Most of us might think it an impossible task to organize and plan transit variables. For Michael Harpool, it’s like riding a bike.

“I wear a lot of hats as a transit planner at WTA,” he says. “I manage the vanpool program, the Community Van Grant Program, and a National Transit Database surveying program, as well. All of those have their different aspects, whether it’s data analysis, program management, or just regular administrative stuff.” Harpool is also one of the technical analysis leads for the plans and studies conducted by the Planning Team.

It’s an interesting career that was fueled by an inclination to avoid vehicles. “It’s kind of a deep-rooted story,” Harpool says. “Growing up I didn’t know much about this path at all. When I was in middle school, I lost my sister in a car crash, and since her passing I was never truly comfortable driving around in a car. So being able to get around without a car became super important in deciding where I worked, went to college, and where I found recreation.”

Harpool went to school at Keene State College in New Hampshire, where he studied geography. “At the very end of my time there, I did a project on bicycle and pedestrian planning and that sat in the back of my head for a couple of years while I took some time off,” he recalls.

After Keene State, Harpool hit the slopes in Colorado, finding a kinship with the mountains and snowboarding in his free time. “I lived in Colorado, just snowboarding and having a great time“ but eventually he realized there was more he wanted to do professionally. “I pursued a career in bicycle and pedestrian planning, and it became a personal and professional passion to try and commit myself to improving conditions for people who cannot drive.” He emphasized that a large portion of our community is not able to drive due to finances, age, or ability and many others simply choose not to.

After completing grad school in Portland, Oregon, and starting his career in pedestrian and bicycle planning in Missoula, Harpool switched to the transit field here in Bellingham in 2019. He hopes to continue his work out here for years to come. “I grew up in Jamestown, Rhode Island,” he says. “I bounced around for a while but after I moved out west, I felt a deep connection to the climate, environment, and all the recreation out here.”

With a career revolving around the community in unique and significant ways, Harpool is no stranger to embedding his passion and expertise in its growth and success.  “A lot of my community involvement comes through WTA,” he says. “The position I hold grants me a lot of opportunities to deal with nonprofits, municipalities, tribal councils, and the residents…It’s really nice to be able to work with the community and those nonprofits.”

For example, Harpool helps manage the Community Van Grant Program. “When a vanpool vehicle has been retired, we’re able to grant those to nonprofits and local governments” he says. “Throughout that year, we check in and make sure the vehicle is working for them and also keep track of how many rides they’re providing and what sort of trips they’re doing with the vehicle.” This close coordination allows Harpool to build and develop strong partnerships throughout the community.

Last year, Harpool helped facilitate the grant of a vehicle to Vamos Outdoors Project and the Lighthouse Mission. “I got to work really closely with some of the leads at those nonprofits and get to know those programs a lot better,” says Harpool. “In my personal life, Vamos Outdoors is one community organization that I spend a lot of time with, going to their events and fundraisers…There are a lot of events I attend throughout the community that correlate with my personal and professional interests.”

As for being named one of the Top 7 Under 40?

“It’s been a real honor, honestly, just being nominated,” Harpool says. “I was very refreshed to hear that, and it was really interesting filling out the questionnaire. There’s a series of essay questions and I haven’t written about myself in quite a long time, so it was really nice to take a look back at my accomplishments and what I’ve done at WTA, as well as my contributions to the community. I got a chance to briefly meet some of the other candidates and it is an honor to stand next to them.”

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Top 7 Under 40 nominee Kelsey Chance is no stranger to hard work and lifting up her fellow creatives. As a photographer and business owner, Chance is dedicated to the community and passionate about creating opportunities for other young artists.

“I run Good Chance Creative, a Bellingham-based creative agency mostly doing social media marketing,” says Chance. “I work with really amazing women, a lot of creatives coming out of Western, and we’re creating content for social media channels for different clients while trying to be as creative as possible everyday — it’s really fun.”

