Jon M. Walton, NIGP-CPP, JD, CPPO, CPPB, CPM

While people may know Jon as a specialist in state procurement and contracts because he’s done that since 1997, that’s the tip of the iceberg. He was a legislative staffer for a couple of sessions, and the legislative coordinator for a state agency for a year, and has always been involved in politics (and is still an optimist). A member of the state bar for 24 years, he always intended to put his legal training toward service in the public sector. A good chunk of his higher education was devoted to environmental and natural resources policy and science, and he helped start a Northwest nonprofit that did good work bringing together disparate stakeholders to pursue common ground, smart thinking conservation projects. Jon spent his first five years after college as a wilderness skills instructor working with juvenile delinquent youth. Later odd jobs included FEMA-funded mental health work for victims of natural disasters, and providing leadership training to corporate executives. Someone obviously having difficulty figuring out exactly what to do when he grows up, for the last few years Jon has been devoted to practicing a more grounded, more self aware phase of leadership. His driving motivation or purpose is to seek situations where he can engage authentically with others to achieve high levels of performance and greater understanding, because that’s part of life lived well. He has benefitted from gaining plenty of technical expertise from his procurement positions, involvement in statutes and rules, and becoming a champion for training and certification, and is a bit of a perennial student himself, averaging 100 training hours a year for the last decade. He hopes to leverage that knowledge by collaborating with others in the wider environment, seeking out others who are committed to making positive differences in their own workplaces. He finds it very rewarding to collaborate in bigger networks so that we can all accelerate what we’re working to achieve.