KUOW Board of Directors Welcomes New Members
January 14, 2025
Seattle, WA — KUOW is thrilled to welcome seven new members to the KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio (PSPR) Board of Directors. Mylene Barizo, Wallace Bryant, Karen Kalish, Sharon N. Kioko, Colin Peterson, Laura Ruderman, Jim Simon joined the Board in September.
The KUOW PSPR Board of Directors provides fiscal oversight and management of affairs, property, and interests, ensuring the station meets its goals, steering KUOW towards a sustainable future by providing insight for ethical governance and financial management practices. KUOW is committed to engaging a diverse leadership board. Of the 24 members, 52% identify as female, 44%as male; 4% as non-binary; 44% are between the ages of 30 and 49; and 44% of directors identify as a person of color.
New Board Members
Mylene Barizo: Emigrating from Manila to LA as a child, Mylene Barizo never imagined a corporate career. Challenging cultural and family expectations, she rose to VP of HR at Enterprise Holdings and served as the Sr. Executive Director of HR to the CIO at The Boeing Company. Mylene led teams, innovations in HR, and built people strategies with executives. Find her blog, services, and projects focused on diversity and elevating women/BIPOC talent at www.leadership-ladder.com.
Wallace Bryant: Wallace is currently a Director of Finance with ISS Facility Services, the U.S. subsidiary of a global company specializing in workplace experience and facility management. His responsibilities include partnering with both internal management and client organizations to provide strategic fiscal management and guidance. Prior to joining ISS, Wallace held similar positions in various companies, including BGIS, CBRE, Johnson Controls, OpenSquare, Fluke Networks, and Carrier.
Karen Kalish: Karen is a serial social entrepreneur focused on literacy, closing the opportunity and achievement gaps in low-performing schools, and ending all forms of discrimination, especially racial. She started three nonprofits and a program: Operation Understanding DC in Washington, DC, and Cultural Leadership and HOME WORKS! The Teacher Home Visit Program in St. Louis. The program was Books and Badges in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. In Seattle she hosts Friendraisers for candidates, issues, and nonprofits; and is supporting a pilot in a Seattle Public Elementary School to show the power of parental engagement. She has met over 400 people in her two+ years here, says yes to everything and is excited to be a new board member of KUOW.
Sharon N. Kioko: Sharon is a nationally recognized public financial management scholar, is an Associate Professor at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. Professor Kioko's research has primarily focused on the financial condition of state and local governments, the relevance and significance of financial information in the capital markets, the impact voter initiatives including tax and expenditure limits have on states and their localities.
Colin Peterson: Colin Peterson is the Chief Development Officer for the American Red Cross Northwest Region. He has been with the Red Cross for 10 years, specializing in fundraising and corporate partnerships. Colin’s professional life has been dedicated to serving local and global communities by mobilizing resources for humanitarian, international, and cultural organizations.
Laura Ruderman: Prior to joining the Technology Alliance in 2019, Laura Ruderman served as the Interim PAC Director for the Children’s Campaign Fund. Prior to that, she represented the 45th district in the State House of Representatives, where she served as the Vice Chair of the Technology, Telecommunications, and Energy Committee and was elected as the Vice Chair of her party’s caucus. She also held a variety of positions at Microsoft and has been a fundraising professional for a wide range of non-profit organizations. She has served on the boards of organizations ranging from the King County Library System Foundation to Ventures, a Seattle-based nonprofit that empowers aspiring entrepreneurs. She currently serves on her neighborhood association board as well as the board of the Ada Developers Academy.
Jim Simon: Jim is a veteran journalist and passionate advocate for local news. He is currently an adjunct lecturer at the University of Washington, where he frequently teaches the News Lab class and has taught previous classes on covering politics, immigrant and refugee communities and health care issues. Jim was managing editor from 2017-2020 of Honolulu Civil Beat, a nonprofit, online news site that specializes in watchdog and in-depth reporting of Hawaii and the Pacific. Civil Beat won the general excellence award for small news sites in 2019 by the Online News Association. He is also the former managing editor at the Seattle Times, where he worked more than three decades as a reporter and editor. As a senior editor, he helped lead reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2010 and 2015. He was the paper’s chief political reporter, senior environmental reporter, Sunday magazine writer and head of the Olympia bureau. He has won national reporting awards for his investigative coverage of the environment and the state’s mental health system. Prior to joining The Times, he was a United Press International reporter in the Philippines. He also has extensive experience as a teacher and trainer in Indonesia and East TImor. He is currently a board member of the Washington Coalition for Open Government and a former president of the Associated Press Media Editors (APME) board. Simon has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.
View full Board member bios, committees and meeting dates here.