A brain tumor. Surgery without guarantees. The kind of prognosis that rewrites a life — if you’re given one to rewrite.

Nate was. And he’s spent every day since living the way his mother, Elise, taught him: “If you get something, bless somebody else.”

It’s a philosophy that has shaped five decades of uncommon service. Thirty years at Eli Lilly, rising to Vice President of Strategic Initiatives. 

A Presidential appointment from Bill Clinton as a White House Conferee on NAFTA. Board seats at the NAACP National Foundation, the Seattle Urban League, and the University of Washington Foundation. 

A pulpit at Mount Zion Baptist Church, the oldest Black Baptist congregation in the Pacific Northwest. More than 300 recognitions, from the Eddie Carlson Leadership Award to Ebony‘s “30 Leaders of the Future.”

But ask Nate what he does, and he won’t start with any of that.

He’ll tell you he’s a connector. The son of a federal housing project in Eastern Washington, who learned early the difference between broke and poor: “Broke just means no money. We had values. We had each other. We were never poor.”