Athletics

Canadian-born Rahim Esmail loved ice hockey as a kid but never played it. �ennis was his sport. He played at the University of Kentucky, turned pro, went into coaching and returned to the PNW last year as Matt Anger’s assistant coach. With Anger’s retirement, he takes over as the Huskies’ new men’s tennis coach. Interview by Jon Marmor

Before being hired by the UW in 2021, Rahim Esmail coached at Samford University for 10 seasons and was that school's all-time winningest coach. As assistant coach at the UW last year, he helped the Huskies enjoy one of their most successful seasons ever.

The UW wanted me, and I played a lot of tennis in the Northwest when I was in high school. But going far away from home appealed to me. I loved my college experience, partly because Kentucky was a real culture shock.

I really enjoyed it for the couple of years I played. I love competition and pushing myself to my limit. Traveling to different countries was great, and I learned a lot about myself. But I had to stop playing professionally because of two wrist surgeries.

We have a lot of rebuilding right now. I am really focusing on the guys we have. We are recruiting rigorously, and we think the 2023-2024 class looks very bright. I am mostly focused on building a culture of success on the court and in the classrooms.

I want to build a program, not just a tennis team—something that’s built to last and has the best players and best young men. It’s not easy but there is no limit to where we can go. We aim to close the gap with the premier teams in the Pac-12 and I’m super confident in our product. We can put out a product as good as any in the country.

I have always had a mix of players on the teams I have coached [he previously coached at Samford University in Alabama, where he experienced great success]. It’s great for American kids to be exposed to players from other cultures, and wonderful for our players from Belarus, France, Taiwan and Japan to see how our American players are.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I played a lot here in high school and as an adult. Seattle is a great tennis city. The supporting base of alumni is very strong, and that is important. I quickly learned when I came here that the support and love for tennis in the Husky community is vast.

The Huskies extend the contract of softball coach Heather Tarr

By Jon Marmor

ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS (3)

Heather �arr’s 742 victories entering the 2023 season make her the UW’s winningest coach in any sport. Over her 19 years at the helm, she has led the Huskies to berths in seven College World Series. The winningest coach in UW athletics history isn’t Don James or Marv Harshman or Chris Gobrecht. That honor belongs to Heather Tarr, ’96, who has compiled a career record of 742-277-1 entering her 19th year as the Huskies’ softball coach in 2023. And the UW wants to make sure she isn’t going anywhere, signing her to a contract extension through 2029.

“The University of Washington has been my home for a long time now, and I am so proud to know that it will continue to be for a while longer,” Tarr says. “I appreciate the continued support from [Director of Athletics] Jen Cohen and our athletic department, donors, student-athletes and the alumni who have built this program.”

Tarr, a former Husky infielder who became the head coach for Team USA in 2021, has contributed so much to building the incredibly successful Husky softball program. She has guided the Huskies to two Pac-12 championships, 17 NCAA Regionals, 14 NCAA Super Regionals and seven College World Series appearances. She also led the Huskies to their first NCAA title in 2009.

Tarr, who has been a part of 24 of the program’s 30 years as either a player or a coach, has developed 33 National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-Americans, 104 All-Conference players and 10 Pac-12 Players of the Year. Five times the Huskies won 50 or more games, and Washington has been ranked in the NFCA National Coaches Poll for 216 consecutive weeks.

“I can’t wait to see what the future holds,” says Tarr. A lot more victories, no doubt.

1960s football star played three positions and gave back to his alma mater after his playing days

By Jon Marmor

Rick Redman was a star on both sides of the ball, playing guard and linebacker, and he shined on special teams as a punter. A consensus All-American in 1963 and 1964, he helped lead the Huskies to the 1964 Rose Bowl. He stood only 5-foot-11 and weighed 215 pounds, yet it seemed like everything came easy to Rick Redman. One of the Huskies’ most versatile players ever, he rotated among three positions—offensive guard, linebacker and punter—during the three years he played for Washington (1962 to 1964) and was a big reason the UW won the conference title and a berth in the 1964 Rose Bowl. “Rick Redman did it all,” says Archie Manning, chairman of the National Football Foundation.

The three-time all-conference guard, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995, died Sept. 30 at the age of 79.

A two-time All-American who was one of the most decorated players in Washington football history, Redman, ’66, was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1943 and attended Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle. He was an AllAmerican as a senior.

After a 10-year career in pro football playing for the AFL’s San Diego Chargers and the Portland Storm of the World Football League, Redman returned to Seattle and entered commercial construction. He joined Sellen Construction, and during his 35-year career as CEO, was involved in several major University projects, including the renovation of Alaska Airlines Arena, Conibear Shellhouse, the Foster School of Business’ PACCAR Hall and the UW Medicine research campus in South Lake Union.

While his playing days were behind him, Redman continued to play a major role in the UW athletic department as a volunteer and supporter. He belonged to the Tyee Club’s “Champions Circle,” a group of donors who have given more than $1 million to UW Athletics. In 1982, he was a member of the fourth class of the Husky Hall of Fame, one of the first 10 UW football players so honored.

“We were heartbroken to hear the news of Rick’s passing,” says UW athletic director Jen Cohen. “Rick was a true icon both on and off the field who cared deeply about his Husky family. He gave back to the UW in several thoughtful ways after his Hall of Fame playing career. Rick was a dear friend to me and will be missed by so many.”

