CAITLIN SMETHURST

What is your favorite word?
Tomfoolery

What is your favorite quote?
Never underestimate that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world, indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead

What musician would you most like to see perform in your living room?
No contest: the late, great Bob Marley

What food and drink would you not want to live without?
Pho & an IPA.

Other interesting facts we should know about you?
Portland was my first true love. I’m not a fan of fruit. I have an unnatural preoccupation with noodles.

What I do…
I serve on the board of Levé in the Development Committee. In my professional work, I’m able to pursue a personal passion for the alleviation of global hunger and poverty as Program Coordinator in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development initiative. Before coming to the foundation, I developed the social compliance program for a local Seattle apparel company, working to ensure fair labor practices in our global supply chain. Following the example of other Levé board members, I initiated the convening of an Ambassador’s board for Friends of the Children’s King County chapter, a mentoring organization that targets the most at-risk children in our communities, whose Portland chapter was Levé’s 2005 nonprofit partner.

In 2005, I graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. from the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. I spent my junior year overseas, working for the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust in Cape Town, South Africa and attending the University of Granada, Spain. Most recently, I received a graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business from Bainbridge Graduate Institute.