In a recent interview with Carolyn Bick for the Northwest Asian Weekly, Kelly Wicker—the current deputy chief of staff for Gov. Jay Inslee—talked about her storied career and what drives her to continue, these many years later. With more than 25 years of a career in politics and government behind her—a career that began with family-oriented civil rights activism and encompasses walking the road to victory on five out of five political campaigns she’s worked on—Wicker recently won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs’ Golden Celebration, which commemorated 50 years of service to the Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities statewide.
Gov. Jay Inslee embraces Kelly Wicker after she accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award at the CAPAA Golden Celebration on March 23, 2024. (Photo by Melissa Ponder)
Northwest Asian Weekly
Just for some background, how long have you worked in state government?
Wicker
I have worked in state government off and on for 26 years. Started in—that would be when I was 19. I had summer jobs growing up, but [my] first full-time job was about 26 years ago.
Northwest Asian Weekly
And what was it?
Wicker
I worked for Gary Locke, when he was governor. When he was first elected. I worked on his campaign and then I worked in the office.
And it hasn’t been continuous, which is why I say over 26 years, because I’ve also worked on five statewide political campaigns. And so I would take breaks from my government jobs to work on these political campaigns.
Northwest Asian Weekly
Actually, that goes pretty well into the next question, which is: What’s your background? And did anyone in your life influence your decision to pursue a career in government—in specific, politics and campaign work?
Wicker
Several people. I would start with my family. I come from a family of civil rights activist community leaders. Giving back to the community was instilled in me at a very young age. My family—my mother, and her parents, were incarcerated during World War II. My mom and the three oldest kids were born in [an incarceration] camp. And my grandparents were interned. And so that experience, I think, was a driving factor for many of my family members to be involved in community and civil rights issues.
Photo by Melissa Ponder
Other people I would note are leaders who have passed—Ruth Wu, Kip Tokuda, a former legislator. Of course, Gary Locke. I started volunteering on his campaign for governor back in 1996. When elected, he was the first Chinese American governor in the United States. And that was personally very inspiring and important to me to help him on his campaign.
And there’s a lot of national leaders within the Asian American community, too. Former congressman and U.S. transportation secretary Norman Mineta, former Congressman Bob Matsui—so a lot of leaders at the national level.
My family was very involved in the Japanese American Citizens League, known as JACL. They have chapters all over the country. And so, from a very young age, I volunteered. I was on the board [of the JACL]. I don’t know if you know the structure of the JACL, but there are local chapters, and then those feed into regions and then there’s the national umbrella organization. I was the national youth rep for our district for many years. And so I was just very involved in the JACL, which worked on many civil rights issues, not only for the Japanese American community, but the Asian American community at large.
Northwest Asian Weekly
And was your family’s involvement directly because of incarceration?
Wicker
Yes, I would say so. Part of JACL—not only was it one of the leading civil rights organizations, but also it was a sense of community, strong sense of community. Both of those factors, I think, played into why my family was involved.
Northwest Asian Weekly
You’ve outlined some of the broad strokes, but what was your career path like? Not just step-by-step, but I would love to know how you also felt at every step, especially really important and pivotal steps in your career. Generally speaking, politics is very tiring, to say the least. And you can start out really bright and starry-eyed and get really beaten down. But here you are, many years later.
Wicker
Good question.
In my role, I have seen a lot of issues, been through a lot of issues. We work on a lot of very tough issues here in this office. I don’t know. I guess I would attribute it to my really positive outlook, and believing in the best in people and having good intent. And so I think that is what has gotten me through really working on tough challenges. And we see our way through them, and we get through them, and are helping improve the lives of people. I see that every day—the impacts of the policies, the impact that we have, and I think that is a real driving force for me. And just overall believing in public service, and the power of government to help people who are in need.
Northwest Asian Weekly
I think that that’s a really important personality trait, especially in politics, where you often see the ugliest sides of people.
Wicker
It’s very true. It’s very true. And I think it’s important. Everyone brings their different perspectives. And I think it’s important to have a diversity of perspectives, and backgrounds. And it’s important for voices like mine and others’ to be present, be at the table, whether it’s because I’m a woman, or because I am a Person of Color. I think it is important that you have those different perspectives as you are dealing with these different issues. When I think about the team that we have here in the governor’s office, I’m really proud of our team and the fact that everyone does bring those different lenses to the issues we’re working on.
Northwest Asian Weekly
I’d love to know about some really pivotal moments in your career. And then I’d love to know how you feel about the field, your career, etcetera, now, versus where you started out.
Wicker
So on the first question, pivotal moments, I would say every campaign I’ve worked on, being on the winning side. I’ve worked on five statewide campaigns here in Washington. We won all of them. And so those are definitely pivotal, because you are working for people whose vision and mission you believe in, and knowing that you’re then able to carry that work forward on the government side of it.
Other pivotal moments for me—and I’ll just do kind of the most recent with where I’m at now with Governor Inslee—COVID is the big one. Being here in this office through that period was very challenging. No blueprint for that. Being able to work through that over the last four years was a pivotal moment.
There are lots of examples in the Inslee Administration, in which we had to lead through crisis, whether it was the Oso landslide [in 2014] … and wildfires—natural disasters. When I worked for Governor Inslee, we had the 2001 Earthquake. Being in this office during that period was also, you know, something that I vividly remember.
