, United Way of Columbia-Willamette; R.J. Cervantes, Office of Multnomah County, Commissioner Deborah Kafoury; Bill Christensen, Portland Trail Blazers; Michelle Correll, Wells Fargo; Sarah Crooks, Perkins Coie; Shuki Einstein, CH2M HILL; Jennifer Ewell, Knowledge Learning Corporation; Lisa Fajardo-Faust, Pacific Continental Bank; Caroline Harris Cowne, Tonkon Torp LLP; Dana Haynes, Portland Community College; Margie Humphreys, Portland Center for the Performing Arts; Lisa Hylton, Willamett University for MBA Professionals; Craig Johanson, Hitachi Consulting; Leanne Johnston, Elliott Associates, Inc.; Brandon Kirkbride, Bank of America; Elizabeth Knight, Dunn Carney Allen Higgins & Tongue, LLP; David Lippoff, Edelman; Anthony Miller, Stepping Stone Solutions; Lexie Mobley, Consolidated Federal Credit Union; Stephanie Morgan, American Red Cross Oregon Trail Chapter; Kari Nordquist, ACME Business Consulting, LLC; Matthew Norman, Fortis Construction Inc.; Jeon Resvani, Con-way; Veronica Rinard, Travel Portland; Ryan Robinson, Oregon State University Foundation; Gregory Saliba, Capital Pacific Bank; Jeffery Savage, Wells Fargo, Stan Sittser, Portland General Electric; Dana Tierney, Regence; Cyrus Vafi, US Bank.

The other day someone asked me what eROI did for this new Leadership Portland blog, since their name is proudly at the top as the blog sponsor.

Alex, Amanda, Megan and Stephen, the eROI team. (From top left)

Well, the quick answer is, they did it all. And isn’t it amazing?

I think we all need to take a second, step back and say thanks.

Alex told us what a great job they could do (aka strategy), Megan held our hand during the process and put up with our color indecision (aka project management), Amanda handled the web development flawlessly, and Stephen did the beautiful design work.

You know how you can feel what a great place to work a company is, just by dealing with the people who work there? Well, let me tell you, eROI must be a great place to work, because the people are terrific, and as you can see, they do great work. I wouldn’t ever want to build a blog, website or email campaign without them. If you have a project they would be good for – consider them, won’t you?

On behalf of the Leadership Portland Alumni Association, thanks, eROI for building us this tool to communicate with our members. You were wonderful.

If you get a second, make sure you thank them in the comments.

At long last, this is your site. We’ve tweaked, and worked, and worked to get this site up and running. So bookmark it now. Comeback often. Participate. Comment. Blog. Enjoy.

A couple of housekeeping items:

• You’ll be getting occasional emails from us updating you on what’s going on with Leadership Portland, this blog, and other important updates. Please make sure we don’t end up in your spam filter, and pretty please, don’t opt out!
• Join us March 18 at 5:30 p.m. at Roots Brewing for our monthly event – remember, we buy the first round of snacks and cocktails.
• Have a story idea? Let us know at info@leadershipportland.com

We think we’ll have some interesting content for you, and this is what you’ve asked for – a place that’s your own, where you can get your updates out and find your classmates.

A special thank you goes to the good folks over at eROI who have worked with us to launch this site and provide our email updates. Thank you, eROI, you do terrific work.

Welcome our first site authors who have taken the plunge to provide our first content. Interested in contributing? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

Did I mention that you should bookmark the site now? And keep coming back? Good. Now enjoy.

Dr. Seuss’ book, “Oh The Places You’ll Go!” could be should be the official playbook of Leadership Portland.

In February, several of the 2009 LP cohort got an invitation to attend the final dress rehearsal of Oregon Ballet Theatre’s production of “Lambarena.” It was simply amazing.

First, it was a full dress, so the show we saw was the show paying customers would see. Except they stopped from time to time to make some minor adjustment (they literally practiced taking bows after the performances). There were, maybe, 50 people in the audience (Katy King, my girlfriend, and I decided to dress up), consisting of friends and family members of the troupe.

The show consisted of three very different dances: “Ash,” “The Right of Spring” and “Lambarena,” the last of which combined Bach and African drums. Simply amazing.

During the first intermission, the Leadership Portland group got a backstage tour of the Keller Auditorium. I’m an ex-theater geek, so as you can imagine, it was kid-in-a-candy-shop time for me.

Literally, this is the reason one joins Leadership Portland. To stand in places we otherwise would never, ever get to stand. Oh, the places we’ve gone…

I was excited that we were getting this blog off the ground for one big reason: the opportunity to connect to my 2005 (was it that long ago?) Leadership Portland Class. So, if you’re in my class, or you’re in another year, connect with this blog. Add it to your Favorites. Check it. Sign up for the email updates. Mostly, because we’ll try to be interesting and relevant, but we can’t without your input. This is the tool we’ve always wanted, and it’s taken awhile. So use it. Love it. Your input will make it great.