Meet the ECO team:

Meet Brian Doyle -- ECO's Business Engagement Project Manager!

He’s passionate about connecting local businesses with opportunities throughout King County, especially with our JumpStart contractor network and clean energy programs. In his role, he works directly with businesses, and he loves bringing his background and experience as a contractor to the job.

Brian was born in King County and grew up in Snohomish County, and he has always been passionate about civic engagement and making a difference. He’s excited about the opportunity to bring more businesses into ECO’s work over the coming year! Read more of his story in this Q&A:

Tell us about your role at ECO.

I work in the King County Executive Climate Office (ECO), where I serve as the Business Engagement Project Manager. Within the role, I help facilitate a program called JumpStart, and I lead on business engagement for different teams in the office, including those working on EV charging and decarbonization. I connect businesses with the opportunities we have across the County, and for our network of contractors in JumpStart, I highlight opportunities coming up and create workshops around those opportunities.

What was your career path to get here?

I feel like this job description was written for me; most of my career has been as a contractor, then in civic engagement and then economic development.

I'm a former contractor myself. My family has owned and operated a small landscape construction company for about 48 years now; my dad jokes it's the longest-running non-profit in Seattle. So after college, that was the easy job. I went and I ran the company for about 10 years with my dad. In that time, I realized it was his dream, not mine, and at the moment, I didn't think I was gaining valuable life experience from it. But now, I look back on that time and I draw from it completely.

I switched careers about seven years ago, and bugged everyone in my life saying I wanted to get civically engaged. I wanted to get in the community. I worked on a campaign as a field organizer and then field director, and then I worked on a campaign for Earth Day, doing outreach for the whole Puget Sound area.

Then, I worked with the Economic Alliance of Snohomish County, where I led a workforce development program doing business engagement, and then served as Director of Investor Relations for that organization, doing business engagement for our investors, would-be investors—relationships, relationships, relationships.

What kinds of businesses might engage with you in your role now, and who should reach out to see what King County has to offer?

Over a year ago, King County identified that the skilled trades are going to play an absolutely pivotal role in much of our work. We're looking for those contractors, and we’re also looking for project management firms and manufacturing businesses that are interested in training up new workers. And along with working with JumpStart, we can connect you with different ways to partner with King County.

Along with the JumpStart network and workshops, I can talk with you about King County’s E-Procurement Portal, our Small Contractor and Supplier Certification Directory, and how to bid on projects at King County. We can help make that an easy-to-understand process.

We are hoping to scale to 50 businesses by the end of the year and then we will probably pause recruitment for a bit.

What are the benefits to participating with the JumpStart program?

We’re connecting you with folks who want to think with their brains and work with their hands. They’ve been through registered pre-apprenticeship programs, and our program pays the wages so they can do a six-week paid internship with your business. We're also helping to pay for their certifications, equipment up to $600, and liability insurance. So there’s a low barrier to take them on, and they get the benefit of on-site experience, work-based learning and networking. But the hope is that we’ve made it low-barrier enough for the employer that the person gets hired on full-time afterward.

There are the benefits of contributing to workforce development, and to our community in this way, and also those connections with King County.

What do you love about this role?

Well, I love engaging with businesses, especially small businesses- finding out, what got you into this? They say small business is the American dream, and we have folks in our network that are from all walks of life, from a half dozen different countries originally, and now all of a sudden they're in our network and they're actively just trying to grow their business. They're actively trying to create more opportunity for themselves, and coming from that small business background, I love trying to help those businesses out.

When you work and live in a small business, it’s not just nine-to-five, it doesn't end. It's at the dinner table. It's, you know, the next morning during breakfast. So I get it, and that's just a joy for me to be able to interact, learn, and hopefully be able to support in some way, shape, or form.

And then also I've got to say, the culture of the Executive Climate Office is just unbelievable. I feel so supported, and it’s the first time I've been able to be fully me.

What do you like to do outside of work?

Life right now is about chasing kids around, but what’s great is they’re at that age where we do things together. We golf together, we fish together. I'm also an avid reader. I would say my biggest passion is my family.