The Kid
He came home. That is the thing about Ken Griffey Jr. that the statistics do not carry. He was nineteen years old and homesick in Seattle, and then he became the reason Seattle kept its team, and then he left, and then he came back. He always came back. The building on Portland Avenue is forty miles south of the stadium his run built, and it is asking the same question the Kingdome asked in October of 1995: will you stay?
— Claude, CrowdSmith Foundation
Ken Griffey Jr. holds position one hundred sixteen because he is the most beloved athlete in Pacific Northwest history, because the run he scored in October 1995 saved a franchise and built a stadium forty miles north of the building CrowdSmith is putting on Portland Avenue, and because his current work with MLB focuses on youth development and growing the game in communities that have been left out of it—which is exactly what CrowdSmith’s Station Zero was designed to do with tools instead of bats.
November 21, 1969, Donora, Pennsylvania (Stan Musial’s hometown, on Musial’s 49th birthday)
Son of Ken Griffey Sr. (13-year MLB career, Cincinnati Reds, two World Series rings). Married to Melissa Griffey (1992). Three children: Trey (NFL wide receiver, University of Arizona), Taryn (college basketball), Tevin. Mother Alberta Griffey passed away in 2017.
First overall pick, 1987 MLB Draft (Seattle Mariners). MLB debut April 3, 1989, age 19. 22-year career: Seattle Mariners (1989–1999, 2009–2010), Cincinnati Reds (2000–2008), Chicago White Sox (2008). 630 home runs (7th all-time). 13-time All-Star. 10 Gold Gloves. 7 Silver Sluggers. 1997 AL MVP (unanimous). All-Century Team (1999). Baseball Hall of Fame, Class of 2016 (99.32% of the vote—highest percentage in history at time of election). First father-son duo to play together in MLB (with Ken Griffey Sr., Seattle, 1990). They homered in the same game on September 14, 1990.
Mariners Special Consultant (2011). Mariners Hall of Fame (2013). Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame (2014). Mariners ownership partnership group (2021). MLB Senior Advisor to Commissioner Rob Manfred (2021–present)—focused on baseball operations, youth baseball development, and improving diversity at amateur levels. Ambassador for Hank Aaron Invitational and All-Star Week initiatives.
Ken Griffey Jr. Family Foundation—supports Boys & Girls Clubs of America, children’s hospitals across the United States, Nevada Cancer Institute, and Opportunity Village. Charity wine series (2008). Stars & Strikes Celebrity Bowl for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
On October 8, 1995, Ken Griffey Jr. scored from first base on Edgar Martinez’s double in the bottom of the eleventh inning of Game 5 of the ALDS against the New York Yankees. He slid home, popped up into the arms of his teammates, and saved baseball in Seattle. That run—called The Double—led directly to the construction of what is now T-Mobile Park and secured the Mariners’ future in the Pacific Northwest. The building CrowdSmith is putting on Portland Avenue sits forty miles south of the stadium that run built. Both buildings exist because one moment of commitment—one person running as fast as they could for as long as they could—gave a community a reason to stay.
Griffey’s current MLB role focuses on youth baseball development and growing the game in communities that have been left out. CrowdSmith’s Station Zero—the Community Fix-It Shop—was designed for the same population: teenagers, people aging out of the foster system, anyone who needs a first encounter with tools and structure before entering the five-station program. The instrument is different. The mission is the same: give young people in underserved communities a place to discover what they are capable of before anyone tells them what they cannot do.
| Dimension | Ken Griffey Jr. | CrowdSmith |
|---|---|---|
| PNW roots | Drafted by Seattle at 17, debuted at 19, now Mariners partner | Tacoma Opportunity Zone corridor, 40 miles south of T-Mobile Park |
| Saved the building | The Double saved baseball in Seattle and built the stadium | CrowdSmith building the facility before anyone asks for it |
| Youth development | MLB Senior Advisor: youth baseball, diversity, Hank Aaron Invitational | Station Zero for foster youth, five credential tracks for underserved communities |
| Father and son | First father-son duo in MLB—homered in the same game | Robb and Conner—succession conversation initiated |
| Came home | Left Seattle for Cincinnati, returned 2009 | Deignan pivoted from Eastside to Tacoma because the mission fit was stronger |
| Foundation work | Boys & Girls Clubs, children’s hospitals, community outreach | OZ corridor, WIOA cohorts, community restoration through maker education |
| The name | The Kid—arrived young, carried a city on his back | CrowdSmith—built young (in organizational terms), carrying a corridor |
On October 8, 1995, you scored from first base on Edgar Martinez’s double in the bottom of the eleventh inning, slid home, and popped up into the arms of your teammates. That run saved baseball in Seattle. It led directly to the stadium that stands forty miles north of the building I am writing to you about.
My name is Claude. I am an artificial intelligence writing this letter in collaboration with Robb Deignan, founder and executive director of the CrowdSmith Foundation in Tacoma, Washington. I am writing because the building CrowdSmith is putting on Portland Avenue exists for the same reason T-Mobile Park exists: because one act of commitment gave a community something worth staying for.
CrowdSmith is a five-station maker continuum—hand tools, power tools, digital fabrication, AI-assisted collaboration, and robotics evaluation—housed in a single facility in Tacoma’s federally designated Opportunity Zone corridor. The lobby is a retail tool store with free coffee. A person walks in because they see a tool in the window. Someone behind the counter tells them what it does. A conversation starts. The building was designed so that the person who walks through the front door unsure whether they belong in a maker space finds out that the building was built for them.
You grew up watching your father play for the Reds. You were drafted first overall at seventeen and arrived in Seattle at nineteen—homesick, far from Cincinnati, the only player whose general manager had to call his mother. You became the face of the franchise anyway. You and your father became the first father-son duo to play together in the major leagues, and you homered in the same game. The founder of CrowdSmith, Robb Deignan, is sixty years old. He has two sons—Michael, thirty-one, in IT in Helena, and Conner, twenty-five, a Dutch Bros manager in Federal Way who recently called to say he wants to join the team. The succession conversation has begun. The father-son parallel is not a metaphor. It is a phone call.
Robb spent twenty years in the fitness industry—ten thousand memberships sold, every one face-to-face. He is a cancer survivor. He developed forty-four invention concepts and built every piece of CrowdSmith’s operational infrastructure through sustained dialogue with an AI. That methodology is called SmithTalk. This letter is a product of it. He pivoted from the Eastside to Tacoma because the mission fit was stronger—the same way you came home to Seattle in 2009 because the city that made you still needed what you carried.
Your current work with Major League Baseball focuses on youth development and growing the game in communities that have been left out. CrowdSmith’s Station Zero—the Community Fix-It Shop—was designed for the same population: teenagers, people aging out of the foster system, anyone who needs a first encounter with tools and structure. The instrument is different. The mission is the same: give young people a place to discover what they are capable of before anyone tells them what they cannot do.
I am writing to one hundred forty-seven people. The letter to the Governor is about the Opportunity Zone corridor. The letter to Harbor Freight is about the tools on the floor. The letter to WorkForce Central is about the credential tracks. Your letter is about proximity—forty miles between the stadium your run built and the building this foundation is putting on Portland Avenue. Both buildings exist because someone ran as fast as they could for as long as they could and gave a community a reason to believe the thing was worth keeping.
Everything I have described is documented at crowdsmith.org/partners. The access code is bellingham. The site contains the financial models, the credential architecture, the station-by-station design, and the operational binder. It exists because the foundation believes that anyone willing to look should be able to see everything.
You were The Kid. You came home. The building is asking the same question the Kingdome asked in October of 1995: will you stay?