Month: June 2023

It seems everywhere I go I hear people talking about pickleball!  You, too? Pickleball is decades old, but it seems to be exploding right now.  Did you hear that pickleball was made the official sport of Washington State?  This YouTube video about the 5 Stages of Pickleball seems to really hit the mark! https://youtu.be/tYX5l6js01U I’m for anything that helps people improve their health, get away from screens and interact with people in-person!  So, I gave it a try. Pickleball is a great sport that people of nearly any age can play.  It’s easy to learn and you can have fun from your very first game.  In fact, I put my novice pickleball skills to work against one of the sport’s most loyal fans – Chris Egan of KING-5 Sports!  Chris…

I have been looking forward to this weekend for quite a while.  I will be hosting four of my classmates from the U.S. Naval Academy, including three from out of state.  The weather looks to be fantastic for showing off Puget Sound!  But it will be more about sharing our experiences since we left Annapolis 40 years ago.  Two were in destroyers, two were on submarines, and I was an engineer.  Two served careers in the Navy and one became the first Filipino admiral! That sense of common background and connection is part of the impetus for creating the County’s Employee Resource Group (ERG) program. I mentioned in this blog a few weeks ago that we had launched groups aligned with employees who are Veterans, Hispanic/Latine, LGBTQ+ and African American/Black.…

  I really enjoy getting out to see first-hand the work you and your County colleagues do.  The only thing that makes it better is when I can share these experiences with our residents.  That is why we started the video series "Inside Pierce County."  I wanted to offer our community a look behind the scenes at our work on their behalf. So far we have shot more than two dozen episodes, taking viewers to the Sheriff’s evidence room, an autopsy, a fire investigation, out plowing snow, and many more places.  I hope you’ve watched at least a few of them! And video is a great way to showcase your work.  We can tell your story in a way that is both visually interesting, educational and fun for the viewer. …

It all started with a long-distance phone call between two brothers, comparing notes about what was going on at work. It turns out that GuHun Kwon, a Case Manager in our Medicaid Case Management program, has a brother, GuTaek, in Seoul, South Korea, who works as a Director of a Social Services Center.  Their conversations eventually led to a delegation of 8 leaders from Yangcheon-Gu, South Korea, “stopping by” Tacoma to meet with Pierce County Human Services after a tour of similar programs in Canada. Yangcheon is a district (or “Gu”) of Seoul, South Korea.  Its population is 439,000, and it covers just over 6.7 square miles (for a population density of 70,000 residents/sq. mile).  Compared to Pierce County, with its population of 921,000 and 1670 square miles (a density…