Lead Facilitator
Email: tye.ferrell@wsu.edu
As a Lead Facilitator, Tye works with community members and leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to explore complex multi-party challenges in a way that honors all voices and brings humor and humanity to the process. He is passionate about the potential for transformational systems change that enables individuals, communities, and organizations to more effectively meet the challenges of an increasingly uncertain future. Tye has had the privilege of living and working in multiple countries, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Georgia, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Tanzania. These lived experiences give him a broad base of experience and an appreciation for the wide diversity of human social and cultural expression.
Before joining the Ruckelshaus Center, Tye founded and led the consulting firm Resilience Collaborative NW to help communities and organizations increase their resilience and adaptive capability. He led democracy assessments of several countries for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which included recommendations for future programming. He also supported a study of coastal resilience on the Washington coast for the Ruckelshaus Center whose recommendations have led to a wide range of new programs and assistance for coastal communities.
Prior to that, he worked as a Senior Advisor and Team Leader with USAID, where he designed and managed programs in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen democracy, good governance, and health systems.
Before his work with USAID, he was an Aide to a Seattle City Councilmember. In this position, he played a key role in the creation of the City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment, helped start the city’s first car-sharing program, and successfully advocated for green building and increased energy efficiency.
Tye was a Fulbright Scholar in Nigeria, where he studied a Yoruba trickster god and its relation to social and cultural adaptation. He studied at Reed College, graduated with a BA in History from the University of Washington, and earned a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.