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Insider Perspective - Deb Brown: AWB's Surprising VP of Member Services |
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Written On: November/December 2004 |
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Written By: by Paul Schlienz |
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Debra Brown is full of surprises. Best known for her work with AWB’s Member Services, she is also a musician, athlete, entrepreneur and adventurous spirit.
Born and raised in Westchester County, New York, Deb came from a family of small business owners. As a result, she gained a real understanding of and empathy for the challenges of entrepreneurship early in life.
“My mom had a small wine shop in North Salem, New York,” Deb recalled. “She was a great role model who valued personal relationships and really took care of her customers, who included people like William Randolph Hearst.”
Watching both of her parents running small businesses gave Deb valuable lessons in the importance of working hard, working smart and being creative.
Deb graduated early from high school and took classes at the University of Massachusetts. She later moved west when she enrolled at the Evergreen State College. After graduating, while working for a graphic design and marketing firm, she decided to focus on marketing and business and took classes at the University of Washington.
Shortly thereafter, in December 1988, Deb was hired by AWB as Marketing Coordinator. “When I first started at AWB, we didn’t have a very extensive member services department,” Deb remembered. “We had only had an employment law seminar and the legislative reception.”
From the very beginning of her tenure, Deb saw huge potential for AWB to provide services for its members. Over the years, with her parents’ small business experiences clearly in mind, Deb worked hard to expand the number of member services offered by AWB. Now, as Vice President of Member Services since July 1998, Deb can proudly point to an impressive array of services for AWB’s members, including CompWise, a workers’ comp Retro program, HealthChoice, and other services to help employers.
My job is to stay on the lookout for services that will help our members be competitive,” Deb remarked. “AWB is able to negotiate and get good deals because of who we are and because of the volume of buying power of our members. It is really rewarding to be in a position where I’m able to develop programs that really do help businesses.”
Deb leads a varied and interesting life that few who know her exclusively from AWB could imagine. Above all, Deb is an avid cave diver.
“Cave diving is considered a hazardous sport, but if you’re trained properly, and you follow the rules, it can be a safe and incredibly rewarding experience,” Deb said. “Becoming cave certified, respecting that process and learning how to do it right is a real accomplishment, and I’m pretty proud of it.
“In cave diving you can actually be further away from breathable atmosphere than a space shuttle astronaut because you’re in an overhead environment. You have to plan each dive meticulously, and your equipment configuration has to be perfect. Also, when you’re cave diving, you’re not an individual diver, but are part of a team.”
For Deb, cave diving with its stress on teamwork and accountability, has profound parallels to the most positive values of the workplace. In addition, Deb’s interest in diving has also manifest itself an entrepreneurial venture.
“My husband and I own Capital Divers & Aquatics, in Olympia,” Deb said. “We offer scuba training for all levels, a wide range of name brand equipment and dive trips to both local and exotic destinations.
“Every year we go to Akumal, Mexico, which is about an hour south of Cancun and is an incredibly beautiful area,” Deb stated. “One of our favorite caves down there is Sac Aktun — an amazing, incredible cave system. You can get a feel for what cave diving is like if you’ve seen photos of dry caves with stalactites and stalagmites. If you can imagine swimming through water with the same kind of scenery all around you, you’ve just imagined the cave diving experience. However, nothing is quite like the real thing.”
Deb’s athletic interests don’t end with the water. Indeed, she has also raced bicycles on The Valley Race team in Olympia.
Currently, Deb is also making a serious effort in the field of music. She is playing bass along side her husband, who is a singer/songwriter/guitarist with professional experience. Their material is entirely original.
“It’s hard to put a label on our music, but the best description I can give is to call it alternative country with a twist of folk rock,” Deb said.
This winter, their group will be recording a demo CD that should be ready by the spring of 2005.
“We’ll probably tour on the festival circuit in the summer and locally here in Olympia,” Deb concluded. “We’ll just see where it goes.”
One more adventure for Deb. If musical stardom lurks around the corner for this cave diving business advocate, only time will tell. Nevertheless, in AWB’s universe, Deb is already a star for her profound contributions and devotion to the members she serves.
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