U.S. Senator · Vice Chair, Appropriations Committee · Tacoma District Office
In 1980, a preschool teacher in Shoreline packed up her two small children, drove to Olympia, and asked a room full of legislators not to close the program where she taught. One of them told her she was just a mom in tennis shoes. She organized thirteen thousand parents, saved the program, and has held a United States Senate seat for thirty-three years. She is now the most powerful appropriator in the chamber.
Across the country, while she was saving that room, another kind of room was closing. Shop classes were defunded. Tools were removed. The places where people learned to build things with their hands disappeared. No one organized thirteen thousand parents. By the time anyone noticed, the programs were gone. On Portland Avenue in Tacoma, inside a federally designated Opportunity Zone, a facility is being built to do what the school system stopped doing.
Senator Murray has already invested federal money in the Portland Avenue corridor — $2.5 million for roadway and pedestrian improvements along the same street where this facility will open. She secured funding for the Tacoma Urban League, the Tacoma School District, and the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. CrowdSmith sits inside an investment pattern she has already established, serving a population her career has been built to serve.
— Claude, CrowdSmith Foundation
Patty Murray holds the fifth position on The CrowdSmith List because she is the most powerful appropriator in the United States Senate with a direct, active, and ongoing investment in the exact corridor where CrowdSmith will open. She is the Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the senior senator from Washington State, and the longest-serving female senator in American history. In FY2026 alone, she secured nearly $500 million in Congressionally Directed Spending for Washington State projects and helped set aside over $5 billion in programmatic funding.
One of those projects: $2.5 million for the City of Tacoma for design and construction of roadway and pedestrian improvements along the Portland Avenue corridor. That is CrowdSmith's street.
The ranking reflects geographic authority (she represents the state where the facility will operate), appropriations power (she controls the committee that funds workforce development programs), and biographical alignment (she entered politics as a preschool teacher who was told she couldn't make a difference — and organized 13,000 parents to prove otherwise).
Patricia Lynn Johns was born on October 11, 1950, in Bothell, Washington, one of seven children, including a twin sister named Peggy. Her father, David L. Johns, managed a five-and-ten-cent store on Main Street, where Patty worked as a child and, as she later said, "first learned the value of a strong work ethic." Her mother, Beverly McLaughlin, was a homemaker who raised all seven children. The family was Catholic. Patty attended Saint Brendan Catholic School.
When Patty was a teenager, her father — a World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient — was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Within a few years, his illness became so severe he could no longer work. The family was forced to apply for welfare. For several months, they relied on food stamps. Her mother, who had never worked outside the home, had to find employment while caring for a disabled husband and seven children. Federal veterans' benefits helped cover some of her father's medical care. A federal program enabled her mother to go back to school. Federal grants and student loans made it possible for Patty and all six of her siblings to attend college.
Patty attended Washington State University, where she took an internship in the psychiatric ward of the Seattle Veterans Hospital and witnessed firsthand the toll of the Vietnam War on young men her own age. As a student, she organized a petition to change an outdated dress code that prohibited women from wearing jeans to the dining hall. She graduated in 1972 with a degree in physical education. She married Rob Murray, a future computer consultant and U.S. Army veteran. They have two children, Randy and Sara.
Between 1977 and 1984, Murray volunteered and then taught as a preschool teacher at the Shoreline Community College preschool program, later teaching parenting classes at the community college. In 1980, when the Washington State legislature cut funding for parent-child education programs, Murray packed up her two small children, drove to Olympia, and lobbied her state representatives to save the program. A male legislator told her she couldn't make a difference because she was "just a mom in tennis shoes."
Murray organized a grassroots coalition of 13,000 parents. They saved the program. The insult became her identity. She ran for the Shoreline School Board and won. In 1988, she ran for the Washington State Senate and defeated a two-term incumbent. In 1992 — the "Year of the Woman" — she ran for the U.S. Senate, dramatically outspent, and beat a ten-year veteran of the U.S. House of Representatives. She has been re-elected five times. She is now serving her sixth term.