When Chance lived in the Willamette Valley after graduating from college in Oregon, she realized the region had a very particular need. “I got pretty into the wine industry when I was living there,” she says. “There were a lot of different wineries that didn’t have any marketing, or never considered social media marketing, so I started Good Chance Creative and filled that niche. I’m from Bellingham originally so, in 2020, I moved up here and started the Bellingham studio.”

Photography is a major part of Chance’s creativity. “I’ve always been a hobby photographer, but I apprenticed under Dan DeWaard and learned a lot about making photography into your professional work, making it a livelihood,” she says. “I guess I sort of refocused. I was working as a paralegal after college and realized I was a little more creative than the average professional, maybe. I’ve always been a creative — I went to art school instead of law school, which was sort of the big decision in my life that determined my trajectory.”

Artistically inclined career paths are not always the easiest road to travel, something Chance understands on a visceral level. “It was really hard to find a sustainable job or a sustainable way to make money as a creative and so I understand those types of job are sort of rare and few and far between,” she says. “As soon as I started the Bellingham studio as a creative space, I started to pay a little closer attention to all the really cool talent that was coming out of the Western design programs. I felt there needed to be more creative agency roles for people who want to go into that work but don’t want to move to Seattle or Portland to do it.”

Through her agency, Chance has the remarkable opportunity to work with clients from all over the globe, making ad content for a variety of brands.

In the community, Chance takes to the time to support other woman and artists, photographers in particular. “I have done a lot of photo work with the Downtown Bellingham Partnership, and I did some photo work for an anti-racism community organization,” she says. “Then, I started a photo club at my studio, so that’s been a fun way for photographers to meet monthly and talk about our inspiration and our struggles — honestly, anything.”

Chance also lends out the studio to folks hosting workshops and other community events, even helping co-host an event on International Women’s Day this past March. “The community is really special to me, especially Bellingham, as I was born and raised here,” she says. “In any way that I can, I love to get connected.”

Being named one of the Top 7 Under 40 for Whatcom Young Professionals seems to be somewhat of a curveball for the humble business owner. “I’m having a bit of an imposter feeling about it, but it’s pretty exciting and I’m really honored,” says Chance. “I feel like the other nominees are really cool. After having met them and talked to them, I’m very inspired.”

As she looks to the future this fall, Chance is excited to relax into the cozy weather, nursing a torn ACL and bringing new interns from Western on to her roster this month. “I’m excited to help nurture enthusiastic minds who want to get into a creative field with my interns from Western,” she says. “And personally? I am really excited to hunker in my home and cozy up. It was a crazy summer and I just had ACL surgery, so I’m going to lean into that and relax.”

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Leo Cohen is an inspiration in the real estate industry throughout Whatcom County. As a team owner and broker at Cohen Group NW, Leo has hit his stride while enhancing the community at large.

“I’ve done real estate for 10 years, but my perception of what I consider that I do has changed,” Cohen says. “It’s all the same fuel and all the same vehicle, but as I’ve gotten older and done the business longer, my perception has changed.”

Cohen labels his company as a true alliance between the Cohen Group, the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Downtown Bellingham Partnership, alongside a number of other associations. “We want to help show people in Bellingham how to live in Bellingham,” he says. “Like where to find great businesses; that’s part of how I attract people to my business.”

But Cohen hasn’t always been in real estate. He is a working professional that has built a solid foundation and continues to grow in his career every single day, after dropping out of college. “I’m 32 years old, I’ve been in Bellingham for about 14 years, so all of my post-college life,” he says. “I came to Western on a soccer scholarship before deciding to drop out and get my real estate license. All of my best friends were doing it. I was a little more impulsive then, but I was ready for a path change once soccer was kind of fizzling out.”

After joining real estate and fully entering the workforce, Cohen began to understand Bellingham on a deeper level. “I started to see Bellingham,” he says. “I feel like when you’re in college, you only see one part of the city and I started to see all these different parts and components, organization, and hidden pockets — the beautiful things that make Bellingham what it is. That was in tandem with growing my real estate business while I was 22 years old.”

