Meeting the moment Meeting the moment Meeting the moment

In March, when Randy Engstrom was appointed director of the Seattle Center, he welcomed the opportunity to return to public service at a pivotal moment.

“I felt like I could come back and serve the city that I love, with an administration that I trust, and to do work that I thought could be meaningful,” says Engstrom, ’09, a graduate of the executive master of public administration program at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. “Local is the only place where change is possible in the next two to three years.”

Engstrom has a long history of shaping Seattle’s cultural landscape through the lens of racial equity and civic engagement. Under his leadership from 2012 to 2021, Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture expanded its national profile with its anti-racist framework for grantmaking and for restoring arts education to Seattle Public Schools through the Creative Advantage program. With Matthew Richter, he also co-founded the Cultural Space Agency and helped transform King Street Station into a hub for the arts community.

“Randy has an uncanny ability to synthesize what he hears into a vision for a shared future, and to effectively sell that vision back to the community, colleagues and even back to the wind itself,” Richter says. “He makes folks want to work toward that vision’s fulfillment.”

Engstrom credits the Evans School for teaching him strategic planning and preparing him for public service. “I chose a public administration degree, not an MFA. The Evans School shaped the trajectory of my life and my work at the intersection of cultural policy, creative economy and racial equity.”

He also says that Associate Professor Joaquín Herranz Jr., former member of the Seattle Arts Commission, “embodies many of the values of the Evans School: leading with equity, empathy and evidence.”

After leaving city government in 2020, Engstrom launched a consulting practice advising organizations including Grantmakers in the Arts and the Washington State Department of Commerce on arts policy, civic development and affordable housing.
Now, he oversees some of the city’s defining spaces, including the new Waterfront Park. Seattle Center has been around since the 1962 World’s Fair and welcomes up to 12 million visitors a year. The 64-year-old urban playground, with leaky roofs and degrading plumbing, is definitely showing its age.

“The scale of infrastructural change necessary creates a permission structure to think really big,” Engstrom says. “I’m excited to meet this moment and double down on how we support artists and creative businesses. It’s a good investment for the future of our city. I don’t believe it’s an act of charity. It’s an act of strategy.”

Lead photo: Courtesy Randy Engstrom