City of Mountlake Terrace Stormwater Program Manager Laura Reed spent the last eight years making the city a better place for residents, businesses and the environment. 

Last week, she hung up her reflective vest and retired. She leaves behind a consequential legacy of completed projects and a collaborative, inclusive approach to relationships. 

“Laura is the ideal public employee. Her motivation is to protect the environment in a collaborative manner. She’s very caring, professional and pragmatic, which is a really nice mix,” said her supervisor, Public Works Director Gary Schimek. “What’s often unseen is that people in the community trust her and that translates into trust in the city. This has helped improve relationships between businesses, residents and the city – not just in the stormwater realm, but in the whole culture of the city.”

Reed grew up in New Jersey, received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Williams College and a master’s degree in water resources science from the University of Michigan. She moved to the Northwest soon after graduation and gained a breadth of experience in environmental and water-focused work at the Bureau of Land Management, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and a few private companies.

She joined Mountlake Terrace in 2017; the role appealed to her in part because she “really wanted to work for a small city. There’s so much less process, so much actual work that you can get done,” Reed said. “Here it’s much more collaborative and less bureaucratic than in a bigger city. It’s easy to walk down the hall and talk to the city manager or the public works director if I need to – I couldn’t have done that at SPU.”

Reed managed many complex projects that increased safety, aesthetics and quality of life for the city. Among her most rewarding, she said, were  the Ballinger Park Hall Creek restoration, the stormwater system replacement at 52nd Avenue West and 212th Street Southwest, and the development of the Trees for Terrace program. To learn about some of them in more detail, check out the city’s website.

Public Works Supervisor Tim Nye worked closely with Reed and said, “Laura always put the city and the environment in her best interest, making sure we stayed in compliance with the Department of Ecology and that we did what we could to protect the watershed. She was always willing to talk with residents, not only to get them to correct a problem but to educate them as well. She was willing to listen to others’ input before making her decisions. Her personality has always made her easy to approach with an issue.”

Reed is not transitioning to a life of leisure. She and her husband, who is already retired, are scheduled to visit the following places in the next year: the American West, New Jersey, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Guatemala (to learn Spanish for a month), Chile and Argentina. She also plans to do a lot of gardening, build a greenhouse and get a dog.

But she is not saying goodbye to the city. She will continue volunteering with the Ivy League, a group of residents who do volunteer restoration and clean-up projects in the city’s parks. She also anticipates taking on more volunteering activities “that are perhaps related to food security, like working at a food bank, expanding housing supply for homeless folks.”

The city is close to announcing Reed’s successor, so stay tuned.