Working in corporate real estate helped get Cohen’s feet wet before he started his own business.

Cohen is immensely grateful for being named one of the Top 7 Under 40 for Whatcom Young Professionals, but he feels more comfortable discussing another passionate facet to his business: community work.

“A huge component of what we do in the community is events,” he says. “We do a Clean Water Happy Hour every month at Overflow Taps in partnership with a ton of local businesses, but it’s also to raise awareness for, and contribute to, clean water projects around the world. That’s our global picture. Locally, we do an event with Max Higbee, a May the 4^th event, so it’s a Star Wars-themed trivia event at Stemma. We also love to connect with people we already know and love and support them, as well.”

The Cohen Group’s philosophy revolves around community with about 95% of their business based in Whatcom and the other five percent in Skagit. “We all live in Bellingham and a few people live in Lynden and Ferndale,” says Cohen. “This is where we live, and we care about what happens outside of this area, but we really care about the impact we have on the area we live in.” 

As a business owner, Cohen sees the need communities feel for basic fundamentals and is drawn to helping in any way he can. “There’s a lot of people that don’t have the means, [who] need them,” he says. “If people have a disability, if they can’t provide food for their families, if they’re homeless — there are all these human needs. I think it’s our job to contribute effort. Everybody should be doing it and contributing. Every time something good happens for your business, something good happens to someone else.”

So, what’s next for Leo Cohen and his thriving real estate business?

“A big component of our work is with Live Bellingham Now and Building Bellingham; they’re not monetary components to the business, but they are marketing and connection arms of the business,” says Cohen. “We’re going to keep working on growing those and the goal is to be the glue between all these different organizations, helping them and lifting them up.”

The Cohen Group takes a pretty unique approach to real estate and sometimes Cohen is told he isn’t quite doing it the “right” way. “I’ve been told things like I’m not looking at the bottom line enough but the way we’re doing things is very different and we’re still in business so we must be doing something right,” he says. “We treat everyone with respect and our vendors with the utmost care and quality. That impact is launching us forward. I’m, of course, looking forward to growing my business. That’s the goal.”

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Nourishment is one of the most essential aspects to life. So when a person takes it upon themselves to dedicate their precious time on earth to the health of their fellow humans, that’s pretty darn special. Rhys-Thorvald Hansen is an amazing example of someone who understands the importance of that fundamental need, and — for a number of years — has spent countless hours driving community partnerships, working toward food system harmony, and keeping an elusive art from dying out.

“It’s been pretty variable,” says Hansen. “I care more about the people I’m collaborating with than anything else. I’ve worked in food systems, a variety of nonprofits, and my core areas of interest have been about inviting people to be in a deeper relationship with the land they live on and the people that have been the stewards of that.”

Right here in Whatcom, Hansen is helping to facilitate a better, more fruitful food system than ever before. “The organization I work with, Whatcom Food Network, was working to create a food policy council for more than a decade, and that led to the creation of the Whatcom County Food System Committee,” Hansen says. “Then the committee spent four years putting together a 10-year food system plan, really trying to make it connected to the community and not just institutions, so it feels great to have that reflected as something people value. They can see our efforts to try and have a healthy food system here in the county.”

Hansen currently devotes much of their time to Hollyhock, a leadership and wellness organization on Cortes Island in British Columbia. “We host a variety of programs including wellness retreats for Yoga, reiki retreats, as well as climate advocacy training, and programs to support social enterprises,”  Hansen says. “Then, I also work for Whatcom Food Network and contract with a couple of other organizations doing event production and cultural safety in the classroom for LGBTQ people and indigenous youth. So my work crosses many industries.”