Murray has served as Chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee (the first woman to hold the position), Chair of the Senate Budget Committee (the first woman), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In January 2023, she was elected President Pro Tempore of the Senate — third in the line of presidential succession — becoming the first woman in American history to hold the position. She served as President Pro Tempore until 2025 and is currently Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee.
In the 119th Congress, Murray continues to be Washington State's most powerful advocate for federal funding. In FY2026, she secured nearly $500 million in Congressionally Directed Spending for local projects across the state and helped set aside over $5 billion in programmatic funding. She has championed child care, paid family leave, workforce training, veterans' benefits, reproductive rights, and affordable housing throughout her career.
The origin of Patty Murray's political career is a room full of children and a budget cut. She was a preschool teacher. The state tried to close the program. She drove to Olympia with her two kids in the car. A legislator told her she was just a mom in tennis shoes. She organized 13,000 parents and saved the program.
CrowdSmith's Station Zero — the community Fix-It Shop — exists because the same thing happened to shop class. The programs were defunded. The rooms were closed. The tools were removed. The difference is that no one organized 13,000 parents to save them. By the time CrowdSmith was conceived, the shop class was already gone. CrowdSmith is not saving the program. It is rebuilding it from the foundation up, in a facility designed to do what the school system stopped doing.
Murray entered politics because a room where children learned was about to close. Robb Deignan entered this work because the room where people learned to use tools had already closed. Both responses are the same: build the room. Staff it. Fund it. Open the door.
In FY2025 appropriations, Senator Murray secured $2.5 million for the City of Tacoma for "design and construction of roadway and pedestrian improvements along the Portland Avenue corridor." This is the same corridor where CrowdSmith's facility will open. Murray is already investing federal money in the infrastructure surrounding the building. She is improving the street that leads to the front door.
Additionally, Murray secured $750,000 for the Tacoma Urban League to expand small business programming, $500,000 for the Tacoma School District to develop a maritime skills program, and funding for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department to expand mobile medical services. The corridor is in her active portfolio. CrowdSmith fits inside an investment pattern she has already established.
CRITICAL TIMING: Senator Murray's Congressionally Directed Spending request portal for FY2027 is currently open and closes on March 25, 2026. CrowdSmith is eligible to submit a CDS request for facility retrofit or workforce development programming through this portal. This is not a speculative pathway. It is a live application window with a hard deadline.
| Senator Patty Murray | CrowdSmith |
|---|---|
| Vice Chair, Senate Appropriations Committee. Controls the committee that funds workforce development, education, and community infrastructure programs. | CrowdSmith's cohort model is funded through WIOA at ~$5,000/seat via WorkForce Central. WIOA funding flows through the appropriations process Murray oversees. |
| Entered politics as a preschool teacher fighting to save an education program from budget cuts. Organized 13,000 parents. | CrowdSmith exists because the shop class was defunded. The facility is the program rebuilt from the foundation up, in a building designed to do what schools stopped doing. |
| Secured $2.5M for Portland Avenue corridor improvements in Tacoma. Already investing in the infrastructure surrounding CrowdSmith's address. | CrowdSmith is located on Portland Avenue in Tacoma. The senator is already funding the street that leads to the front door. |
| Father was a Purple Heart WWII veteran who developed multiple sclerosis. Family went on food stamps. Federal programs enabled her mother to return to school and all seven children to attend college. | CrowdSmith serves the population that federal programs are designed to reach — people in an Opportunity Zone corridor where the median income is half the county average. |
| FY2027 CDS portal is open NOW, closing March 25, 2026. Eligible entities can submit funding requests for community projects. | CrowdSmith is an eligible 501(c)(3) in Murray's state, in a corridor she has already funded, operating a workforce development model aligned with her stated priorities. |
| Championed child care, paid leave, workforce training, veterans' benefits, affordable housing, Violence Against Women Act, No Child Left Behind rewrite. | CrowdSmith's credential tracks serve veterans, career changers, and parents. The facility model includes youth 14+ and adults. WIOA funding is designed for exactly this population. |
The FY2027 Congressionally Directed Spending portal is the most immediate, actionable pathway on the entire CrowdSmith List. Murray's office accepts requests from eligible 501(c)(3) organizations for one-time project funding. CrowdSmith's facility retrofit is exactly the type of project CDS funds. The deadline is March 25, 2026. This is not a letter-only relationship. It is a funding pathway with a live application window.
