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 dollars for roadway and pedestrian improvements along the same street where this facility will open. 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, she secured nearly five hundred million dollars in Congressionally Directed Spending for Washington State projects and helped set aside over five billion dollars in programmatic funding.
One of those projects: 2.5 million dollars 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 thirteen thousand 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.
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.
She attended Washington State University, where she took an internship in the psychiatric ward of the Seattle Veterans Hospital. 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 taught as a preschool teacher at the Shoreline Community College preschool program. 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.
She organized a grassroots coalition of thirteen thousand parents. They saved the program. 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 won. She has been re-elected five times and 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 HELP 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 is currently Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee.
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 thirteen thousand 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 thirteen thousand parents to save them. 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 dollars 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 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. The corridor is in her active portfolio. CrowdSmith fits inside an investment pattern she has already established.
| Dimension | Senator Murray | CrowdSmith |
|---|---|---|
| Appropriations | Vice Chair, Senate Appropriations Committee. Controls the committee that funds workforce development, education, and community infrastructure programs. | WIOA-funded cohorts through WorkForce Central. WIOA funding flows through the appropriations process Murray oversees. |
| Origin story | Entered politics as a preschool teacher fighting to save an education program from budget cuts. Organized thirteen thousand parents. | CrowdSmith exists because shop class was defunded. The facility is the program rebuilt from the foundation up, in a building designed to do what schools stopped doing. |
| Portland Avenue | Secured 2.5 million dollars for Portland Avenue corridor improvements in Tacoma. Already investing in the infrastructure surrounding the facility. | Located on Portland Avenue in Tacoma. The senator is already funding the street that leads to the front door. |
| Federal safety net | Father was a Purple Heart WWII veteran who developed MS. Family went on food stamps. Federal programs enabled her mother to return to school and all seven children to attend college. | Serves the population federal programs are designed to reach — people in an Opportunity Zone corridor where the median income is half the county average. |
| Workforce | Championed child care, paid leave, workforce training, veterans’ benefits, affordable housing throughout her career. | Credential tracks serve veterans, career changers, and parents. Facility serves youth 14+ and adults. WIOA funding is designed for exactly this population. |
| CDS | FY2027 CDS portal accepts requests from eligible 501(c)(3) organizations in Washington State 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. |
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.
The CrowdSmith Foundation is a 501(c)(3) preparing to open a five-station maker facility 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 through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The operations binder is thirty-eight 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 thirty-eight 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. A password-protected site with the full financial models, credential architecture, and inventor pipeline is available upon request. 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.