Biography

First elected in 2006, Larry serves on the House Ways & Means Committee, the Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee (where he is the Vice Chair), and the Early Learning and Children’s Services Committee.  In addition he serves on the legislative committee which oversees the Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program (LEAP) and on the Select Committee on Pension Policy.

A former US Navy warship captain and Pentagon strategist, Larry enjoyed all of his 32 year career in the U.S. Navy.   In addition to commanding four warships, including the battleship USS IOWA in operations all around the globe, Larry served in a several senior positions in the Pentagon where he helped shape budget and national security strategy in the offices of the Secretary of Defense, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.   Larry launched a second career helping citizens and political leaders strengthen their communities through community building and conflict prevention.  Working with UNESCO’s Director-General in Paris and often with heads of state, he invested more than a decade designing and demonstrating innovative conflict prevention and community development strategies in a number of at-war and at-risk countries including Jordan, Palestine and Israel in the Middle East,  Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, Sri Lanka in South Asia, and Colombia in Latin America.  Translating those insights to American cities, he also worked with community and university leaders in Seattle/King County, Washington DC, and Columbus, Ohio to pioneer locally-led community revitalization strategies.

A frequent lecturer and writer, Larry has conducted advanced seminars on innovative community and security strategy at Harvard, Stanford, George Washington, and American Universities, military colleges, and the Evergreen State College.  He has published numerous opinion pieces in the Christian Science Monitor and other papers.  Joining the blogosphere, he writes a regular blog on the economy and state budget strategy,  “Forehanded” on his personal website,  http://forehandedwa.com.

An active member of his community who works closely with local elected officials, Larry is a member of both the Gig Harbor and Port Orchard Chambers of Commerce.  Larry and his wife of 32 years, Carla, a playwright and writer, reside in Gig Harbor. Carla’s new book is “Manufacturing Hope: Post-9/11 Notes on Politics, Culture, Torture, and the American Character.”

 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS:

Ways and Means Committee

Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee (Vice Chair)

Early Learning and Children’s Services Committee

Select Committee on Pension Policy Committee

Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program Committee

 

LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES FOR 2010:

We’re at the bottom of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Ahead we likely face a decade of continuing hard times as our state’s businesses, workers, and governments reshape themselves to the new realities of the 21^st Century.   My top priority is pushing for our legislature and our state to turn these hard times into opportunity.  We must be clear-eyed about what we need to change if our citizens, our businesses -- and our lands and waters – are to thrive in the decades ahead. 

As a fiscal conservative, I believe strongly that we cannot buy our way into a brighter future merely with more government spending.   We do want to deliver certain programs and services for the benefit of all in the most efficient, cost-effective way.  But we must make some fundamental changes in our design of government agencies and spending programs.  Here are five of the specific things I’m working on this year:

·      Cutting back – way back – on the number of senior executives in our state agencies.  My bill, HB-2049, signed by the governor in 2009, launched a search to find out just many executives we have in our various senior services – the Washington Management Service and various “at will” exempt appointments.  The total will be well more than 5,500 executives.  I’m working with a bi-partisan team of legislators to cut those numbers back.  We do want top-quality people running our agencies, of course.  I’m hopeful we can redesign our executive ranks to give us high quality leadership at much lower cost in a way which helps our regular rank and file employees do their professional best.

 

·      Cutting back – way back – on the waste in our ferry service.  We run the third largest ferry service in the world.  Unfortunately, we have grown a headquarters staff which appears to be over-sized and under-performing. With the advice of many career ferry service professionals, I’m working with a number of “ferry caucus” legislators to cut costs and improve our “marine highway” service which is so important to the people and businesses all up and down the Sound.

 

·      Improving – radically improving – the effectiveness of our basic education system.  While we have many high performing schools, the fact is that almost one third of our youth are not graduating from high school these days.  Worse, a significant number of those who do get a high school diploma can’t start their career or college education until they finish “remedial” schooling they need to perform at the college level.  Working with a group of West Sound educators, I started a “Vitamin E(ducation)” project to develop some innovative approaches to improving education outcomes by supporting our teaching team’s natural abilities to improve themselves.  Another key piece is to expand and professionalize our early learning programs all across the state.  The first step in raising high school graduation rates is to raise the readiness-to-learn levels of our kindergartners.

 

·      Improving – radically improving – the cost-effectiveness of our health care systems.  I’ve sponsored several pieces of key legislation to improve the numbers and effectiveness of our primary care providers.  I work especially carefully on youth health – with our Apple Health for Kids program we have 96% of all kids in the state covered with health insurance.  Now I’m working to turn those statistics into healthy kids who are regularly seeing their doctors for preventive checkups and to see how far we can begin to meld youth health concerns into the regular school regimen.

 

·      Changing – step by step – our approach to environmental policy.  I’m a radical environmentalist – meaning that I’m deeply convinced that our future prosperity as a state hinges on the combination of excellent stewardship of our lands and waters and our rapid adoption of innovative approaches to energy generation and distribution.  We’re not getting there fast enough, in part because we’re still stuck in some old, ‘stovepipe’ ways of organizing our environmental policies.  Working with environmental scientists, our state professionals, and local innovators, I’m pushing for new, ‘whole-system’ syntheses so our policies and programs are definitively moving us forward.

What do you think? What are your priorities?  And what concrete, practical – and affordable – steps would you propose to get there?  I look forward to hearing from you.

 

PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL:

Born and raised on a farm family in Idaho and Oregon.
 

Interrupted college to work as a polar weather observer, wintering over both in the Arctic and in the Antarctic.
 

Graduated from Oregon State College in 1963 in General Science.
 

After enlisting in the Naval Reserve in 1962, gained a commission through Officers Candidate School. Went on to command four warships, including the battleship USS IOWA, in operations all around the world.
 

Appointed a Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
 

Served in a series of strategy assignments in the Pentagon, including duty in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
 

Completed a 32 year Navy career in 1994.
 

Since then Larry has invested his time and energy in creating innovative approaches to peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and community development.

COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIPS:

Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce
 

Port Orchard Chamber of Commerce (and its Military Committee).