On Thursday, The Herald Business Journal will announce the 2016 recipient of the Emerging Leaders Award. Last week and this week, we are profiling 12 finalists, who were chosen by a panel of judges from among dozens of nominees.
After college, George Kosovich worked as a financial analyst at Intel in Beaverton. He could have made a career with the company. Instead, he followed his girlfriend — who later became his wife — to Los Angeles.
He started working in economic development in South Central Los Angeles, helping people in a community that lived through two riots, people who weren’t really safe day to day.
“I thought if you can make an OK living at it you should figure it out without a lot of expectations,” Kosovish said. “I worked in that community for about five years.”
It was a rewarding experience not the least of which in meeting people who shared his same goals and hopes. Kosovich returned to the Pacific Northwest in 2007 when he took a job working at the United Way of Snohomish County.
In 2011, Kosovich joined Verdant Health Commission, helping the commission shift from managing a hospital to becoming a nonprofit that aims to create a healthier community.
“Since we were literally starting from scratch, I needed to think creatively and build relationships with partners to accomplish our work,” Kosovich writes in his nomination form.
In his work in the community, Kosovich serves as the vice chair of the Casino Road Youth Development Center Advisory Board through the YMCA of Snohomish County. He volunteers as an income tax preparer through the United Way’s free tax preparation program, something he’s done for the past in 11 tax seasons.
He’s on the leadership committee for the Snohomish County Dental Access Coalition. He’s also chair of the University of Washington Bothell School of Nursing and Health Studies Advisory Board. He recently joined the board of the Community Foundation of Snohomish County.
For the past several years, Kosovich has helped facilitate Leadership Snohomish County’s Young Professionals program, guiding young and developing leaders in the county. He said he’s firmly in the Generation X era, but many of the people he’s worked with in the program are Millennials.
“They are really, really engaged and want to be engaged,” Kosovich said. “That surprised me and it shouldn’t surprise me.
“They are a group of young professionals and they’re kind of hungry and very proactive about it and I think that gets them in trouble a little bit. They’re very engaged but they’re going to do it in different ways than have been done previously.”
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