Top right: Lloyd C. Elam was the first Black physician to train at the UW. He became a national leader in psychiatry and served as president of Meharry Medical College.

mer day in Red Square. It was 1974, and there were hardly any students, let alone Black students, on campus. When the two men spotted each other, they made straight for one another to introduce themselves.

They quickly discovered a few things in common: Both had gone to college in the Midwest, and both were just about to start training at the UW School of Medicine. “We shook hands, and that sealed the deal,” says Vassall. “We’ve been best friends ever since.” Soon they were sharing an apartment and, as two of just six African Americans in their medical school class, they helped one another through the rigorous training.

After completing their residencies, Vassall, ’74, ’78, and Lewis, ’78, ’80, ’83, opened a primary care practice in South Seattle. They set it up in a storefront in a neighborhood that was nearly 75% African American and had been historically underserved by Seattle’s medical community. “We walked up and down Rainier Avenue and found an old record shop,” says Vassall. The site featured a towing yard across the street and a hair salon next door. A carpenter friend installed sinks and built their exam rooms, and the two doctors opened for business.

Later, they would join a larger practice, move closer to downtown and ultimately become leaders in Washington’s medical community. Today, Vassall is an associate dean of clinical education at Washington State University’s college of medicine. And Lewis has retired after holding several executive roles at Swedish Medical Center and serving as chief medical officer for International Community Health Services.

Their careers as doctors, teachers, administrators and leaders over the past 45 years have afforded them a broad view of Seattle's health care community. They’ve seen how the contributions of Black physicians helped make Seattle one of the most advanced medical communities in the country, and they’ve seen how, over decades, Black physicians served people from all cultures, backgrounds and levels of economic need. “Our advocacy at the local, regional and national levels, and the changes we’ve advocated for in patient safety have measurably improved outcomes for all patients,” says Vassall. He added that in their roles as chief medical officers, researchers and regional and national health care leaders, Seattle’s Black doctors have benefited everyone.

Still, more than four decades later, they see the same low numbers of Black medical students and continued disparities in health care for the Seattle area’s Black residents. Racial and ethnic diversity among doctors and other health care professionals, studies show, improves access and quality of care for underserved populations and saves lives. And today’s lack of doctors with the cultural competency to understand the experiences, challenges and medical needs of Black patients is a national concern.

While medical school enrollment of Black women has improved slightly, fewer Black men are going to medical school today than 45 years ago. According to a 2021 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the percentage of Black male medical students has declined from 3.1% in 1978 to 2.9% in 2019. When Vassall and Lewis completed their medical degrees, they were among six Black students in their class of 125. Today, there are six in a class of 270.

Diversity in the physician workforce is crucial, says Paula Houston, ’94, chief equity officer and vice president for medical affairs at UW Medicine. For Black patients and other patients of color, having access to doctors who share their backgrounds can improve understanding and create a stronger sense of trust, resulting in better health outcomes. And training doctors alongside peers of different racial and ethnic backgrounds helps minimize health disparities.

Many pieces to this story center on health care equity, Vassall says, but one of the key points is the experience and history of Seattle’s Black doctors: Although they encountered barriers, they have been pillars of the community, they studied and taught at the UW, and “they helped us join together as a group,” he says.

In spite of this, there’s a shrinking percentage of Black doctors nationally and locally, he says. “There are fewer now, and many have gone to work for large health care companies where it’s hard [for people who want Black doctors] to find them,” Vassall adds. UW Medicine and its medical school—like many schools around the country—face both long-standing and fresh

challenges around creating and supporting more Black doctors and, in the long term, expanding the number and diversity of doctors who can care for all of us.

In 1950, the UW School of Medicine graduated its first class of physicians. Two years later, Lloyd C. Elam enrolled, becoming the school’s first Black medical student. Elam, who grew up in Arkansas and attended college in Chicago, was drawn to the UW by the idea that a new medical school would be well-funded and feature the latest equipment.

His degree put Elam, ’57, on a career path to Meharry Medical College, a historically Black medical school in Tennessee. His successes included establishing Meharry’s department of psychiatry and serving as the college president from 1968 to 1981.

After Elam, the UW saw very few Black medical students until 1968, the year Meredith Mathews enrolled. As a UW undergraduate, Mathews prepared for medical school by focusing on hard science. “It was not a friendly place,” he says. Lost in the large classrooms, he struggled to connect with his teachers and classmates. He describes a time when he sat down at a table in Suzzallo Library and all the white students got up and left. By the time he was in 400-level courses, though, Mathews was more at home.

He and many of his fellow zoology majors had set their sights on medical school. But unlike the white students, Mathews didn’t even consider the UW. If you were Black, “the adviser had a history of deterring you from applying,” he says.

He was deliberating over acceptances from several schools when August Swanson, a UW Medicine professor, called and asked why he didn’t apply. “I let him know I didn’t think it was worth trying,” Mathews says. Swanson persuaded him to reconsider and later sought his help finding other potential students who might have been similarly discouraged.

