Get to Know Patti Payne …
Hi. I'm Patti Payne. A storyteller, and so much more.
My ‘handlers’ are asking me to write about myself for you, my audience.
And all I could think of was blah blah blah.
“You’ve got to do it,” they said. “We have a place for it on your page.”
So here’s my stab at it, but to tell you the truth, I guess I might be a renaissance woman – a person of wide-ranging interests and abilities; or maybe a polymath, defined as “... an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.” Or maybe a teleidoscope which is a kind of kaleidoscope, with a lens and an open view, which forms intricate patterns from objects outside itself.
I’m a viewer. An observer. A storyteller. A broadcaster. A writer. A regional personality I guess.
And I’ve been around doing this for enough decades that they call Patti Payne a brand, in and of itself. Thank you very much.
These days, people are calling me an “influencer.”
The truth of the matter is that I am simply “Positively Patti Payne,” a person who has a history as long as your arm in our region.
My two grown daughters, both successful, glorious women, are the loves of my life.
And I have been keynote speaker for a variety of organizations.
Some of my favorite appearances include emceeing Alliance for Education awards with Harry Belafonte; commencement speaker for Bellevue Community College; being honored, roasted and toasted, with cartoonist David Horsey, at the Gridiron West gala; and receiving The 5th Ave.Theatre’s Excellence honors for community service. Holy guacamole. Those were some great highlights.
Somewhere, there is an unedited tape of the evening honoring me and genius cartoonist David Horsey. Not sure we ever want that out in public, but it is. And it was hilarious — a fantastic night, as was the Excellence Honors awarded to me at the 5th Ave. Theatre’s “Excellence Awards.”
What a crazy night that was. It seemed like half of Seattle and Bellevue were there, including my family, who came from afar to join in the melee.
The truth of the matter is that I am simply “Positively Patti Payne,” a person who has a history as long as your arm in our region.
My interests include animals of all kinds (I am a fanatic animal lover)
Plus reading; playing the piano; dancing; listening to all kinds of great music.
(OMG, it sounds like I’m filling out a dating profile. I am not!); laughing; cooking; baking; gardening; swimming; birdwatching; listening to the sounds of the Universe in all its many forms.
Before I went out on my own, I was a 20-year business consultant and also a columnist for Puget Sound Business Journal.
Before that, I was a deep-rooted broadcast personality in the Pacific Northwest, working for all three network affiliates during my more than three-decade career. During that time, I gratefully received many prestigious national and local honors.
I emcee for dozens of major charity events. Yep. You can call me for yours.
Somewhere in all this journey, I was also Director of Public Affairs for Paul Allen's Experience Music Project.
One of 12 directors who helped him get that project from iconic architect Frank Gehry’s drawing board to an edifice that is an architectural wonder at the edge of Seattle Center.
Did I mention that I am the principal of my own public affairs/community relations business, The Payne Group: Communicating and Connecting?
I’m also a professional musician who played drums and sang nightly on club stages in a jazz combo when my two daughters were growing up; and later in a jazz combo headed by Seattle Mariners chairman emeritus John Ellis. Those were some memorable times.
The best is yet to come!
Join me on this exciting shared journey!
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