As a younger environmental, higher education and GLBT rights activist Western States Center's ALMP program helped to focus my organziing skills and political work to better incorporate a race and gender analysis. Now 15 years later as a government employee I continue to incorporate lessons learned from Western States Center to advocate for equity and inclusion in public governance. With the City of Portland's Office of Neighborhood Involvement I manage roughly $3M in civic engagement work that now includes grants for civic engagement funding for community of color and immigrant/refugee groups as well as new resources for neighborhood groups to reach out to people who've traditionally not been involved with City governance. Every step of the way in my work I've utilized leadership training models from The Center. Some of my fondest organizing memories are from working with Cascade AIDS Project in the mid-90's. I developed a training program for young gay/bi/trans men and men of color to help build community-based organizations that could respond to the epidemic with culturally appropriate organizing methods. Our year-long training program looked alot like ALMP. WSC's focus on issue campaign strategy has also guided me through several statewide electoral campaigns. It was a joy to be able to work with SEIU as both a member organizer mobilizing a successful union campaign at CAP and then later with the statewide Oregon SEIU in a successful campaign to defeat and counteract Bill Sizemore's anti-government/anti-union ballot measures. Best wishes to Western States Center and its many partners in fighting the good fight over the next 20 years.