Mathews’ medical school class had just two other African Americans at a time when many elite schools were going out of their way to draw students of color. “There was a lot of work to do” to recruit future Black doctors to the UW, Mathews says. “There were stellar students here in Seattle, and they went somewhere else,” he says, pointing to what he saw as a long-term problem with the admissions process. Where other schools seemed to say, “We’re lucky to have you,” he says, at the UW it was more like, “You’re lucky to be here.”

Mathews went on to specialize in nephrology and worked as an internist for 18 years at Pacific Medical Center. He was also a clinical associate professor at the UW. His professional journey later took him to California, where he capped his medical career as senior vice president and chief medical officer for Blue Shield of California, a $10 billion health plan with 3 million members. Today, though retired, he’s still a voice in Seattle medicine as a member of the Harborview Medical Center Board of Trustees.

Over the decades, the work of the city’s medical Black community entwined with the UW’s efforts toward teaching, research and providing care. The list of Black doctors in the region is small, but it is filled with talented and dedicated practitioners. You can find their names on lectures, scholarships and local landmarks.

One of the first, Walter Scott Brown, came to Seattle in 1931 for a surgical residency at Providence Hospital and stayed to establish a practice on Beacon Hill. He later invited William Lacey to move from Chicago and join his practice. Both served as clinical associate professors at the UW. When Robert Joyner moved to Seattle and started his practice in 1949, he brought the number of Black physicians in the city at the time to four.

Those doctors led the way for physicians like Anita Connell, who completed medical school at the UW in 1975, and opened her OB-GYN practice in 1982. In addition to serving thousands of patients, she has long been an advocate for women’s health and education. Her advocacy started early: As a UW undergraduate, she helped found the Black Student Union.

And while a small city park bears her name and her portrait hangs in the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic, Blanche Sellers Lavizzo, ’75, deserves greater recognition. She made history as the first African American woman pediatrician in Washington. Her husband, Philip Lavizzo, was one of the first African American doctors to practice surgery in the Northwest.

Dr. Blanche and Dr. Phillip, as the community knew them, set up their joint practice in Seattle in 1956. “They were part of the Great Migration,” says their daughter, Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. Black doctors from the South moved to the North and West because they “wanted to be able to practice in a less restricted way and at the same time serve their community and others,” she says. “And they wanted to raise their kids in an environment that didn’t have the cruelty and limitations of Jim Crow.”

That’s not to say they didn’t encounter racism. Most of the city’s hospitals—except for Providence—wouldn’t grant admitting privileges to Black physicians. Group Health didn’t recognize Blanche Lavizzo, though many of her patients had health coverage from the organization.

As a teen, Lavizzo-Mourey helped her parents prepare their billing statements. Before she could stuff one into an envelope, they would carefully review it and decide whether or not to send the bill or reduce the fee. This happened a lot in the 1960s during the Seattle recession. “My father said if you send a big bill to someone out of work who can’t pay, they aren’t going to come back to see you,” she says. “And he wanted them to come back, because they needed medical care.”

In 1970, Blanche Lavizzo became the founding medical director for the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in the Central

Top: UW Medical School classmates Rayburn Lewis, John Vassall and Stephen Robinson the week they graduated in 1978.

Below: Blanche Lavizzo was the first Black woman pediatrician in Washington state. She was also the founding director of the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic.

COURTESY RISA LAVIZZO-MOUREY COURTESY RAYBURN LEWIS

District. A satellite of Seattle Children’s, the clinic was built to provide medical and dental treatment to children from families with low income, many of them people of color. Lavizzo wove respect into the clinic’s motto: Quality care with dignity. In 1975, she completed her master’s in public health at the UW, deepening her skills for tending her patients’ overall well-being. Thousands of children saw Dr. Blanche, who led the clinic until her death in 1984.

While caring for their patients was their core endeavor, Seattle’s Black doctors often took on more, says Dr. Bessie Young, ’87, ’01, vice dean for equity, diversity and inclusion for UW Medicine’s Office of Health Care Equity. An expert in kidney disease whose research includes health disparities, Young is another UW alum (medical school, residency, fellowship, Master of Public Health) with a long view on the city’s medical community. Though Black doctors were not welcomed in the predominant medical societies, many of them found ways to have influence by leading service organizations, owning businesses, teaching and being advocates and activists, she says.

But few could keep up with Alvin J. Thompson, who moved to Seattle in 1953 and quicky became one of the most active and influential members of the city’s medical community. He established the gastrointestinal lab at Providence Hospital and volunteered at organizations including the Pacific Northwest Kidney Center, Goodwill, The Seattle Foundation, Blacks in Science and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a consultant to the National Institutes of Health and a master in the American College of Physicians. And he found time to be a clinical teaching professor at the UW, where he threw his energies into students and young faculty.

With Millie Russell, ’80, ’88, who directed a UW program for underrepresented students in the health sciences, Thompson formed the Washington State Association of Black Professionals in Health Care. They brought together nurses, doctors, dentists, social workers and other health care workers to advocate for medical priorities for the Black community and improve care, research and training. “Dr. Thompson’s goal, really, was to increase admission to the medical school for Black students,” says Young. To help them with expenses, he set up an Alvin Thompson Medical Student Support Fund. He sold the family boat to add money to it.

George Counts—one of the beneficiaries of Thompson’s attention—came to the UW in 1965 on a fellowship in infectious disease. “I was ecstatic because it was one of the best programs in the country,” he says. Ten years later, he was invited back to lead the infectious diseases unit at Harborview. “I had some misgivings,” says Counts. “I had seen what academic life was like in Seattle.”

