Elaine Ikoma Ko has been a community builder for more than 30 years. She worked for a variety of important organizations over her career. Ko began her career in the mid-1970s as a young activist organizing for social change. She was the founding director of the International District Housing Alliance and remained there until the early ’80s. She returned to the International District community in 2001 and worked for the nonprofit Inter*Im Community Development Association (Interim CDA) for six years including as Executive Director. Interim CDA has a mission to promote, advocate for, and revitalize the International District and other Asian Pacific communities in the Puget Sound region. Elaine served under Mayor Norm Rice as Director of the City of Seattle’s Office for Women’s Rights from 1991-1994 and prior to that, she coordinated the King County’s Women’s Program. Elaine was the first Director of the Port of Seattle’s new Office of Social Responsibility in 2007. In 2011, Elaine, working collaboratively with Tomio Moriguchi, President of Uwajimaya, established a new nonprofit, 501c3 organization, the Hokubei Hochi Foundation. The Hokubei Hochi (North American Post) Foundation’s mission is to preserve and promote Japanese American and Japanese culture and news through educational and civic projects. The foundation is working with the University of Washington to digitize past issues of the region’s oldest bilingual English and Japanese community newspaper. Ko has served on the Alumni Leadership Committee for Leadership Tomorrow and she a volunteer at Union Gospel Mission’s Hope Place where she has coordinated Spa Days three times per year for over ten years. She has a master’s in Business Administration from City University, and lives in West Seattle with her husband, John, and two cats, Scribbles and Doodles. They enjoy visiting their two grown children, Renato and Kimiko, who live in New York and Hawaii respectively.