About Me

Family and Community

I grew up in Ladd’s Addition, a Portland neighborhood known back then as Little Italy. I was surrounded by an extended and close family with dogs Yogi and Wally. Here I learned the importance of a good work ethic, volunteering, and camaraderie from my parents. Big Joe, my dad, was a hard-working union papermill employee and my mom was a homemaker and avid volunteer. There were four of us siblings. Aunt Jeannie, my dad’s sister, lived two blocks away with five of my cousins. Five blocks away lived my grandmother and my Aunt Ann. Both had immigrated from Lithuania.

Growing up, our lives centered around our Catholic parish of St. Philip Neri (named after an Italian saint known for his keen sense of humor and practical piety). With its church, school and hall, our parish was the community’s hub of activities. Sundays we attended mass. Weekdays the kids attended the parish grade school. My sister and I, as volunteers, routinely washed all the dishes from the monthly men’s dinner prepared by the women at the hall.

Aunt Ann owned a small grocery store called Ann’s where all the kids were allowed to work. The store was where my love of accounting and finance began. I took a keen liking to working the cash register and adding to the on-going ledgers that Ann allowed customers to use until payday.

Work Life

I was the first young woman to be accepted into the US Bank of Oregon’s work/study college program (my CV). During the interview process, the first question was, “Do you plan to marry?” I responded, “I will be married to my career.” And I kept my word. I did not marry until I was 43. It was an exciting time for me personally and professionally. I married Steve, a bank examiner I met while working on the national examination of Lincoln Savings and Loan. And my contribution to the resulting report helped put Charles Keating and associates in jail.

In 1994, KPMG, one of the five largest CPA firms in the world, hired me to be the USAID (the world's premier international development agency) consultant/educator/regulator to the Bank of Lithuania (BOL). My mission was to help rebuild the regulatory system. I moved to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Here abacuses were used as cash registers. No one really spoke English and initially I only spoke a few phrases that I learned from a car tape and my colorful language teacher Aunt Ann. For two years, I traveled most of Lithuania examining their banks with my new group of English-speaking inspectors. I trained the inspectors on the old CAMEL method (Capital, Asset Quality, Management, Earnings and Liquidity).

One of my important contributions to Lithuania was to help keep it out of the 2007-2008 worldwide financial crisis. Predatory lending targeting low-income homebuyers, excessive risk-taking by global financial institutions, and the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble had caused mortgage-backed securities and derivatives linked to those securities to collapsed in value. Financial institutions worldwide suffered severe damage. The BOL Director of Examinations told me that Lithuania was one of only three countries in the world that did not fall for the mortgage- backed instruments. We were sitting in his office, and he was puffing on a cigarette as he spoke, “Diana, you taught me to never engage in anything I didn’t understand. And I didn’t understand those instruments, so I thought of you!"

Civic Work

In the last dozen years, I’ve dedicated myself to supporting the Edmonds community and have volunteered for and/or led a many non-profits that include: The Off-Leash Area Edmonds, Edmonds Floretum Club, and Rotary with Court Appointed Special Advocates ad litem program and Edmonds Art Festival Grotto

In 2005, I retired from a small company that had been awarded a large Air-Force contract to outfit its bases with weather systems and a scientific paper describes the system. I jumped into civic work and became a Director for the Edmonds Art Festival. I began to help two women cleaning the off-leash dog area at Marina Beach and was responsible for incorporating the Off-Leash Area Edmonds www.olae.org. I assisted the Floretum Garden club with non-profit status, a club that has my heart as I love flowers and love making cut flower arrangements. I also was a member of Rotary and was given the CASA ad litem project which was Christmas Mittens for infants and youth in the system. We have grown that project to include the Edmonds Book Store.

Political Life

In 2008, Washington Mutual (WaMu) collapsed as $17 billion of customer deposit (a run) were removed in less than 10 days. WaMu did not receive any government bailout assistance and was sold for pennies on the dollar to J.P. Morgan (Chase) so that the FDIC didn’t have to pay anything relating to the bank closing. My husband had been employed for decades and being a former regulator and seeing the entire regulatory and political debacle at work, I was furious.

Former Council Member and neighbor, Jack Bevan, helped me redirect my focus. I had met him at our neighborhood Hutt Park and we had started a yearly clean-up together. Jack insisted that I fill out an application for the Council vacancy left by Deanna Dawson. I won the Primary, but lost the General and in 2010 was appointed after the death of Peggy Prichard-Olson. My record is very public and there’s always a good story if you Google my name.

With thirteen years of municipal finance, I have worked with four Mayors, three Public Works and Parks and Recreation Directors, Four Finance Directors, Two Community and Economic Development Directors and 19 Council Members.