Not long after joining the faculty, Counts received a call from Thompson. “I didn’t know him before I came here,” he says. “But he took me under his wing to make sure that I did whatever was necessary to succeed in this cutthroat world of academic medicine.” Thompson pushed him to steer clear of outside projects and only focus on his research and publishing. “He was important to me, and stayed close throughout that 10-year period,” says Counts, who became the first Black full professor in the School of Medicine. “It took another 30 years [for the UW to promote the next Black full professor],” says Counts. “That was Dr. Bessie Young in 2015.”

In the late 1980s, as AIDS was spreading across the country, Counts joined the National Institutes of Health to lead the office overseeing the National AIDS Clinical Trials Program. There, he saw how women and people who weren’t white were under-recruited into research studies. He established an office within the NIH to address these and other disparities. But not all members of the medical community in Seattle trained in health care. In 1968, the Black Panther Party started a clinic. The Seattle BPP chapter was cofounded by Aaron Dixon, a UW student, and his younger brother, Elmer. In addition to protesting racism and police brutality, they addressed basic needs and conditions of African Americans.

One fact that stood out to them was the high rate of infant mortality in the Central District. The Black Panthers found an ally in UW neurology doctor John Green. “I would call him a doctor-hippy,” says Elmer Dixon, who first met Green at a civil rights demonstration. One night, the brothers went to Green’s house to talk about opening a well-baby clinic. “He told us to get a van and go to the UW Hospital loading bay,” says Dixon. “When we rang the bell, the door opened and there he was with all the equipment we needed.” Over time, the clinic expanded to become today’s Carolyn Downs Family Medical Center.

Black doctors and leaders have shaped the city’s health care over the decades, say Vassall and Lewis. But despite all their efforts and outreach, a shortage of Black doctors persists. They point to medical school admissions, which historically focused on candidates’ personal achievements and test scores—to the benefit of those from privileged backgrounds—rather than on who in the community needed care. Many applicants can succeed in medical school, says Vassall. The issue is deciding who

gets in. “We need to be thinking about who is best going to serve the state of Washington. Medical schools should be prioritizing students from rural and tribal communities and from underserved communities in Tacoma and Seattle where there is the greatest need and where they’re likely to go back and work,” he says.

While it’s not the source of the problem, Washington’s Initiative 200—which was passed by voters in 1998—bars the UW from considering race or gender in the admissions process. “It doesn’t allow us to very intentionally focus on having incentives to bring Black medical students here,” says Houston.

Funding is another challenge, Houston adds. The UW finds it hard to compete with schools that offer full rides to medical students from underrepresented backgrounds.

“It’s an ongoing battle,” Young says. “We do recruit students from the area as well as all over the country, but we need to do more to recruit and retain our students as well as trainees (residents and fellows) and faculty who are role models and help to build a welcoming medical community for our students.”

UW Medicine has more than 120 residency and fellowship programs and more than 1,550 residents and fellows, which makes

Over six decades, Dr. Alvin Thompson was a force in Seattle’s medical community. He mentored students and faculty, brought together health-care professionals for common causes and served in local and national health organizations.

In his 30 years as a Seattle pediatrician, Dr. Ben Danielson has tended to thousands of patients. As a clinical professor at the UW School of Medicine, he is one of the city’s leading voices for health equity.

SUSAN GREGG/UW MEDICINE COURTESY SUSAN THOMPSON

it the sixth largest graduate medical education program in the country. GME is a crucial pathway for bringing more Black doctors and underrepresented minorities into the region, says Dr. Byron Joyner, vice dean for GME, a role he has held since 2014.

Joyner also has a national role representing the UW at the Accreditation Council for Graduate and Medical Education. He is one of three Black men heading GME in a group of more than 1,200 institutions. In the last seven years, he has been involved in developing policies and regulations that require residency programs around the country to recruit underrepresented minorities, and to have strategies to do so.

Fourteen years ago, Joyner was responsible for creating the UW Network of Underrepresented Residents and Fellows. In addition to supporting one another and promoting cultural diversity, NURF members provide community outreach, mentorship, recruitment and retention. They have a huge impact when they visit Seattle area high schools to build interest in medicine as a career option for underrepresented youth. NURF members also attend national conferences for Black medical students and doctors and recruit for the UW. “Our fellows and residents are among our most valuable recruiting tools,” Joyner says.

In his 23 years at the UW, Joyner has watched the institution change from having few diverse trainees to understanding that diversity, equity and inclusion should be in every aspect of teaching and care. In addition to requiring training for faculty and staff around discrimination and sexual harassment, UW Medicine’s leaders are thinking about how to mitigate discrimination, improve recruiting and better fulfill the mission “to improve the health of the public.” “It’s going to take some time,” Joyner says. “But we’re making strides in the right direction.”

Ben Danielson, ’92, a clinical pediatrics professor at UW Medicine, is a leading voice for health care equity. He directed the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic from 1999 to 2020. In 2017, he won the Simms/Mann Institute Whole Child Award for making a significant impact on the lives of young children and their families.

