Since becoming executive director of the Northeast Public Development Authority in 2022, Jesse Bank has worked steadily to help spearhead and facilitate redevelopment and construction projects in the district, which includes revitalizing Spokane's Hillyard neighborhood and surrounding areas through economic development initiatives.

Those projects include development programs aimed at activating underused land to provide needed housing, community services, and commercial space. Such examples include a proposed 30-unit mixed-use building that provides workforce housing, a day care facility, and an office for the PDA.

Bank has also facilitated transportation projects including a half-mile stretch of East Wellesley Avenue between Freya and Havana streets, and has helped spearhead the Hillyard neighborhood’s creative district designation through the Washington State Arts Commission, which is intended to bring visibility, investment, and identity to the community.

Education: Bachelor's degree in psychology, Skidmore College; master’s degree in architecture, University of Oregon; MBA, University of Colorado Boulder.

How would you describe yourself as a leader? I try not to make things about me. I’m just the facilitator. I’ve been given a set of tools with which to make things happen, but I need to lean on my community stakeholders to help me understand what those things are. I try to be a listener and make time for everyone.

What would you tell others looking to follow a similar career path to yours? Learn a little bit about as much as you can. Don’t specialize. To do this work, you need to have some degree of faculty with a wide range of things — law, finance, planning, economics, politics, marketing, engineering, and design, etc. But also be able to stay zoomed out enough to see how they all work together and where the opportunities lie.

What's one thing that makes you most proud? That we've built genuine momentum in Hillyard when it seemed so far away for so long.