How I feel now—I don’t know how to answer that.
What I would say is, I feel really fortunate in my career. I have worked for amazing leaders. And I have also worked with very talented teams here in the governor’s office, and on the campaigns I’ve worked on—motivated, smart, really high-performing people—professionals.
I attribute a lot of our success to that: The teams that we’ve built, the people that we’ve surrounded ourselves with, the people that we have leading our state agencies. I feel really fortunate to be able to work with such a high caliber of people and they, in many respects, make my job so much more manageable. We work on really hard issues, but being able to do it with a team and not in a silo is what gets us through.
As we’ve said, these are very tough jobs, and there’s a lot of responsibility put on us. But we have teams both here in the governor’s office and within all of our state agencies on our cabinet, who always keep the best interest of Washingtonians. Working with these people is what makes my job.
Northwest Asian Weekly
You helped win five different campaigns. That’s a huge deal. Is there anything else you want to highlight in your career or your role?
Wicker
Part of my job is navigating the daily work of our agency. Washington State Government is big. It’s a big government, and we have a lot of people, and just helping navigate those daily issues. I’m only able to do that because of the cabinet that we’ve built. Part of my role is to help find good leaders for the governor to appoint to his different cabinet agencies.
Northwest Asian Weekly
I wanted to also ask: Is there anything that you enjoy doing—any hobbies or personal achievements?
Wicker
My hobbies are not working. But no—I love traveling. I do a lot of traveling when I can. I’m going to Europe [in May]. But we actually just got back from Vietnam, but that was a work trip. Traveling is my jam. That’s what I like to do as much as I can, when I can get away.
I also picked up a bunch of hobbies during COVID that have stuck, which is good. Biking, which I had not done in many years. Sewing. I feel like all the things that like probably a bunch of other people picked up, too.
Northwest Asian Weekly
I would love to hear about your trip to Vietnam. You mentioned it was a work trip.
Wicker
We led a study and trade mission to Vietnam [in April]. It was a Governor’s Office-led mission. We had 46 people from [state] government, from business, from local government, higher ed—a great consortium of leaders within different industries. We had several goals with this trip.
I think the last Washington governor’s trip to Vietnam was in 2010. But [this one] was a five-day mission to really look at three things: One, to celebrate our existing relationship—oh, and sorry, legislators who were pivotal to the trip also joined us—with the Vietnamese. We have 90,000 Vietnamese Americans here in this state and a long history that goes back to the ’80s, after the war, of people relocating here.
Another objective of the trip was just to strengthen our trade and collaboration opportunities in many sectors: Agriculture, advanced technology, clean energy, and AI (Artificial Intelligence). And then third, just exploring new relationships in advanced manufacturing, clean technology, semiconductors.
We went to Hanoi and then Ho Chi Minh City. We had [Washington State Senators Joe] Nguyen and [June] Robinson with us. And then we had representatives [My-Linh] Thai and [Steve] Tharinger. It was great to have them on the trip.
We had a large team of people from the agriculture industry with us to talk about Washington products and trying to open markets. So that was great. And then we had the Department of Commerce team with us that focused on several of those other issues that I mentioned.
Northwest Asian Weekly
It seems like there are a lot of unexplored avenues of trade between Vietnam and the U.S.
Wicker
Yeah, in part because of our population that we have here in our state and the meaningful relationships we have within the [AAPI] community here, but also we have a Vietnam-U.S. Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which is something that the Biden administration introduced—so, really wanting to strengthen the ties of our overall relationship with the country and find opportunities of shared interests and ways to partner. Vietnam … [is] one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and a very important trading partner for the U.S., but also our state.
They are a strategic partner for us, and when I look at what we’re trying to do in our state around exports, and get our product into countries—like our agriculture, specifically—these trips are worthwhile, because first and foremost, you have to build those relationships within these countries. And then from there, you hope to see positive, good results for your state.
Wicker
We just see lots of opportunities. There’s lots of opportunities in a country like Vietnam. And so it’s not only showcasing what we can offer, but it’s also learning what they are doing and finding areas of common interest.
Northwest Asian Weekly
Is there anything else I didn’t ask about that you’d like to talk about?
Wicker
Probably one other thing I should mention, in terms of things I’m proud of.
We have over 250 state boards and commissions that we appoint people to. And then, of course, there’s all the appointments we make with our staff. But I’m really proud of what we’ve done to increase the numbers of women and People of Color to all of our appointments. I mean, it’s really important to this governor that we diversify our appointments, bring in people from different backgrounds and experiences. I am very proud of the work that we’ve done on that front.
The other thing I would say is, overall, in the Inslee Administration, I am just proud of what we’ve done, in terms of supporting working families—everything we’ve done to build a clean energy economy over the past 12 years.
Is there anything else I want to say? Yeah. I should probably do a specific call out [to] my mom. So, I was raised by a single mom. I am a fourth generation Washingtonian. I’ve deep background in Washington state. I guess that’s probably part of what drives [my career], too—my family has lived here since the 1800s. I don’t even know how far back it goes. But since the 1800s.
Being raised by a single mom, she instilled all the values of family and hard work, and service. And she got that from her family. And so I think just building upon that just kind of got me started.