As a UW medical student in the late 1980s, Danielson was wary of imposing on other people. “But I found a welcoming, kind of a subtle support system” in the medical Black community, he says. In particular, he remembers Russell and Thompson. “They were so warm,” he says. They made it feel like it was going to be OK despite the demands and intensity of medical school, and that he didn’t have to outperform his classmates and be exceptional to succeed. That kind of encouragement is “what we need to do to advance diversity in our midst,” he says. “We’re not going to make inroads into anti-racism if we can’t shed our tropes that in the past we had to embody to endure.”

Danielson also sees a need for creating a more anti-racist environment in the school. “It’s a mistake to invite people to this place and not make that a priority,” he says. Higher education and medicine are deeply steeped in micro- and macro-aggressions that affect underrepresented students and patients. The portraits of the white doctors that line UW Medicine’s hallways are like a sign that tells students of color to keep out, he says. Medical students are expected to acculturate themselves to the ways the teachers and doctors around them are acting and speaking. In some cases, they witness doctors describing and treating patients from different backgrounds with different levels of respect, says Danielson. “And there is constant pressure to fit the mold. Those things erode the sense of who you are.”

As director at Odessa Brown, Danielson loved serving patients at the clinic Blanche Lavizzo helped build. “She is an enduring spiritual hero to me,” he says. Looking at her early challenges establishing herself in Seattle’s medical community and her courage to take on the work of developing and running the clinic, she is an example of someone who wouldn’t allow barriers to hold her back, he says.

But there are differences between her time and today, he notes. The field of medicine is more and more corporate—with profit margins and market forces driving decision-making. That business culture comes at the expense of urgencies like social justice and health equity, says Danielson, “It’s working against diversity.” Public medical schools are in the crossroads of the business of medicine and their public-serving mission.

Nonetheless, Danielson can imagine a brighter future. The desire for a more equitable health care system is shared deeply by many people in many different positions inside and outside of the University, he says. “But they may feel like they are alone. People may actually talk themselves out of their own power. I’ve heard it. ‘I’m just a student. I’m just a member of the faculty. I can’t make things change.’”

“But there are more of us than we realize, and we have more power than we realize,” he says. He sees promise in the younger generation of health professionals who are now making “unapologetic demands for change.” That is different than his own experience of surviving the environment or being a lone voice, he says. “Those of us with gray hair have a lot to learn about demanding change, not just hoping for it.”

BY NANCY JOSEPH

Michael Anderson was 9 years old when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in 1969. After witnessing that historic moment, Anderson, ’81, was determined to follow in the space pioneer’s footsteps. In a bedroom adorned with model airplanes and rocket ships, he began to memorize NASA astronauts’ names and imagined his name on that list.

Although none of Anderson’s astronaut role models were African

A mission specialist for a 1998 launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, Michael Anderson completes the donning of his launch/entry suit in NASA’s Operations and Checkout Building. That was Anderson’s first flight into space.

American, he was undeterred. “I don’t think I ever thought I couldn’t do it,” he recalled years later. “I never had any serious doubt about it. It was just a matter of when.”

In December 1994, Anderson was selected by NASA to be an astronaut, and in 1998, he realized his dream of going into space, traveling to the Russian space station Mir aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Five years later, he was part of another mission on Space Shuttle Columbia. But he never made it home. The spacecraft disintegrated upon re-entry to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003.

I’d interviewed Anderson after his first shuttle mission for a story about astronauts who hailed from the UW College of Arts & Sciences. His eagerness to return to space had been palpable during the interview. His descriptions of space flight—particularly his own experience of it—were compelling and vivid.

“Right before the engines cut off, you are being pushed back in the seat by 3 Gs of pressure,” he told me, recalling the moment when Endeavour hit orbit about eight minutes into the flight. “Then you suddenly go to zero Gs [zero gravity]. I remember being thrown forward in my seat and then watching everything around me start to float, including ice crystals that had formed outside the vehicle. As the sun caught those ice crystals—thousands of them—they looked like brilliant shining diamonds floating in the darkness of space. But that’s just one of hundreds of moments that stick out in my mind.”

✦Destined to soar

By age 3, Anderson knew he would venture into space. “It was just the adventure of it,” he later recalled. In an interview with the Spokesman-Review before his first space flight, one of his sisters shared how the future astronaut sent her on imaginary trips to the moon every Saturday morning, beaming her up to the top bunk bed in his room. Not surprisingly, he was hooked on TV shows like “Star Trek” and “Lost in Space.”

The Anderson family moved several times during his childhood, due to his father’s Air Force career. When Anderson, who was born in Plattsburgh, N.Y., was 11, they settled in Cheney, near Spokane. He attended Cheney High School, and years later still thought of Spokane as his hometown.

His next move was to the University of Washington, where he planned to major in aeronautical engineering. However, an elective physics course changed his mind. He was drawn to the elegance of physics, finding it more suited to his interests. He added a second major in astronomy and joined the UW’s Air Force ROTC.

“He was warm, even-keeled, easygoing,” UW friend and

classmate William Tyler, ’83, told Columns Magazine in 2003. “There was no stress about him. He was so focused.”

After graduating, Anderson joined the Air Force, first as a communication electronics officer and then as a pilot, aircraft commander, flight instructor and tactics officer. He went on to pursue a master’s degree in physics at Creighton University before joining NASA’s astronaut training program in 1995. By then, there were several African American astronauts, but it remained a small group. (Yvonne Cagle, ’85, was selected as an astronaut in 1996 but never went into space.)