Before Hansen found their niche in food systems, they grew up in Snohomish and lived in various places around Puget Sound. “I spent a lot of time in Tacoma, and then Orcas Island before I moved to Whatcom County five years ago,” says Hansen. “I got into food systems by reading Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” as a 19-, 20-year-old, and I dropped out of college to work on an organic farm. I’ve stayed really connected to and have been passionate about food systems work ever since then.”

At its core, food is a seemingly simple and basic necessity that Hansen believes to be one of the most important bonds among humans. “I’ve worked a lot in food cooperatives and economic development for farm and food businesses,” they say. “Food connects everyone together and offers an opportunity to find common ground when there’s a lot of disconnection and discord happening in the world right now.”

Going even further, Hansen has found in their work with food systems another important aspect to their purpose. “I’m queer, I’m trans non-binary and I’ve always felt a responsibility to folks in my community who didn’t have the same type of economic and social privileges I have had to create safer spaces for them and the next generation.”

Working in various organizations focused on food goes hand-in-hand with steady community involvement. Hansen is especially drawn to facilitating hearty and significant policy to help alleviate real problems in food systems and beyond.

“Policy, in general, is kind of a deeply unsexy thing,” says Hansen. “It’s really slow-moving and involves a lot of compromising and jumping through hoops. Getting involved in policy work, I really care about helping set up solid foundations or solid economic policy. It’s beyond that, though. We talk a lot at the food network about creating a solidarity economy where everybody who is involved in the production and transportation and cooking of food is treated well and has access to the food they have a hand in.”

As if the comprehensive list of community work was not enough, you can also find Hansen using artistry to accomplish their passions and keep a rare artform alive. “As my other side-hustle, I’m an artist and a facilitator,” they say. “I’ve been focusing on strategic planning and using art as a way to build community relationships. I practice a traditional Norse art called skinfeller, which is an endangered craft, so I’ve been working on practicing that and making sure it survives here in the U.S.”

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The strength of a community lies within its members who love and cherish the unique characteristics that make it special. Schantell Porter grew up near Seattle in Renton and Bonney Lake, but upon visiting Bellingham to check out Western Washington University, realized it was the kind of community they could live in and love for a very long time.

Porter works at Northwest Youth Services as its office and executive project manager. “As part of my role, I’m the executive assistant to our executive director,” Porter says. “I’m our office manager, the board of directors’ liaison, and I also work on mobile special projects on top of that.”

After graduating high school, Western proved to be a perfect fit for Porter. “When I toured the college, I fell in love with Bellingham right away, which is pretty easy to do because Bellingham is beautiful, for sure,” says Porter. “I studied business management and entrepreneurship at Western and that’s also where I met my husband.”

Porter graduated from Western, virtually, and started a position at the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce as the program and event manager. “One of my professors in college knew the president and CEO of the Bellingham Chamber and referred me that way, which was a really great connection and opportunity,” they say. “I worked at the Bellingham Chamber for two years and my boss, Guy Occhiogrosso, helped me through that entire time to build connections.”

Porter describes Occhiogrosso as a meaningful mentor who helped them build valuable professional and social skills within the community, eventually leading them to meet their current boss.

Porter’s passion for community is evident in the way they describe their work and purpose.

“I think community is how we heal and that’s one of our main core values at Northwest Youth Services, healing through community, which is amazing and beautiful,” they say. “Also, community is why I go to work every day. I think being involved and getting engaged really does motivate me. I got to visit some of our other locations at Northwest Youth Services and meet some of our youth; that’s really why I come to work — and why I wanted to work here — to help the youth in our community heal and thrive.”

Being named a nominee for the Top 7 Under 40 for Whatcom Young Professionals is an invigorating opportunity for Porter as they navigate the future of their career path. “It’s definitely an honor and it’s pretty exciting,” they say. “It’s an interesting feeling for me because this is a program I used to coordinate at the Bellingham Chamber when I worked there, so being on the other side of it is really exciting and fun.”

What’s next for Schantell Porter?

