Issue link: http://www.wacmagazine.com/i/1160216
36 WAC Magazine | wac.net Speakeasy Listen & Get to know new Chairwoman Rose Mitchell Rose Mitchell joined the WAC 16 years ago. Since then, she's married, had two children, and settled down in her Mount Baker home. On August 1, she took over as WAC Chairwoman, becoming the 77th member to lead the WAC Board of Governors. We caught up with Rose as she prepared for her year of WAC leadership. If her family's private speakeasy is any indication, this is going to be a great year! I t's a late spring evening in Seattle, and Rose Mitch- ell's backyard cocktail party is blossoming into a cel- ebration to remember. Friends and family sip drinks, grab snacks, and swirl around Rose, the WAC's new Chairwoman and the guest of honor at her very own par- ty. Rose accepts each new round of congratulations with appreciation and sincerity, sharing conversations with the kind of engagement you'd expect from a close friend. It's this sense of unaffected authenticity that Rose in- tends to impart throughout her year atop the WAC Board of Governors. Listening—that's key to Rose. "Everyone talks about engagement and involvement, but if you're not listening, you're not engaging," Rose says. "When I feel heard and acknowledged it creates a sense of community. I want to foster that at the WAC." Rose's WAC story began on a bit of a whim. She was living in Oregon and waiting to hear back about dental school applications she had submitted. With no job and a year of waiting through the application process, she packed a bag and moved north. Shortly aerward, the dental school letters began to arrive—each one a rejec- tion. "I found myself not upset at my rejection letters, and that was a huge sign that this was where I belonged," she says of Seattle. It wasn't long aer making the move that Rose land- ed a job at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, joined the WAC on the suggestion of her uncle Jack, and connected with the 20s/30s Committee. "I've always been outgoing," Rose says. at extroverted By Mae Jacobson, Associate Editor