Joan McBride and Brady Walkinshaw both advance to the November general election!
Former Kirkland Mayor McBride has a 16-year record of delivering results. Now, the retired non-profit professional and award-winning community leader is ready to put that experience to work as a State Senator in Olympia.
Fifteen years ago, as a junior council member, McBride pushed for domestic partner benefits for the City of Kirkland, making Kirkland the first city to offer the benefits on the Eastside. As Mayor and on the Council, Joan served on the Finance Committee, which achieved a Triple-A bond rating for the City of Kirkland. An advocate for good government, Joan also oversaw the annexation of 35,000 residents, the purchase of the Cross Kirkland Corridor, and development of the Kirkland Transit Center and South Kirkland Park and Ride TOD. She initiated the Council Ethics Policy and Code of Conduct. Joan was also a champion for the recent parks and roads permanent levy, Youth and Senior councils, and Teen Center.
Walkinshaw is the son of an agricultural educator and a public school teacher who immigrated from Cuba, Walkinshaw was raised in a agricultural community in northwest Washington. He is a graduate of a rural public high school, in the community where he was raised. Walkinshaw past five years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Program Officer focused on food, nutrition and agriculture.
Prior to the Gates Foundation, Walkinshaw worked in Washington, D.C. with Georgetown University and the World Bank on interfaith dialogue between religious leaders on environmental and social justice issues. He studied public policy at Princeton University and worked as a Fulbright Scholar in Honduras. Brady founded Proyecto Villa Nueva, a small non-profit working on youth leadership and violence prevention for poor urban youth in Honduras. He’s been a member of the VCB since 2008 and has served as a trustee on several local and national boards, including the Trust for Public Land, Intiman Theatre, and Princeton University.