“I’m still on the advisory council for Whatcom Young Professionals and I’m excited to get back into that in my new role at Northwest Youth Services,” they say. “I’m also the co-chair of the PFLAG Bellingham/Whatcom Chapter, and that’s pretty recent, as well, so I’m looking forward to building that organization up, along with our other members, and really getting the word out about what we do and try to connect and advocate for more queer folks in our community.”

On top of their tireless work lifting up youth and LGBTQ voices in the community, you can also expect to find Porter spending their limited free time hanging out with their cats and husband River. “We just love the cats to death,” they say. “We have a catio for them in our backyard, which we built and I think is pretty funny. I’m too scared for them to be outdoor cats, so I had to find a new way. Their names are Citrus and Momo.”

Otherwise, Porter enjoys the outdoors like any true PNW native, and also spends time enjoying our scrumptious local cuisine. “I love reading and I’ve been watching a lot of “Ru Paul’s Drag Race lately,” they say. “Currently, I’m reading “Call Me by Your Name.” It’s truly amazing.”

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Born and raised in Whatcom County, Dr. Will Nichols is a true treasure — not just in Whatcom, but in countries halfway across the world, as well.

“I am a general dentist along with my wonderful wife, who is also a dentist,” Dr. Nichols says. “We met in dental school and about three years ago took over for Dr. Hoofnagle, who is a prominent figure in the community — he had a long-standing practice for the better part of the last 40 years in downtown Bellingham.”

Before taking over the practice during the uncertain pandemic years, Nichols and his wife were working through dental school outside of Chicago. “Brittany and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to build on Dr. Hoofnagle’s legacy” he says. “Brittany actually holds 51 percent of the shares in the practice and is the driving force; I’m just the one who’s more comfortable talking in front of crowds.”

For the past three years, the doctors have been continuing to establish their practice and solidify their place in the dentistry community of Whatcom County. “The last three years has been this awesome journey,” says Dr. Nichols. “We’re able to see more patients and have the opportunity to work together every day, treating patients and being part of the community. It’s a dream come true.”

Dr. Nichols began his career path to dentistry back in high school after realizing his love for the relationship-centric atmosphere of a dental office. “I had a really fantastic dentist and loved going there,” he says. “With a doctor, you mostly go in when you’re not feeling well or something’s wrong. With a dentist, you have that appointment every six months or a year and you develop that rapport, that relationship. I was really drawn to that.”

Nichols attended Western Washington University for his undergrad, and then headed east to Chicagoland after getting accepted into dental school at Midwestern University in Downers Grove.

“That was really fun, and I met a lot of lifelong friends and my wife,” Dr. Nichols says. “I convinced her, somehow, to move back to Bellingham with me. I graduated dental school and the next day we were on a plane back to Bellingham. We got married two weeks later and we’ve been in Bellingham ever since.”

Dentistry is Nichols’ purpose, and he has enjoyed building lasting relationships through his and his wife Brittany’s business. “Dentistry is everything I was hoping it would be,” he says. “My favorite part is that I get to grow these long-term relationships with patients and check in on them. I’ve seen patients get married, retire, graduate college — that part I always find really cool. My wife and I are our own on-call doctors.”

Alongside their successful dentistry, the Nichols are completely devoted to worthy, inspiring calls to service. “In general, we try to get out and make as much of an impact as possible,” he says. “My wife and I are in the local dentist society. I just finished up a tenure as president and our main focus was about what we could do to get funding from the legislature and the bigger societies to put back into the Boys & Girls Club, for kids supplies and healthcare.”

Their main endeavor is a nonprofit called the Health & Hope Foundation, based out of Edmonds. “I started with them when I was at Western and the whole focus is on women’s health, women’s empowerment, medical and dental care focused in East Africa and the Philippines,” says Dr. Nichols. “We do a lot of outreach to Tanzania and Brittany and I have been over there a few times. We do mobile health and dental clinics along with OB screenings, as we usually have an OBGYN that comes with us to do cervical cancer screenings. We also bring over water testing kits to help the leaders in these places learn how to test their water. We do microloans to women, exclusively, to help them break the cycle of poverty.”

