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Meet David

Canby is my home by birth and by choice. When you live your entire childhood in one place, you often don’t appreciate what you have. I’m a product of the Canby public school system and old enough to be a product of year-round school when Canby grew faster than buildings could be built. I took hunter education and learned to shoot at the Canby Rod & Gun Club. 

I played in a band with Canby’s own Joni Harms called the Catalinas. And just before I graduated, I earned my Eagle Scout after years of Monday night meetings in the A-Frame in Canby Community Park.

I also met my future wife Linda when we joined a tap dance, singing, and acting troupe in town at ages seven and eight. It just took us a couple of decades to be honest enough with each other to admit we were in love.

I chose Whitman College because my family had homesteaded in the Blue Mountains after the Civil War, and I liked the area. It was too far away for Dad to ask me to come home and mow the lawn, but close enough to come home for a weekend with friends. I studied Mathematics, but my career goals had been set since I was 15. All I wanted to do was go to work for the Boy Scouts and run a summer camp.

The plan was to graduate, return to Portland, and work for the Scouts. But the job I was offered was in the Tri-Cities. Since it included being at camp all summer, I took it. After five years and five summers in camp with no electricity or hot water, I took a promotion. I moved to California, first as a fund-raiser, then as senior management, and finally as the Executive Director / Scout Executive of the Boy Scout office in Santa Barbara. Besides running the Boy Scouts, the job included running one of the premier Outdoor Schools in the country.

I lived in Los Alamos, an unincorporated town in northern Santa Barbara County. I was elected to and served as President of the Los Alamos Community Service District. This special district provided the community with water, sewer, and park services. The county also appointed me to serve on the committee updating the area's comprehensive plan. These were great opportunities for me to learn about government.

Then, I was given another opportunity, which I could not refuse. I moved from a town of 1,200 people to an apartment complex of 1,500 units in Manhattan. I was the new Director of Development for the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts, the largest fundraising job in the organization. With the great recession of 2008, my role was changed to Chief Financial Officer. I oversaw restructuring the Council’s debt by creating a conservation easement on the largest piece of private property in New York City, a Boy Scout camp on Staten Island. 

It was a surreal experience for a kid from Canby. I had an office in the Empire State Building on the 78th floor, looking out over Central Park. Linda and I were newly married and enjoying everything the city offered. I thought we had it all, but we didn’t. We didn’t have Canby.

As our parents grew older, they needed more help than they could admit. It was time to move home, and after more than 26 years, it was also time to move past the Boy Scouts. Based on my not-for-profit experience, I became the Executive Director of the Northwest Osteopathic Medical Foundation. I learned about medical education quickly and eventually earned a Fellowship in Osteopathic Health Policy.

In the dozen years since moving back, we’ve lost all four parents. I adopted Linda’s adult son, and her daughter gave us our first Granddaughter earlier this month. We live in the home I grew up in. We sleep together every night in the same room where I slept and dreamed about my future.

Being the Mayor of Canby is another step in a lifetime of experiences.

Canby is my home by birth and by choice.

 

Committee for David Tate
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