SPOKANE, Wash. — Lisa Brown brings a unique background to her role as Spokane’s mayor, taking office in January after a tightly contested race.
She came to Spokane in 1980 as an associate professor of economics at Eastern Washington University, going on to teach at Gonzaga University and later serving as chancellor of Washington State University’s Spokane health sciences campus. In Olympia, she served as a state representative, senator, and Senate majority leader, later becoming director of the Washington State Department of Commerce.
Brown spoke with GeekWire as part of our “GeekWire on the Road” series about the future of Spokane’s innovation economy, including its designation as one of 31 inaugural Tech Hubs across the nation by the Biden-Harris administration through the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Continue reading for highlights, edited for clarity and brevity.
What has it been like, coming back and focusing on Spokane in a different way than you have in the past?
Mayor Lisa Brown: Well, it has felt a little bit like a full-circle moment at different points in time. I love it. My background is in economics, and I’m probably a little bit of a frustrated economic developer at heart. And so I’ve always been all about the things that I think can really help this city and this region achieve better prospects for especially the people who are less well-off.
We still have a very challenged environment where about a third of my neighbors are economically struggling, and I see the path for them being higher education and good jobs that come about because of economic development. So there’s a lot of things to do when you’re running a city, but the most fun things for me are when we’re thinking about this regional economic development picture and how we can be a good partner to it.
How would you assess the potential of tech and innovation to drive that broader economy?
Brown: The potential of tech is really significant because it is part of everything else. It’s part of all the other clusters that we have worked to develop in Spokane. And I will say, as opposed to when I arrived here as a grad student in the 1980s, Spokane’s regional economy is much more diversified, but tech is a piece of all of it.
It’s a piece of our aerospace economy, and that is validated by the Tech Hub designation.
It’s definitely a piece of our health sciences economy, and I would say an example of that is the recent expansion of Jubilant HollisterStier here.
As the tech workforce looks for desirable places to live, Spokane is on the map as one of those places because of our quality of life and our river and our outdoor recreation. Things like Rover having a corporate office here, that’s because of that piece, also because we’re all dog lovers.
And then there’s even other pieces that you wouldn’t think of as much. The whole cross-laminated timber aspect of sustainable building is happening here, both with WSU research, but also with some companies that are in the manufacturing aspect of it.
Tech innovation is really just going to be central to all the different ways that the economy is going to grow and the diversification of that economy, which makes it ultimately stronger over the business cycle.
Looking at the transition reports for your new administration, one of the bullet points was to make sure that Spokane stands out from the other Tech Hubs. How do you think you can do that?
Brown: We’re going to have to do it through collaboration and breaking down some of those silos of competition, particularly when it comes to all the higher ed institutions. So that’s what I see as my next challenge. You don’t normally always think of the mayor as the convener of higher ed, but I think of them as my people, because I worked at Gonzaga, Eastern, and WSU.
Pulling together all the higher ed institutions to talk about their role in the workforce development and in the non-traditional, non-degree certifications, and the quick ability to adapt to workforce needs, I think that’s what we need to do in order to really make ourselves stand out. We’re the place that we will get your workforce needs met.
What are the biggest challenges that you foresee in building Spokane’s innovation economy from where it is today?
Brown: Well, workforce is one. A second one that we’re also working on is having locations ready to go with infrastructure and environmental certifications and just everything turnkey. This is something that it’s not unique to Spokane, but Washington state hasn’t necessarily been a leader in having that speed and preparation of those sites. And so we’re working on that already. I’m really thrilled that I inherited a good economic development director, Steve MacDonald, and a really great planner, Spencer Gardner.
“[W]e’re going to have to do it through collaboration and breaking down some of those silos of competition, particularly when it comes to all the higher ed institutions.”
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown
We don’t have a port district in Spokane. That’s an economic development engine in a lot of parts of the state, but we’re making the most of our public development authorities and really utilizing them. I’m on the board of the University District Public Development Authority, but we also have one in Northeast Spokane, which we see as really ripe for manufacturing and for tech. And then we have one in West Plains near the airport.
And so those are really the tools that we’re utilizing to create sites and infrastructure to sites. So West Plains, the interconnectivity there is great. There’s a transloader facility and a really great airport. And so transportation and speed and getting things here and there is part of it. So we’re trying to overcome any comparative disadvantages by thinking ahead, utilizing those tools.
How do you convince graduating students who come in from other parts of the country for college here to stay in Spokane, and how do you create the ingredients for them to want to stay?
Brown: A lot of that is about vibrancy downtown and the creative economy and arts and culture. And so that’s the other thing that I’ve always tried to be a champion of in the different roles that I’ve had. When I was in the Legislature, I helped create the film tax credit, and we now have movies and TV series being filmed in Spokane and a movie studio on the West Plains.
And then just music, arts and culture. We already have the natural environment and lifestyle that many young people want in terms of outdoor recreation year-round. But you can’t take that for granted. You have to work on it and build it. And so we’re working to build our bike-pedestrian infrastructure as well in our trails. Our north-south corridor is not just a freeway. It truly is a corridor, and the new Children of the Sun bike trail is going to be opening soon, and the connectivity there that you can get on your bike. And I can get on my bike from outside my back door and ride it all the way to Coeur d’Alene.
Those are the kinds of things that also are very appealing to young people that they might not know when they decide, “Hey, I’m going to Gonzaga,” but then they discover it after they get here.
Our other challenge, by the way, is affordable housing, and so, like many other places, we’re working hard on that one because that’s the other key to keeping young people and making it work for young families.
It’s funny how everything’s relative.
Brown: I think compared to Seattle, you would find it quite affordable here. Let’s just put it that way.
Talking with various people around Spokane, there’s a variety of bets going on, health and life sciences, aerospace … it’s dispersed. And I wonder if that’s going to work, or if there needs to be a bet on one or two as the most promising. What are your thoughts on that?
Brown: Well, I think you’re right. I think that that is something of a risk. On the other hand, we’ve consistently doubled down over decades on health sciences, and that is definitely not going to go away, and it’s only going to continue to grow.
That would really hit home for me during my campaign as I was just randomly knocking on doors in important neighborhoods. And a woman came to the door, and she’s like, “Hey, I’m a medical student at the WSU Medical School,” and realizing that that’s going to have that long-term impact on our economy.
The one we haven’t mentioned yet, that I think really possibly is very significant for us, is innovation as it applies to clean energy and to building sustainability. I would say those two things are areas that we might see become even more significant for the region. And again, that’s a lot about partnerships, private sector partnerships with [energy company] Avista as they work to meet their climate goals, and then research partnerships that go all the way to the Tri-Cities with PNNL [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory]. So that would be another area.
But I think you’re right. We can’t just say this is the area where it’s going to have the same kind of boom that has occurred on the west side. However, in some ways, it’s an advantage that it happens more slowly here because of the affordability and the quality-of-life issues. As a public sector, we have a little more time to get on top of them before they get out of control.