As an astronaut candidate, Anderson began a grueling training program that included survival training, space shuttle simulator exercises, classes in navigation and orbital dynamics, and more. Once he was assigned as mission specialist for Space Shuttle Endeavour, Anderson began one year of mission-specific training with the rest of the crew.

On that crew was another Husky, Bonnie Dunbar, ’71, ’76, who was about to embark on her fifth and final shuttle mission. The pair brought a Husky banner on board to celebrate their UW connection, holding it aloft for cameras as they floated in zero gravity.

“I was always very impressed with him,” Dunbar said of Anderson. “He had a very calm demeanor. He did such a great job on the flight that I recommended him for selection to a future flight.”

The Endeavour crew had multiple goals: to conduct experiments, transfer supplies to space station Mir and deliver an astronaut to Mir while bringing another one home. The work required Russian-American cooperation, which appealed to Anderson. He took Russian language classes in preparation.

“Working with the Russians was one of the highlights of the whole deal,” he said after his return. “It was just fascinating, two countries that had animosity for so long now working together. We can learn a lot from each other. It’s ironic that we have to leave the planet to get along and work together.”

After Endeavour, Anderson was eager to return to space. His opportunity came with a 16-day mission on Space Shuttle Columbia in early 2003. The mission was dedicated to running experiments, ranging from studies of prostate cancer to observing the effects of gravity on harvester ants. Working 24 hours a day in alternating shifts, the crew successfully conducted about 80 experiments in orbit. As the mission’s payload commander, Anderson was responsible for managing the experiments to ensure that everything was done properly.

“This is one of few research flights we’ve had in a long time,” he commented in a video interview for Space.com before the flight. “For someone interested in space science like myself, it’s really the dream flight.” ✦ Celebrating an extraordinary life

The Columbia mission ended tragically on Feb. 1, 2003, just 16 minutes before the shuttle’s scheduled landing at Cape Canaveral. NASA later confirmed that damage to the spacecraft’s left wing during the launch—damage NASA had mistakenly deemed non-threatening during the mission—allowed hot atmospheric gases to enter the wing upon reentry.

After the disaster, I reread scribbled notes from my interview with Anderson. I had asked him how he handled fear, given the unforgiving nature of space travel. He’d replied that it was never an issue for him.

“I don’t know why that is,” he told me. “Maybe because the training simply prepares you for it. By the time you make it to the actual space flight, you’re so excited. You just want to do your job. Fear has been dealt with. It’s one of those things you simply don’t dwell upon at all.”

And yet Anderson, a husband and father, was not in denial about the risks of his work. At Sunday services two days after the shuttle disaster, Spokane Rev. Freeman Simmons told his congregation about a conversation with Anderson before the flight. As reported in The New York Times, Anderson told the reverend, “If this thing don’t come out right, don’t worry about me. I’m just going on higher.”

Years later, on the 15th anniversary of Anderson’s death, his mother reflected on her son’s legacy. “Even though he had just turned 43, he had a full life,” she told the Spokesman-Review. “He did wonders in that length of time. Sometimes it isn’t the length that you live, it’s the quality.”

To celebrate Anderson’s accomplishments, elementary schools, parks and highways have been renamed in his honor. An asteroid and a lunar crater also bear his name. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the Defense Distinguished Service Medal. A statue of Anderson was unveiled in Spokane’s Riverfront Park in 2005, with a duplicate installed at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where an aerospace program was created in his honor.

At the UW, the Lt. Col. Michael P. Anderson Memorial Diversity Scholarship was established in 2004. The scholarship encourages underrepresented minority students to pursue the sciences and engineering. To date, 16 students have benefited from the scholarship support.

Anderson would likely be pleased that a scholarship bearing his name supports future scientists and engineers. But that sort of recognition was never his goal.

“The space shuttle program would select people who were more about the program than about themselves, and Mike was very much that kind of person,” said Dunbar. “He wasn’t out there to aggrandize himself, but to really help move human space flight forward. And he did that.”

Bonnie Dunbar and Michael Anderson show their Husky spirit aboard the Endeavour in 1998.

FAR LEFT Michael Anderson, left, and the rest of the STS89 Space Shuttle Endeavour crew take a moment during a Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test.

Cohousing, good neighbors. A built environment can be a cure for loneliness.

ANIL KAPAHI

Addressing the scourge of loneliness was one of Jennie Lindberg’s motives for starting the Sunnyside Village Cohousing neighborhood in the pretty Marysville countryside. —An antidote to isolation— audience at Sunnyside’s Zoom meetings. The value of interpersonal relationships in cohousing was difficult to demonstrate. Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning and coffee is Now, she says, folks are eager to make connections. “The pandemic already brewing. You enjoy a breakfast of organic food you showed me—and I think many people—that it’s important to helped grow. Your neighbor is driving to town, so you give them have a support group,” says Lindberg. “Because part of the meaning a list of groceries to pick up for you. Yard work takes no time at and purpose in life is helping other people.” all with help from the couple two doors down. And when evening There’s another pandemic sweeping the nation. Loneliness kills, comes, you bring a bottle of wine to the common house and according to research. One study from Brigham Young University enjoy a live poetry reading. found that it’s a bigger killer in the U.S. than obesity.

