Greg McKenzie: “It’s always a journey — it’s never a destination”

Given the twists and turns K-12 education has been experiencing, it helps to have guides used to navigating change. That’s one of Greg McKenzie’s strengths.

Greg’s life reflects his mantra: “It’s always a journey – it’s never a destination.” After graduating from college with an aerospace engineering degree as an NROTC cadet, he served five years as an officer in the U. S. Navy. After completing his Navy service, he transitioned to the law – and to Oregon – and spent about 25 years in private practice as an attorney. Then he made another shift, this time to the Oregon School Boards Association, where he served as a board trainer, providing school boards around the state with professional development on topics such as public meetings law, board roles and responsibilities, and goal setting. He also supported several executive recruitments, experiences he enjoyed. So when he left OSBA, he established his own executive search business. For decades, he’s also served as a community college and university adjunct instructor on topics related to his legal expertise.

He began his deep dive into education by volunteering to serve on the West Linn-Wilsonville School District Budget Committee, a six-year commitment that eventually led to him winning two terms on that district’s school board. And in 2009, he sought and won his first term on the Clackamas ESD Board of Directors, a position to which he has been re-elected three times.

Plenty has happened at Clackamas ESD in those intervening years, and asking Greg to describe his favorite memory or achievement on the board “is kind of like asking a parent which is your favorite child,” he said. One of his personal highlights is the heavy lifting that occurred over the course of several years to help ESDs around the state become more valued players in the education arena. For six years, he served as an officer of the Oregon Association of Education Service Districts, including two years as the statewide chair of the organization.

“Not only has OAESD stepped up its statewide role, but Clackamas ESD has become a ‘go-to’ agency,” Greg said. “I believe we are viewed in the broader ESD world around the state as a respected partner to get things done. So I’m really proud of that.

“I’m also really proud of our organization’s openness to innovation. We’re willing to take a chance, try something new to see if it works. I think we’ve been an incubator for innovative ideas about how to do things.

“There are a lot of byproducts from that. We’ve hired an incredible staff. We’ve got nice facilities. We have a collaborative, collegial group of school districts and superintendents willing to work together for the best interests of all the kids, families and staffs in the county.”

One current example of thinking boldly is sitting next door to the CESD headquarters in Clackamas – a building purchased in 2021 that will become a new early learning hub in the community.

“We’ve now got three buildings in one location we can use as a campus,” Greg said. “I think that’s unique for an ESD, so I’d like to see us maximize the opportunity that gives us.”

Greg also calls out the long-tenured experience represented on the CESD board, and the stability and cohesiveness that have resulted.

“We’ve not only been long-serving, but we have also worked well together for our stakeholder groups,” he commented. “We have a diversity of opinions and may not agree all the time, but the fact is we all want to work toward a common solution that seems to be the best for the organization and those we serve.”

Over the years, Greg and his wife, Susan, have travelled extensively throughout the world, seeing new sights, meeting new people and learning more about this amazing planet we live on. Greg is a self-described “outdoors person my whole life,” and he and Susan are relatively new but enthusiastic converts to sailing, spending time sailing on the Columbia River, in the Puget Sound area and, when they can manage it, in the beautiful islands of Hawaii. Greg’s standard background for Zoom meetings during the pandemic has been a photo of an amazing Hawaiian sunset, a visual reminder of where he’d rather be.

Other than attending to the business of CESD, of course. Greg’s vision for the future of the organization is pretty clear: “Continue to be innovative. Continue to hire the best. Continue to support our staff. Continue and strive toward providing the best service available to the kids and parents in our community, which after all is our mission. Remember – it’s always a journey, not a destination.”