Meet Julia
Julia Brim-Edwards for Multnomah County Chair
This place we call home has shaped me in many ways.
Growing up in Portland
This place we call home has shaped me in many ways. I was born at Good Sam hospital, the third daughter in a family that was making Portland its new home. My dad was starting a small business in SE Portland and needed to be near the airport, so we rented first in Rose City and then settled into a home in SE Portland. My mom was a registered nurse, and my dad’s business supported community hospitals and health care providers in rural communities.
We were a close family, and I had a free-range childhood. Thanks to my mom's public health background, it included plenty of vegetables (I was the only kid in elementary school with radishes in my lunch sack...boo), little TV, regular chores, and if we needed to get somewhere, we walked, biked or by bus.
With my brother and sisters, I attended Glencoe, a K-8 school at the time. Summer work was getting up early to head by bus to East County fields for berry picking. Those summers picking berries gave me a deep appreciation for field work, as it was hard and physical.
Title IX… A New Law Opens Doors
In sixth grade, I jumped at my first chance to play team basketball when a friend's mom volunteered to "coach" and supervise a group of girls after school. We played in Glencoe's little gym while the boys got the real one. It seemed unfair that boys had Little League, organized basketball teams, coaches, referees, uniforms, and real competition, while girls were expected to sit on the sidelines. I felt the same way about school: girls took home ec, while boys got to learn welding, carpentry, and sheet metal work in Shop, exactly the class I wanted to take.
Then Congress passed Title IX, and it changed the trajectory of my life.
Suddenly, my friend Colleen and I were among the first girls in shop class, and I still have some of the projects I made there. It also opened the door to competitive sports at Washington High School (now Revolution Hall), where I eventually earned 12 varsity letters. Along the way, I made lifelong friends and learned lessons in teamwork, discipline, and relentless practice. I was a team sport athlete, and that is how I like to work to this day.
Beyond sports and school, I volunteered as an Outdoor School leader and loved being a camp counselor at Camp Namanu. I was always hustling for work, including summers doing landscape maintenance (lots of mowing) and pool maintenance/locker room duties at Creston Pool.
Public Service and a New Family
My next four and a half years were at Oregon State University, and then I took a Congressional internship in Washington, DC. for a short-term stint, which turned into a seven-year stay. As Congress tackled issues ranging from wilderness protection to tribal recognitions and advancements in civil rights, I learned that democracy isn't just debate and procedure. At its best, it's a tool for solving problems, expanding opportunity, and improving people's everyday lives.
Returning back to SE Portland with my husband Randall from Walla Walla (whom I met in D.C.), we started our family and eventually raised our three kids in the house I grew up in. It was a busy household with school, sports, a dog, a cat, two rats, and chickens. Being a mom is the hardest and best job I have had! As our family grew and my work continued, I experienced the challenges of being a working mom, the daily juggling act familiar to parents everywhere.
Active Parent and Public-School Advocate
When our oldest was getting ready for kindergarten, Portland's schools were facing a major funding shortfall. What started as a concern for our own children turned into more than two decades of working alongside parents, teachers, principals, and school staff to support public education. I joined and led community efforts to improve school funding to make sure every student, regardless of ZIP code, had access to the opportunities that help kids thrive, including art, music, PE, college prep classes, career and technical education, and a full school year.
When our schools were struggling, other parents encouraged me to run for the PPS School Board. I ran and eventually served as a volunteer for 12 years on the Board, twice leading the school board through some of its most challenging periods, getting it back on course following superintendent departures, removing lead, asbestos, and other hazards in the water, filling huge budget shortfalls, starting middle school sports programs, fixing financial irregularities and creating and implementing a plan to improve and rebuild our aging schools. During that time, I also served on the Head Start governing board supporting early learners get a strong start.
Executive Experience and Community Leader
As our kids were growing up and while I was volunteering on the school board, I spent 17 years in leadership roles at Nike, helping create jobs here in Oregon, representing the company in the US, Canada and other countries, serving on the executive team leading the decade-long construction project to expand the company’s headquarters and manufacturing facilities, and directing investments in local parks, schools and libraries.
Working with local community organizations, I spearheaded the company’s work on many workplace equity issues including marriage equality. When Covid arrived, I helped lead Nike’s team that worked with nurses, doctors, and manufacturing experts to make 200,000 units of personal protective equipment for local health care workers and set up a mobile vaccine clinic for the community.
During this time, I also served as an Oregon State University Board Trustee for nine years and on the Pacific University Board for six years, supporting Oregon students get ready for careers and their futures.
Particularly relevant to running for Multnomah County Chair, through my public service and professional career I provided executive leadership and oversight of billion-dollar budgets, hired and managed senior leaders, built and ran cross-functional teams, built and implemented long-term strategic plans, negotiated and managed contracts, sited and developed large construction projects, and integrated auditing into operational work as a systems improvement tool and to save money.
Bringing Urgency and Action to the County Commission
In 2021, I knew that I wanted my work to have a lasting impact on my hometown, so I left Nike to re-start my small business. Shortly thereafter, a seat on the County Commission opened up and my East Portland neighbors encouraged me to run, to get on the Commission, disrupt the status quo and improve things. The County was on the wrong track. I ran because I knew I could help.
In my three years as Commissioner, I have pushed for action, reform and greater accountability, using my legislative and executive experience and working with community leaders to make improvements at the County. Whether it was improving livability or neighborhood safety, supporting local businesses survive and thrive, and expanding and diversifying shelter so that people have access to basic services, safety and stability and pushing for real pathways off the streets and to recovery and stable housing for those experiencing homelessness.
Working with other commissioners and mental health clinicians, we restored access to school-based mental health services and supports for the Mental Health Court. We also required when setting up County facilities that the County work with neighbors to negotiate and maintain Good Neighbor agreements.
And because first responders shared the agony over leaving an intoxicated person on the street because the only other choice was the ER or jail, I pulled together a group of leaders in health care, law enforcement, and addiction treatment to build out a plan for a replacement 24/7 Sobering and Crisis Stabilization Center. Tapping their expertise, we created a plan, secured the funds and the Center is now under construction.
I bring to this race my experience, lifetime of effective service to the community, knowledge about the economy and how to support good paying jobs, and an ability to bring together coalitions to get big things done. I am both proud and humbled that record has earned me an incredible breadth of support, including all 6 Multnomah County mayors, unions representing more than 200,000 workers, local businesses, and community leaders and members from every corner of Multnomah County.