Board of Trustees

Del Rankin has been a resident of the Yakima Valley since the early 1950s and a patron of YVRL for nearly 60 years. A graduate of Eisenhower HS & Whitman College (BA-History), his first full time job was at Yakima Valley Libraries as archivist for the Relander collection. An avid golfer, Del worked for several years as a golf professional before joining the family tire business where he worked for more than 20 years. After retiring from “tires”, he returned to the golf profession as a teacher. For the past 8 years he has been deeply involved in the formation, leadership, and implementation of The First Tee of Yakima, a “youth character development program based on the game of golf”. A longtime Rotarian in both Sunnyside and Yakima, Del has served on multiple boards and was deeply involved in Rotary Youth Exchange for more than 25 years. He looks forward to coming “full circle” by returning to Yakima Valley Libraries as a Board member. His second term will expire on December 31, 2022.

Glenn is from Selah – he graduated from YVCC and finished his BA in Political Science at WSU and completed his Master’s in Organizational Development from Central. He has worked with the Boy Scouts, the Yakima County Development Association, the Yakima County Boundary Review Board, the Yakima Basin Storage Alliance, the YVCC Foundation, and the Washington City-County Manager Association. He has special training in organizational development, is a retired Colonel in the USAF, and spent 30 years as an appointed public official – Assistant Yakima City Manager. The Board unanimously elected him Vice-President for 2018. Glenn is serving his second term on the board which will expire December 31, 2023.

Jim Davenport was selected by the County Commission as a new YVL Trustee, as of January 1, 2015. Jim has practiced real property, environmental and natural resource law, with emphasis on water law, from both public and private practice, since his 1977 graduation from Willamette University College of Law, simultaneously fulfilling public service appointments to the Olympia Planning Commission; Chairman, Thurston County Civil Service Commission; Chairman, Legal Committee, Western States Water Council. He currently serves as a director, Friends of Buena Library; chairman, Board of Directors, Yakima County Law Library; while continuing to practice law in a semi-retired fashion. Jim, and his wife Pam, live near Buena in rural Yakima County. Jim says, “libraries are where the mind lives.” The Board unanimously selected him Secretary for 2018. Jim is serving his first term on the board which will expire December 31, 2019.

On February 14, 2017, Yakima County Commissioners appointed Dan Seifert to serve at the newest member on the Yakima Valley Libraries’ Board of Trustees. Dan Seifert was born and raised in Yakima, graduating in 1966 from Marquette High School, then spent next two years at Yakima Valley Community College. Dan then moved to Pullman to finish a BA degree and work at Washington State University, managing the Systems Programming team of the WSU Computing Services Center. That computing system provided all administrative and academic computing to the University and also offered computer education via remote access to a dozen other colleges in four NW states and Alaska. In 1984, Dan accepted a position as a field systems engineer with IBM to support current and expanding IBM technology at the Richland DOE Hanford site. That role expanded into sales technical assistance to IBM marketing teams plus on-site work with Federal agencies across the U.S. Dan provided technical support to agency data center management and staff to explain and help implement new hardware and software capabilities for large, multi-site computer data centers. Prior to retiring in 2015, Dan’s primary field accounts were DOE (Hanford,and PNNL-Battelle, Idaho Falls, Savannah River, Germantown), NASA/Johnson space center, TVA, US Veteran’s Administration, Dept of Interior, USDA (NFC and NITC). Farm Credit Services, and the US Postal Service. As Library Trustee, Dan’s five-year term will extend until December 31, 2021. Welcome Dan!

Mary MacKintosh has been appointed to the YVL Board of Trustees.  Her grandmother, Jessie Ballard, was the first trained librarian to work in the Yakima Library, and later served on the Library Board as Jessie MacKintosh. Mary grew up in Yakima, graduating from Eisenhower High School.  She moved back seven years ago.  She earned her Masters in Library Science at the University of Washington and a MA and MFA in English Literature at Chapman University.    Mary worked as a college and university reference librarian for twenty plus years and served as the library director for an aerospace company as well as for three different campuses of DeVry University. She is a dedicated reader, and one of her earliest memories is getting her own YVL library card at the age of five, and how exciting that was. She is appointed by the Yakima County Commissioners to serve on the YVL Board until her term expires December 31, 2022.

The Executive Director is responsible for overall administration, planning, budgeting, public service, and community relations for the Library District. In compliance with RCW 27.12.210(3) the Executive Director is the only employee hired by the Board of Trustees and reports directly to them for the operations of the Library District. Kim Hixson became the Interim Director in July 2008 and was appointed Executive Director in July 2011. She holds a Masters in Library and Information Science degree from San Jose State University and a Bachelor of Humanities degree from Washington State University. She has worked in public libraries since 1996. Prior to work in public libraries, she spent time working in the accounting field for governmental and not-for-profit organizations. She believes that libraries are integral entities providing open access to information and ideas for the entire community. Her vision for Yakima Valley Libraries is to build a sustainable library district that will be flexible and relevant meeting the information seeking needs of the local population.