PORT ANGELES — Congressman Derek Kilmer will end his 12-year stint as the 6th Congressional District representative when his term ends in January.
Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, said on Wednesday morning’s Coffee with Colleen show that he will be moving from his role as a politician to a newly created role within the Rockefeller Foundation.
At the Washington, D.C.-based Rockefeller office, Kilmer said he will work on U.S. programs and policy. His role will be centered around economic opportunity, climate work, health and democracy, Kilmer said.
The overlap between the work Kilmer has done in Congress and the work he will be doing in this new position “is almost a perfect overlap on a Venn diagram,” he said.
During the month and a half that Kilmer has left in his term, he said his office will continue to work on helping improve the 6th Congressional District.
One of his outgoing priorities is to introduce legislation that will help rural hospitals get more funding, which he hopes will help with Olympic Medical Center’s financial struggles.
He said he’s also hoping that some of the upcoming investments in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard will trickle down to benefit the North Olympic Peninsula in the form of local contracts and other investments.
“Why not us?” Kilmer said, referencing football quarterback Russell Wilson’s quote.
During the 12 years Kilmer spent in office, he said there were two overarching priorities: economic improvement and government improvement.
Kilmer highlighted some economic improvements he’s helped work on, including the most recent $35 million Recompete funding awarded to the North Olympic Peninsula.
In the realm of government improvement, Kilmer said he aims to work across partisan aisles. One of the ways he has done that is to help re-implement bipartisan orientation for incoming Congressional members, a practice that hasn’t happened for at least the last three decades, Kilmer said.
Kilmer said he learned to appreciate a bipartisan ethic while observing his community interact during his childhood.
“That ethic of not being divided on party lines is an ethic I grew up with in Port Angeles,” he said.
In addition to bipartisan support, Kilmer said his team and local partnerships are what allowed for project completion.
“There is nothing in our office that didn’t involve partnerships,” he said. “It really is extraordinary how much progress we’re able to make when we do things together.”
State Sen. Emily Randall, D-Bremerton, was elected this month to fill Kilmer’s seat in Congress. She will step into the position in January.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
