The Dragon beckons…the Green Dragon that is. Join us in the beer garden this Thursday for happy hour and toast to a bold summer! 928 SE 9th is the grid square…be there at 5:30 ish. See you there!

Summer’s sunny rays, the company of bold, talented leaders, and delicious brews await you… 25 June at the glorious Green Dragon (928 SE 9th Ave ). Make your way to the cool outdoor beer garden for happy hour and conjure up some dreams of summer fun with your fellow alums. You deserve it!

This is our last happy hour event of the summer so if you want some inspiration and a cool beverage, join us on the 25th at “the Dragon”.

Make it a BOLD week!

As always, Portland Leaders turn up large. I want to personally congratulate each of you for all your hard work over the past year. As Theressa mentioned the 6 group Projects we’re awesome, inspiring and impactful. What an amazing opportunity for a people to get together, learn something, create something, improve something and have fun. Now I’m challenging all the past graduates to get motivated and make our final networking event fabulous. Take the time to attend our next event & rekindle those relationships from your class and make new friends too. Sue Melone will be posting our LAST event for the 2008-2009 year, as summer is time for slowing down, enjoying family, and taking time off to refuel ourselves. I look forward to seeing each you soon. But don’t worry, we’ll be back partying in the fall of 2009.

Lisa

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.

Special thanks to our LPAA Happy Hour hosts tonight: Urban Farmer and The Nines. As always, outstanding wait staff and interesting and fun food – and just a warning, the happy hour moonshine drink is *ahem* strong! Leadership Portland Alum Laura Van Daal even donated a night stay at the fancy pants Nines to the winner of the drawing of the class with the largest turnout.

After all the class of 2008 smack talk, they only had one class member show up. I’ll pause here so you can all scoff….congratulations to the Class of 2005 with the most participants, and Heather Busse, winner of the stay at the Nines.

During the evening, we were all discussing who the next prize donor should be – we’ve had two hotel donations from previous class member (thanks to the Portland Marriott and The Nines). My suggestion to Elia Popovich, 2005, and Foster Pepper attorney (hint, hint) was an hour of legal services. Maybe two.

I proceeded to ask him two questions and he told me my bill for $300 was in the mail. Just like an attorney.

We hope to see you all next time, and of course, prize donations are always welcome to info@leadershipportland.com, and we’ll work out the details.