Deborah Hazlegrove

Deborah Brunton Hazlegrove is the Chair of the Slade Gorton Policy Center Advisory Committee. In this role, she directs the activities of the Gorton Center, primarily the Gorton Leaders Program. This program aims to cultivate and mentor students in the Pacific Northwest to become the next generation of policy leaders. The GLP provides leadership development, networking opportunities, and policy-focused classes and discussions.

A native of Washington State, Ms. Hazlegrove moved to Washington, D.C., in 1987 to work for Senator Dan Evans. She then served in the Press Office for Senator Slade Gorton, ultimately becoming his press secretary from 1989 to 1993. Ms. Hazlegrove returned to the Seattle area following her time on Capitol Hill to work for Microsoft, where she built the State and Local Government Affairs practice and served as its director for seven years. She then went on to become vice president of public affairs for VoteHere.net, an online elections company. During her time at VoteHere, she served on the advisory board to Washington’s secretary of state Sam Reed, as an adviser on elections technology policy.

In addition to her work at the Gorton Center, Ms. Hazlegrove is on the Board of Directors of REACH for South Africa, a nonprofit organization that is building sustainable learning centers for preschool-aged children in South Africa. She graduated from Whitman College with a BA in history.