People in Business
Gov. Jay Inslee has appointed Trang Lam, the director of the Camas Parks and Recreation Department, to the state Recreation and Conservation Funding Board. Lam is believed to be the first Vietnamese woman to serve on the board in its nearly 60-year history.
The Recreation and Conservation Funding Board awards about $200 million in grants every two years to local governments, tribes, nonprofits and state and federal agencies to create outdoor recreation opportunities, such as parks and trails. The board also awards grants to conserve the state’s natural resource heritage by protecting working farms and forests and wildlife habitat, including places inhabited by plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.
Lam has more than 15 years of experience in the public sector, five of which are in the parks and recreation field, and seven years running a private company.
In 1979, when she was 4, Lam and her extended family fled Vietnam as refugees and settled in Portland. She later earned a bachelor of arts degree from Portland State University and ran her family’s food manufacturing business before entering public service.
