Charter
WashingtonFIRST is a coalition of financial sector institutions operating in Washington State, collaborating with one another to identify risk and improve the resiliency of our members and our communities. 

WashingtonFIRST serves as an investment in the event of a crisis, insuring that we are collaborating with one another, the public sector, and other critical infrastructure sectors at all levels. WashingtonFIRST provides a unique forum for local and regional preparedness and enhanced resiliency as well as being part of a national network of partner coalitions.

Mission
  • Establish and foster an effective public/private sector partnership in the financial services sector.
  • Increase the resiliency of Washington business in the event of an emergency, natural disaster, or terrorist event, in collaboration with the State of Washington, our City and County partners, and federal agencies, including US Department of Treasury, Homeland Security, FEMA, FBI and others.
  • Partner across critical infrastructure sectors to address interdependencies across the State in areas such as finance, insurance, banking, telecommunications, power, transportation, and others.

History
The coalition was formed in 2006 as the Pacific Northwest Regional Coalition for Financial Services. Over 20 financial institutions currently participate.

latest news

New Life for WashingtonFIRST
We have asked two former chairs of the coalition to return for a six to twelve month engagement while we grow new leaders for WashingtonFIRST. Annie Searle founded the coalition at the request of the U.S. Department of Treasury and the FDIC in 2006, and Washington Mutual hosted many of the coalition meetings in the first several years. Shelby Edwards of PEMCO was the first co-chair of the coalition, and has remained active in the organization since that time.

“We feel that the coalition is too important to just fade away, and that there is a great deal of work that financial institutions can accomplish. We’ve identified both many opportunities for collaboration and the need to address a critical sector wide resiliency questions.  We welcome suggestions to make this a stronger website where federal and state links can be aggregated along with content we ourselves create.

"We also propose to create other new coalition membership benefits:
  1. Quarterly meetings, most of which would be early morning breakfasts with a featured speaker;
  2. Potential Twitter and Facebook coalition tools;
  3. Concerted drive to attract larger financial institutions to the coalition;
  4. Development of an executive committee of 4-6 members, with a goal of mentoring next generation of leadership for this coalition."