Meet Your Board Members - Jim Tarbert

Jim Tarbert, Chairman of the Board, Wenatchee Valley Senior Activity Center

— By Russ Alman, Communications Director
 
Jim Tarbert is currently our chairman of the board.
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Jim is a native to North Central Washington. He grew up on farms in Wenatchee, Manson and Okanogan. After graduating from Okanogan High School, he worked for the Okanogan County Engineers Office for about a year and half to raise money for college. He then headed to Cheney where  he earned his degree from Eastern Washington University, working night shifts at Eastern State Hospital to pay for expenses.

After graduating from college, Jim taught electronics at the high school in Pasco. He and his wife, Sue, then headed to the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his masters degree in industrial technology while doing contract work on a research project. Sue was also able to earn her undergraduate degree there.

The couple wanted to return to Wenatchee, and when job opportunities became available there in 1969, they jumped at the chance. They have been here ever since.

Over the years, Jim has owned three successful businesses in the Valley.

After retiring, Jim joined the Senior Center because he wanted to join the writing group and learn how to publish some of the research he had done. He then discovered the Second Chance Thrift Shop and started to volunteer there. Working there made him aware of the Senior Center’s need to grow and reclaim space being used by the Thrift Shop so that it can be used for activities by the growing membership base.

Ultimately, this led him to join the board of directors, spearhead the building committee, and ultimate run for chairman of the board. “I kept complaining to our director at the time about the store taking over the whole facility and having to exclude activities,” Jim said. “It came down to a point of ‘Jim, what are you going to do about it?’” Having the background to do something about it, he did.

Jim worked with Dave Tosch, the executive director of the Senior Center at the time, an architect, and the city of Wenatchee to approve a preliminary design for the building expansion.

As the chair of the building committee, Jim didn’t have aspirations to become chairman of the board, but it ended up happening by default because of the increasing role he has been playing. Jim ran unopposed earlier this year and was elected as board chair during the general election in June.

“Having grown up on a farm, listening to a father constantly say, ‘if it needs doing, do it,’ I decided to do it,” Jim quipped.
Jim jokes that he has been around Wenatchee for so long that he’s now running into some of his previous students at the Senior Center. “My first class of high school students turned 80 this year. My last class of students before I quit teaching are all senior citizens now and I very frequently have lunch here [at the Senior Center] with former students.”

Jim has two goals during his term as chair. First is to get the expansion for the Senior Center built and the current facility renovated and second, to make the organization more inclusive of different generations and cultures. “We are moving in that direction already,” Jim said. “But I think we can do much more in that regard.”

One of the reasons the Senior Center’s board of directors has decided to change the name of the organization is to reflect this change.

While it may not seem like it at first glance, the Senior Center is already multigenerational. Three generations of seniors — the World War II Generation, Baby Boomers and Gen X — are actively participating in the organization. And while the organization will always focus primarily on providing a social outlet and activities to the 50+ community, younger adults are always welcome.

“I’ve looked at all of our activities here. I meet with people all the time. And it occurs to me that we are really more of a community center than we are a senior center,” Jim explained.

There are many people in the community over age 50 that are not joining the Senior Center because they either do not consider themselves seniors or have an aversion to being associated with that term.

In addition, after nearly two years of trying to win grants for the capital expansion project, it has become clear that senior centers are often overlooked. Grants are being awarded to organizations that more age and culturally inclusive.

Jim said that when he was born in 1938, the average lifespan was just shy of 60 years. “Senior centers weren’t real popular back then because there were no seniors!” he joked.

Comparatively, the average life span now is 76 years and so as Jim put it, “Things have changed.”

“Senior centers were started primarily back in the 70s as a way to distribute government aid and food. In small communities, that’s still true,” Jim said. “But in larger communities like Wenatchee, senior centers have taken on a whole different role and have become really community centers.”