It’s not a utopian vision—that’s just a regular weekend in a More than one-third of adults over the age of 45 feel lonely, cohousing community. Cohousing provides private homes clus- and a quarter of those over the age of 60 suffer from social tered around a shared space. Neighbors know each other like isolation. Loneliness can cause a 50% increased risk of dementia family and share meals, tools and skills. As Grace Kim, ’06, de- and a 29% increased risk of heart disease, according to the CDC. scribes it, cohousing is “an antidote to isolation.” Among heart-failure patients, social isolation increases the risk

“It’s kind of like the grown-up version of living in the dorms,” of death fourfold. Social isolation can also cause anxiety, desays Kim, who serves on the Professional Advisory Board for pression and thoughts of suicide. All these factors are compounded the Cohousing Association of the U.S. and started her own for immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, minorities and victims of cohousing community on Seattle’s Capitol Hill in 2010. “It’s all elder abuse. the benefit of having friends outside your doorstep but having Kim’s prescription is to form interdependence. “Loneliness the privacy of your own home.” can be the result of our built environments,” she said in a 2017

Kim is the architect for Sunnyside Village Cohousing, a TEDTalk. And finding an alternative to the American dream neighborhood of connected homes in Marysville spearheaded of a private home with a picket fence—an interconnected by a number of UW alumnae. Jennie Lindberg, ’78, planted village north of Seattle with a large common house comes to the seeds for Sunnyside in 2016 along with her husband, Dean mind—could help. “If I was a doctor, I would tell you to take Smith, when they searched for an already existing community two aspirin and call me in the morning,” says Kim. “But as an and found none in the Everett area. Why not start their own? architect, I’m going to suggest that you take a walk with your They developed a plan for 32 stand-alone cottages and a large neighbor, share a meal together and call me in 20 years.” common house, featuring a dining room with seating for 64, a coffee bar and a remote working space with high-speed internet connection.

“In cohousing, the intention is to be cooperative and neighborly and share things, to get to know people so that we can trust each other and make good decisions together,” says Lindberg, a retired therapist. “Which is counter to what we are taught in our culture today. We’re taught that it’s safer to stay by yourself.” Why join a cohousing community?

Although construction won’t begin until 2024, 63% of Sunnyside Members of Sunnyside Village offer practical reasons why Village homes have committed buyers. Among those who believe joining together means a better way of life. in Lindberg’s vision are Kirstin Andrews, ’11, Karen Lindsay, ’71, A less car-centric community. “I would like my kid and Vicki Rhoades, ’91; all three have purchased a cottage and to be able to go out and play and not be worried about are now cultivating the Sunnyside community through Zoom cars,” says Andrews’ husband, Troy. More open spaces meetings and camping trips to the site. and fewer busy roads makes Sunnyside a safer place

“I intend to get to know my neighbors,” says Lindsay. “I intend for kids to play. “It’s nice to think about a community to offer support to them, and to request support. I intend to work designed in such a thoughtful way, and we get to design for the benefit of the community and support group decisions it, because it’s ours.” even if I didn’t vote for them.” A built-in support system. Friends and neighbors

The group didn’t know each other before joining the com- give them someone to turn to in uncertain times. “I’m a munity, but they thank the UW for setting them on the path very introverted person, and I really like the idea of a to cohousing. “I learned [at the UW] that part of what gives built-in community and a built-in way of forming connecus more meaning in life is having something meaningful to tions as a way of avoiding isolation,” says Andrews. do for other people,” says Lindberg, who studied at the UW A personal chef(kind of). In a cohousing community, School of Social Work. The foundational tenets at Sunnyside some meals are shared, which means you don’t have to are tolerance and respect, she explains. cook for yourself as often. And the produce couldn’t be

“I love the idea of living in a community that is completely more local; it’s grown just feet from the kitchen. committed to democratic principles and ensuring that every Free entertainment. Lindberg plans to host open mics member has a voice,” says Andrews, a proofreader, who looks and other parties in the common area. “Instead of paying forward to raising her newborn child at Sunnyside. “I’m also huge amounts of money to go to a ballgame in Seattle,” very attracted to the idea of sharing resources in order to live says Lindberg, “we’ll just walk over to the common house more sustainably.” and have a little local concert or talent show, then walk

Sunnyside Village’s builder is Green Canopy NODE, a local back home.” carbon-cutting construction company. And while it’s typical for Car sharing. No reason to drive a single-occupancy cohousing communities to grow food from scratch, Sunnyside vehicle with gas prices this high; neighbors often provide makes it a priority. The village layout features an orchard, a a ride to nearby Everett or Seattle. greenhouse and a large vegetable garden, along with space for A second career. From the retired professor to the former 17 egg-laying chickens. library bookmobile driver, multigenerational families in

Pre-pandemic, Lindberg was hard-pressed to garner a large cohousing make good use of their retired neighbors’ skills.

COURTESY BRIDGE HOUSING CORP.

Building affordable housing at Seattle's major transit hubs is the priority for Ken Lombard and his company, BRIDGE.

