Leamon Abrams (KNFP 9), Civic and Community Affairs Director, Starbucks Coffee Company, Seattle.
This article originally appeared in the January 2009 issue of the KFLA Newsletter.
The bottom line in Leamon Abram's career is to help get checks into more people’s pockets. In his various government and private-sector positions, Leamon has made sure that economic empowerment programs are infused into the projects he oversees.
In my own life, a few people invested a little bit of time to push me this way instead of that way, says Leamon. A few teachers, coaches, and people at the Boy’s Club are the reason I’m where I am today. I know that story can be replicated in so many neighborhoods and families. His personal history motivates him to create opportunities wherever he can for job training and continuing education, and for giving more people a voice in the public policy arena.
As the economic development director in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office from 2002-2004, Leamon worked to attract new companies to the city. He made it his personal goal to ensure the new employment went as broad and reached as deeply into all levels of the city as possible, he says. At the Bechtel Corporation from 1993-2001, his work involved projects such as the light rail extension from Downtown Portland to the airport. Leamon created opportunities to educate and train people in the area for careers in infrastructure management.
I help develop the principles and imbed the mechanisms to achieve the broad goals of workforce training into my projects, explains Leamon. Even when I had my kitchen redone recently, I asked the contractor what he was doing to bring new people into his field.
Last summer, Leamon took a leave from the corporate world and traveled across the country to help in community organizing with the Equal Voices for American Families campaign. His efforts helped in developing a policy platform that was signed by 15,000 families and ratified at the presidential conventions.
The effort was about giving working families a seat at the table to develop policy goals that could improve their lives, he says.
Now, back in his corporate job, Leamon’s work in public affairs helps to extend Starbucks connection to communities. For example, he developed a give-back component from the company’s credit card to the Local Initiative Support Corporation.
I always look at economic empowerment through the lens of the bottom up: How does any economic activity work for people who might not necessarily have immediate access to those opportunities? All the work even, what I’m doing at Starbucks in government and community affairs, is to help pass on to others the fortunate opportunities I’ve been given because folks invested in me.