Senior Aerospace Absolute Manufacturing won the President’s Award and Jeff Roe, CEO of Premera Blue Cross won Executive of the Year as more than 500 representatives of Snohomish County companies, nonprofits, school districts, labor unions and government agencies celebrated the close of United Way of Snohomish County’s Community Caring Campaign.
The raised funds support 106 multi-year grants. The grants address both immediate needs in the priority investment areas that were identified by community members, and long-term solutions through United Way initiatives that focus on education, financial stability and English language learners.
“2014 was a deeply moving year for Snohomish County with the devastating mudslide last March and the school shooting in October,” said Dr. Dennis Smith, president and CEO of United Way of Snohomish County. “As often happens in such circumstances, however, these challenges brought out the best in our community: generosity and resiliency.”
“In fact, 13,000 individuals from 300 workplaces contributed to this year’s campaign,” he added.
Senior Aerospace Absolute Manufacturing of Arlington won the top award — in part for almost doubling the money they raised for their campaign, tripling their corporate gift and tripling employee participation. Several of their employees live in Darrington, which made choosing to do their Days of Caring project at the Darrington Community Center an easy decision. Absolute staff member Trina Massingale also won an Employee Campaign Manager of the Year Award.
Jeff Roe, president and CEO of Premera Blue Cross, won United Way’s top individual award: Executive of the Year. Roe, despite transitioning into his new role and replacing Premera’s former CEO Gubby Barlow just as the campaign started, was was unstoppable. He gave the campaign his full support, joining United Way’s Tocqueville Society and board of directors. Premera, which set the record for largest workplace campaign last year set a new record in 2014 by raising $645,000.
“I am proud to say that United Way received support from throughout the entire county,” said Jerry Goodwin, United Way’s 2014 campaign chair and CEO of Senior Aerospace. “We built community together by working with large corporations; small, family-owned businesses, nonprofits; government agencies and labor unions.”
Other notable award winners included the Marysville School District Campaign Team and Comcast.
The Labor Partnership Award went to a coalition of groups involved in the Marysville School District campaign. They put their United Way campaign on hold temporarily after the tragic shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School last October, but decided that one way to help the community move forward was to come together and finish the campaign.
The United Way Community Caring campaign includes contributions to the various United Way campaigns, the Combined Federal Campaign and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing Puget Sound. The largest, single contributions come in the form of grants from the Employees Community Fund of Boeing Puget Sound ($1.86 million) and The Boeing Company ($725,000).
Platinum event sponsors included AT&T and The Boeing Company. Premier event sponsors included The Everett Clinic, Jamco America, Inc. and Union Bank. Presenting sponsors included Fluke Corporation, Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, Puget Sound Energy and Tulalip Resort Casino. Media and in-kind sponsors included The Daily Herald, Microsoft, GoodSide Studio and Stadium Flowers.
United Way of Snohomish County will be celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2015. Josh O’Connor, publisher of The Herald, and Larry Hanson, publisher emeritus, will co-chair United Way’s 2015 campaign.
March 12, 2015
Events in Everett, Everett