Imagine looking for a home in Seattle in 2022. Say you have two children but only one income. You can’t afford a mortgage, but apartment prices are so high that you could be paying 50% of your income to rent, leaving you in a precarious situation should you need to shell out extra cash for an emergency. Speaking of emergencies, your car broke down and you’ll need to take public transit while it’s in the shop.

A situation like this could break a typical family. Ken Lombard, ’76, president and CEO of California-based BRIDGE Housing Corp., is embracing a solution championed by Sound Transit: affordable housing at Seattle’s major transit hubs.

“There’s a misperception in terms of how [affordable housing] communities come together, and who the residents are—just normal people who have come up against some challenges in their life that have put them in this position,” says Lombard. “We need to do everything that we can to try to provide them with options that help them get back on their feet.” BRIDGE has invested $3 billion in building nearly 20,000 homes and apartments in California, Oregon and Washington. Another $3.8 billion worth of construction is in development now, including 232 homes at the Northgate Transit Center and more than 550 units at the forthcoming Spring District/120th Street light rail station in Bellevue.

In Northgate, all 232 apartments are reserved for people who make 60% or less of the area median income, or $77,650 for a family of four. In Bellevue, 235 homes will serve a range of incomes between 30% and 80% of the area median income, while the remaining 318 units are market rate.

“I am really proud of what I’ve seen happen on the housing side in Seattle,” says Lombard, who now lives in Los Angeles. “I love every time I get a chance to go back home and have a project that I’m part of."

Lombard grew up in Seattle’s Madison Valley/Central District neighborhood, where his family ran a dry-cleaning business. “We had a very wide variety of customers that made me understand how to treat everyone the same way, no matter their position in life,” he says. “I’ve tried to keep that commitment and approach going forward as I built my career.”

He attended the UW in the mid-1970s and was a forward (and sixth man) on the Huskies’ basketball team, where he learned to be a team player—something he considers one of the most valuable lessons of his career. Basketball connected him later on to Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who became his business partner at Johnson Development Corp., now known as Magic Johnson Enterprises. The two would go on to bring movie theaters, Starbucks coffee shops, restaurants and retail centers to minority communities in 65 cities nationwide.

“It was a huge win for those communities. He was the perfect partner from a celebrity perspective,” says Lombard, who recalls the way Johnson would light up an entire room of prospects. “He was the guy who opened up those doors. My responsibility was to execute on the opportunities.”

Lombard’s transition to working in housing came naturally. Before BRIDGE, he’d invested in multifamily housing on the market-rate side, including the Viktoria Apartments in downtown Seattle. Affordable housing offered him the opportunity to continue helping underserved communities.

“I feel a tremendous interest in and commitment to affordable housing solutions for people in need,” he says.

Housing prices in Seattle have risen 84% over the past decade, according to Zillow. And while the market is beginning to cool, Seattle’s median rent of $1,702 keeps the city firmly in the top10 most expensive in the U.S., according to Rocket Mortgage.

“It’ll take quite some time,” says Adrienne Quinn, distinguished practitioner at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance and former director of community and human services for King County. Quinn serves on the board of directors for BRIDGE. “Housing prices will probably never drop low enough so that somebody who is on social security or disability would be able to afford market-rate housing.”

Quinn cites a new book by colleague Gregg Colburn, an assistant professor of real estate within the UW’s College of Built Environments. “He and his research partner examined all of the jurisdictions that have a fair amount of homelessness to see what factors correlated between high homelessness and other issues: behavioral health, housing costs, poverty, etc.,” says Quinn. There was only one correlation. “The counties that have the highest housing prices have the highest rates of homelessness.

“There’s a myth that most of the people who are experiencing homelessness are addicted to drugs and alcohol or have significant mental health issues. We also have a significant number of people who are working who can’t afford housing. There are families who are living in cars who are not part of the visible homelessness population. The population of people experiencing homelessness is much broader and is not just people with addiction and mental health issues.”

Lombard’s solution persists: Build more affordable housing. According to a 2021 report by the city of Seattle, nearly 46,000 households are spending more than half their incomes on housing. “We need to address it,” says Lombard. “And we need to address it now and in a substantive way so we can contribute to a better quality of life for people across the country.”

In addition to the new properties in Bellevue and Northgate, BRIDGE teamed with St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Ballard to build 84 apartment units for families making 60% or below the area median income. Construction begins in 2023. “Partnerships are essential to our success,” says Lombard. “We often align with community-based organizations as well as private companies to deliver a full spectrum of housing opportunities.”

Two other buildings—Tressa in Bitter Lake and Coronado Springs in White Center—already provide a collective 806 units of affordable housing to Seattle residents. “Housing is a basic need, just like food and water are,” says Quinn. “I’d say, under Ken Lombard’s leadership, BRIDGE is undertaking some very innovative partnerships that are going to be able to produce significantly more affordable housing for our community.”

“Media outlets can find the one or two people who are saying they’re living in a tent by personal choice,” says Adrienne Quinn, “but the vast majority of people—and we know this because King County has interviewed them—if offered housing resources, would move in immediately.”

Gregg Colburn, professor of real estate at the College of Built Environments, studied the relationship between homelessness and mental illness, drug addiction, poverty, weather, public assistance programs and more. What did he find? It all comes down to the cost and availability of housing.

After multiple studies across the country, researchers found that—thanks in part to great design—property values have increased in neighborhoods with new affordable housing.