Fellow Rotarian and honored guests, it brings me great pleasure to introduce you to our newest Rotarian, Kela Hall, but you can call her KD. She joins us today under the classification of Business Consultants and Services.

Although she is now a true Northwesterner, she was born and raised in Detroit Michigan. Yes, she is a motor city girl. Kela had a great home life growing up. She was one of six siblings, five girls and one boy.

 

Kela enjoyed high school and was very active in sports. In fact, her track team qualified for the Junior Olympics but unfortunately, she never got to compete because the coach refused to take them. But all things happen for a reason. Since she couldn’t go to the Olympics, she decided to go to a friend’s sweet 16 beach party. There she meets a cute boy named David. Although she was only 16 years old she knew that this boy would someday become her husband. Today, Kela’s husband David is here today to watch her get introduced into the Rotary Club of Seattle. Welcome, David.

 

After high school, Kela and David went to college at Oakland College. That’s Oakland College in Michigan. David decided he wanted to finish his education in the military, so he joined the Air Force and went to San Antonio for basic training and to take his classes in human resource management. Kela graduated with her degree in broadcast journalism and immediately went to work at Comcast where she was very successful. She would have stayed longer but at this point, David called her from San Antonio and as he was about to be shipped out on duty, he decided to call Kela and as romantically possible on a phone call, he asked her to marry him.

 

The first thought that came to her mind was to say yes and the second thought was to tell him what a horrible way to propose this was.

 

But! They were married, and David was assigned to Fairchild Air Force base in Spokane, Washington.

 

As you can imagine, they both fell in love with the Northwest. Kela saw an opportunity and set her sights on getting a job with the University of Phoenix. She believed in the need to make undergraduate and postgraduate degrees available to everyone. She got hired and went on to a very successful career. She opened and ran collages from Spokane to New York and many places in between, Kela recognized the power of relationships, communication, and bringing communities together. As her time with the university was coming to an end, she asked for her last assignment to be back in the Northwest, in Seattle.

 

After leaving the university, Kela stated her own consulting firm called, KD Hall Communications. The firm focuses on many skills such as communications, strategy, and executive consulting. Kala likes to say that KD Hall Communications is in "the business of people."

 

She started her firm, five years ago and three years ago started her own non-profit called KD Hall Foundation. Her foundation is committed to helping give women a chance to gain a seat at the decision-making table. One large part of their success has come from their focus on the male allies who want to support this endeavor. Kela has had many successes with the foundation, including two trips to the White House to help drive STEM initiatives for women’s goals.

 

Kela and David have made their home up in Mill Creek with their two daughters, Kakela “junior”, three and a half, and Chase, who is five months.

 

She is an avid astrologer who can tell you your fortune, a multi-tasker, talker, and a great addition to our club. Thank you to her sponsors, Cathy Gibson and Jamie Mendez.

 

Please welcome our newest Rotarian Kela Hall, classification Business Consultants & Services.