Meet Kezia Wanner

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kezia Wanner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kezia , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I have found purpose in being of service. As early as I can remember as a child, I remember that I wanted to feel useful. I think part of that was being brought up in a household where contributions to the family and thoughtfulness to others were paramount. My parents were working multiple jobs and we moved often, which left little time for them outside of work, and therefore my sister and myself had to be self-directed and self-motivated, as well as help out taking care of the home, the yard, and each other.

I followed a career in public service to engage with and give back to my community, providing services and building a stronger community specifically focusing on the populations left out of local decision making. I will always champion for the voices not heard and those not in the room, from marginalized and overlooked communities to public safety professionals simplistically and broadly vilified in recent past. Our communities and social narratives are very complex and nuanced and my goal in public service is to tease apart the nuance to find commonalities to have dialogues and get to understanding and shared progress.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am running for City Council in Portland Oregon, and this is a pivotal time for the community. We have big city challenges but have been operating like a big town and we need to mature our solutions. On January 1 2025, the government changes, a new elected body will be in place, and the work begins. Drawing from my 20 years of public service in Portland, I look forward to serving the people of Portland to bring solutions and stability to our city.

If elected, I am excited to dig in and start the hard work to address the challenges the city faces, knowing that we can heal Portland after it got beat up for the past decade. That is only possible if the outcomes of the national elections don’t inspire civil unrest as happened in 2016 and 2020. As a City Councilor I plan to focus on the economic revitalization of the city to rebuild the reputation and appeal of Portland as a destination for residents, businesses, and visitors. A healthy and vital economy will afford the city the ability to fund core municipal services and address the needs of our community.

Specifically, I would like to amplify arts, culture, sports, and recreation as the branding for the City of Portland. The city is strong in all of those areas but they need to be north star strategies to place-make in our physical environment, community development, financial investments, and policy development.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

One quality that has well served me is being purpose-driven. It gives me external motivation and momentum, even when I am internally feeling apathetic. I am able to get up and move toward something positive to help others. This is one of my consistent strengths. I recommend that people don’t live in their head to much or look for internal motivation exclusively because you can get stuck by self-doubt or mental blocks.

Another quality is resilience, and that comes from testing myself and seeing what happens. I don’t have much self-doubt, but also don’t have a lot of ego, and am curious to know my limits. That has enabled me to launch into new things just to see how I do. An example is physical limits. I learned how to box at the age of 47, and that has given me significant focus, agility, community, and strength. We never know what we can do until we try it and are almost always better off for it.

A skill that I have relied upon over my years of service has been intentional relationship building. I don’t pay attention to social or professional pedigrees, age, or background, with whom I form relationships. I have a broad and diverse network of friends and colleagues, which has been my support network professionally and personally over the past 25 years. I recommend finding people who are interesting and make you feel good to be around them and surround yourself with those people. They will continue to lift you up and keeps life rewarding and interesting.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

One of the highest impacts thing my parents did for me was not intentional. They moved the family from California beach community to Nashville, TN in the late 1970s. I was in 3rd grade. This geographic move was a culture shock but also a time in my life perspective development where children are very adaptable.

My sister and I were part of the city’s school de-segregation efforts and were bussed to Nashville inner city to go to school, and at the time we didn’t realize the importance of this experience. What it meant to me being one of 30 white kids in a predominately black community was that I got to experience what it means to be the ‘other’. Being different from majority, I experienced being alienated, bullied, misunderstood but ultimately was largely accepted and learned different cultural norms. I recognize now that the experience broadened my world view, allowed me to understand racial dynamics complexities, and informs how I show up in spaces now better understanding my privilege as a white woman.

I don’t share this experience with many people because it would be gratuitous and inaccurate to compare the experience of a institutional desegregation effort with the everyday life of persons of color. I can say that this experience gave me much better understanding of racial dynamics and challenges, and informs how I walk through my life.

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seated on table and firehouse images are attributed to FlashbackphotographyPDX LLC.

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