The couple has been on the Health & Hope board of directors for several years.

Being named one of the Top 7 Under 40 is an incredible feeling for Dr. Nichols and he will continue to foster positive change and growth in the community.

“The biggest thing Brittany and I are doing right now is trying to figure out the best way to reach out to small businesses and small business owners to help facilitate healthcare and dentalcare,” he says. “We want to figure out a program where we can open up our practice for a day and get employees in for at least a cleaning and an exam. And we don’t want to get big; we really appreciate being a small family practice.”

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Dying is a concept most people wouldn’t voluntarily approach, but Ashley Neville wades right in with open arms.

Neville is a social worker and currently the supervisor of the holistic care team at Whatcom Hospice. This means she’s also in a leadership role, so is no longer working directly with patients and families, something she’d been doing for the past eight years.

“Now, I support this awesome team that includes our social workers, our chaplains, our bereavement program, and our volunteer program,” she says. “Also, we are super lucky at our hospice [to] have integrative therapies with our massage therapist and acupuncturist. That’s my team.”

Whatcom Hospice serves about 230 patients in the community and also runs an in-patient hospice house. “It’s a lot of relational work,” says Neville. “I provide clinical support and clinical supervision for social workers and it’s a lot of protocol and best practices. I love my job and it’s incredibly challenging.”

Neville admits to taking “a weird road” to get to where she is today.

After graduating college, Neville was unsure of the exact career path she wanted to pursue and ended up in Portland, Oregon working as a barista, among other jobs. “Eventually, I went and volunteered over in Africa for a bit, and I got involved in some work there,” she says. “I was at an orphanage, and we needed to vaccinate all the kiddos for hepatitis B. I helped organize a fundraising project to get that going, which, in retrospect, was kind of macrolevel social work.”

Upon her arrival back in the U.S., a friend mentioned social work as something Neville might be interested in pursuing. “That planted the seed,” she says. “It took me a couple of years to get into a program at a master’s level.” She volunteered while working, built up her resume, and eventually got into a two-year master’s program for social work in Boston. “At the time, my focus was on older adults and families. I had a super strong connection with my grandmother, and I love older adults.”

Neville finished grad school and started working in Adult Protective Services, similar to Child Protective Services but for reporting elder abuse and other emergencies in older adults.

“A colleague told me about hospice; that they were hiring, and I should check it out,” says Neville. “I got the job and within a week or two I remember calling my mom and telling her it was incredible, raw, beautiful, real, hard work — and how I had never experienced that before. Very quickly, I knew it was my thing and I’ve been doing it ever since. This is almost year nine of working in hospice.”

Outside of the heroism that is her everyday work, Neville loves to enjoy the gorgeous outdoors. “I’m a true Pacific Northwest person, so if I need to decompress or recharge, I like to do trail running, yoga, and pole dancing — which is really kind of fun,” she says. “I like to move and be in nature. I’m introverted so I like to spend one-on-one time with family, close friends, and my husband, just the usual stuff.”

As for her next move? Neville is in the process of growing her family and solidifying their home in Whatcom County. “My husband and I just got married last year,” she says. “He’s Canadian, and we met during COVID — it’s just been a whole COVID love story. We’re working on the green card process and our hope is for him to be able to actually live down here. We’re pretty excited about that process and at the same time we’ve been trying to, hopefully, start a family here in Bellingham. Professionally, I feel really happy with where I’m at with Whatcom Hospice, growing as a leader. It’s been very challenging but good for me.”

Neville feels truly grateful to be named one of the Top 7 Under 40 for Whatcom Young Professionals and is working to take in the honor. “It feels strange and I’m trying to give myself permission to be proud,” she says. “I feel a sense of imposter syndrome. Getting this recognition, I was in disbelief at first, but I’ve been trying to let myself receive it because I do work really hard.”

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