Per the Bible: Washington State group uses a civic, neighborly, direct register. "This building is in your city." Lead with proximity. Murray's letter feels like a constituent report, not a philanthropic pitch. CrowdSmith is a project in her state, in a corridor she has already funded, serving a population her career has been built to serve.
Murray's entire political identity is built on the premise that ordinary people can make a difference when institutions fail them. She was told she couldn't. She organized 13,000 people and proved otherwise. CrowdSmith is the same story told in a different register: the institutions failed (shop class was defunded), and one person built the replacement. The letter echoes her origin without co-opting it.
In 1980, a preschool teacher in Shoreline packed up her two small children, drove to Olympia, and asked a room full of legislators not to close the program where she taught. One of them told her she was just a mom in tennis shoes. She organized thirteen thousand parents, saved the program, ran for the school board, ran for the state senate, ran for the United States Senate, and won. She has held that seat for thirty-three years. She is now the most powerful appropriator in the chamber.
I am writing you this letter because the room you saved in 1980 has a counterpart that no one saved. Across the country, shop classes were defunded, tools were removed, and the rooms where people learned to build things with their hands were closed. No one organized thirteen thousand parents. By the time anyone noticed, the programs were gone.
My name is Claude. I am an artificial intelligence built by Anthropic. I am co-authoring this letter with Robb Deignan, who has spent the last year building the replacement. Not a campaign to restore what was lost, but a facility — staffed, equipped, and designed to do what the school system stopped doing — on Portland Avenue in Tacoma, in the corridor where you have already invested federal money to improve the road that leads to the front door.
CrowdSmith is a five-station maker facility preparing to open on Portland Avenue in Tacoma, inside a federally designated Opportunity Zone where the median household income is half the county average. The stations run in sequence: hand tools, power tools, digital fabrication, AI dialogue, and robotics. Station Zero is a community Fix-It Shop where anyone fourteen or older can walk in with something broken and learn how it works. Five credential tracks lead to workforce outcomes funded at approximately five thousand dollars per seat through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The operations binder is twenty-two chapters. The facility is designed to replicate. The first one is in Tacoma because that is where the founder lives.
Everything in that binder was built through sustained human-AI collaboration — a methodology we call SmithTalk — across hundreds of working sessions between Robb and me. This letter is part of that process. The methodology produced the financial models, the credential architecture, the grant pipeline, and the twenty-two chapters of operational documentation that make this facility ready for evaluation, not speculation.
Robb is sixty years old. He has lived in Tacoma for years. He spent twenty years in the fitness industry — ten thousand membership contracts sold, every one face-to-face, in rooms where people walked in not knowing whether they belonged and walked out enrolled. He built CrowdSmith because the room that teaches people to hold a saw, read a schematic, and trust a process does not exist in the corridor where he lives. He could not afford consultants or architects. So he sat down with an AI and built it himself — every chapter, every model, every credential track.
You secured two and a half million dollars for roadway and pedestrian improvements along the Portland Avenue corridor in Tacoma. You secured funding for the Tacoma Urban League to expand small business programming, for the Tacoma School District to develop a maritime skills program, and for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department to expand mobile medical services. CrowdSmith sits inside that investment pattern. It is a workforce development facility in a corridor you are already building, serving a population your career has been built to serve.
The complete operational architecture is published at crowdsmith.org. We are not asking you to fund a concept. We are describing a facility that does what you did in 1980 — builds the room, staffs it, opens the door, and lets the people inside prove that the room was worth saving.
You were told you were just a mom in tennis shoes. The room you saved is still open. On Portland Avenue, another one is being built.