This year, the Ford School Alumni Board honored James L. McIntire (MPP ’78) with the 2024 Neil Staebler Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes outstanding professional achievement in public service and a commitment to the mission and values of the Ford School.
Over the course of his 45-year-long career, McIntire held elected office for nearly two decades, supported multi-billion infrastructure projects, founded a research center focused on public finance, and helped educate a generation of public policy experts at the University of Washington’s School of Public Policy and Governance.
“Jim dedicated his career to the public good. He set an example for all aspiring public policy professionals. From policy leadership to policy education, he answered the call to serve time and time again,” said Ford School Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes.
From 2009 to 2017, McIntire served as the elected Washington State Treasurer, where he directed an agency that managed $400 billion of transactions per year, invested $18 billion of assets, and safeguarded public deposits of $6 billion. For 10 years prior to his service as State Treasurer, McIntire represented Seattle in the Washington Legislature.
“I absolutely love politics,” he said. “Running for office got my juices up like nothing else. I enjoyed getting out there and engaging with people. And once I was in office, I really loved making things work, and being part of the here’s-how-you-do-it side of things.”
McIntire taught economics, budgeting, and finance at the University of Washington’s School of Public Policy and Governance. This included launching and directing that university’s Fiscal Policy Center, a research institute focused on public finance. Later in his career, he also ran a national consulting practice that estimated multibillion-dollar legal liabilities and risks for corporations, investors, and creditors.
McIntire says his experience at the University of Michigan was instrumental in guiding him to explore the field of public policy and ultimately inspired him to pursue his doctorate degree in economics from the University of Washington.
“The Ford School was a real driver in launching my career,” McIntire said. “When I learned about the public policy program at the University of Michigan, I couldn’t believe there was a place like that. It was a terrific place for me at that moment.”
McIntire received his master’s degree in public policy from Michigan in 1978 and went on to work as congressional economist for U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey. Later, he served as a fiscal advisor to Washington governors. Working as an economist cemented McIntire’s desire to pursue a doctorate degree in economics that he completed in 1993.
As the Washington State Treasurer, McIntire guided the financing for two major infrastructure projects to transform the highway system through downtown Seattle—one to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with the Route 99 tunnel that allows more than 75,000 vehicles to traverse downtown Seattle every day; and another to rebuild the Highway 520 floating bridge, one of the Puget Sound region's busiest highway corridors.
“These were highly contentious multi-billion projects,” McIntire explained. “It took an enormous amount of public dialogue to make them work.”
McIntire also served in a multitude of leadership roles throughout his career. He was on the board of directors for the Value Reporting Foundation, the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board, the Washington State Investment Board, and the National Institute of Public Finance.
In addition, he served as president of the National Association of State Treasurers. “I had a terrific time working to support the capacity that state treasurers have to help expand and rebuild the infrastructure that keeps our institutions running,” he said.
McIntire is also especially proud of his work with the SASB Foundation. “This was a project started by some folks out of Harvard to create a tracking mechanism for environmental social governance issues,” he said. “The question was, how do we report the impact of environmental, social, and governance factors in a way that helps investors, but doesn’t become burdensome to companies? It was a highly successful project that created global standards surrounding these issues.”
Another notable moment in his career was when McIntire, as a Washington State Representative, worked to introduce and pass a proposal to adopt a Streamlined Sales Tax, a national effort by state and local governments to simplify and modernize sales tax collection.
In all, McIntire says he felt privileged to do this kind of work.
“When I began studying public policy, we all thought we could change the world,” he said. “We saw ourselves as being productive and having real drive to get things done. That’s something I carried throughout my career.”
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Sadly, one week after being interviewed for this story, and a 28-month brave fight against cancer, Jim passed away on August 16, 2024. Washington State Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti released a statement that concluded, “Jim was a public servant in every measure of the word and an example for all those aspiring to lead when the times we live in demand integrity, determination, and humility. He will be sorely missed.” You can read his obituary here, which states, “In his memory, Jim urges you to support candidates for public office who will uphold democracy and seek the common good.”
By Sheri Hall