A leader in Seattle’s community health center movement
Over the last four decades, Chris has worked tirelessly to reduce barriers to health care, safe and stable housing, and other social services for the elderly, the unhoused and others facing barriers to care. She founded the Pike Market Medical Clinic, a community health center serving low-income residents in downtown Seattle, and as its executive director, designed services to match the special needs of the market’s community. The clinic became a national model of health care and service for an elderly population. Chris was the co-founder of the Pike Place Market Foundation, an organization that has raised more than $22 million to support human services for the Downtown Seattle community.
She also was founding director of Seattle’s Bailey-Boushay House, the nation’s first specialized care facility for people living with AIDS, providing intensive nursing care and outpatient supportive services to meet the complex needs of those most challenged by HIV. Chris also served as the executive director of Whidbey Island’s Goosefoot Community Fund, an economic development entity, where she opened a thriving grocery store that returns profits for community benefit. Today, she teaches and mentors the next generation of health care leaders as a clinical assistant professor at UW SPH and a core faculty member of its Community-Oriented Public Health Practice program.
Affiliations: Chief Executive Officer, Goosefoot Community Fund; Clinical Assistant Professor, Community-Oriented Public Health Practice Program, Department of Health Services, UW School of Public Health; Member, Board of the Burke Museum Associates, Burke Museum of Culture and Natural History