Jay was first elected Benton County Commissioner in November 2000. Before becoming a commissioner he was an elected member of the Corvallis 509J School Board. He and his family established Corvallis Hardware in 1992. Before that he was a senior vice president at Ford Motor Company’s First Nationwide Bank in San Francisco. Before joining First Nationwide he was a senior officer at Westamerica Bank in Marin County, California, and Hibernia and Crocker Banks in San Francisco. Prior to entering banking, he was chief operating officer of the three-state Lawrence Security Inc. headquartered in San Francisco, Director of the Washington Criminal Justice Education and Training Center in Issaquah, Washington, a law enforcement consultant for the Planning and Community Affairs Office of the Governor in Olympia, Washington and a Seattle Police Department Lieutenant.
Jay has held leadership positions in many government, education, industry and civic organizations locally regionally and nationally. He chaired the first successful local option school levy campaign in Oregon, “Corvallis Kids Count!” He is a published author, has taught and lectured at several colleges, has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of San Francisco and completed the University of Oregon’s Pacific Program.
Jay currently chairs the three county Cascades West Council of Governments, the Association of Oregon Counties Public Safety Committee, and the steering committee to end chronic homelessness in Benton County. He previously chaired the Willamette Criminal Justice Council, the Corvallis Community Policing Forum, and the City of Corvallis Budget Commission.
Jay is the elected-official representative on Oregon’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, is one of four members of the Oregon Corrections Enterprises Advisory Committee, and serves on the executive committee of the Benton County Commission on Children and Families, the Association of Oregon Counties Legislative Committee, the Oregon Community Corrections Commission, the National Association of Counties Justice and Public Safety Steering Committee, and the governing board of the Community Services Consortium.
Jay has served upon the executive committee of the Region 4 Work Force Investment Board, and as a board member of the Linn-Benton Housing Authority, Community Outreach, Heartland Humane Society, DaVinci Days, Plain Talk and the Economic Vitality Partnership Board. He is a past president of the Corvallis Area Chamber of Commerce.
Jay is a member of the Greater Corvallis Rotary Club, the Albany Community Leadership Roundtable, the League of Women Voters, the National Organization for Women, the NAACP and the Sierra Club. In 2004 he received a Basic Rights Oregon Superhero Award. Jay and his wife Pat met on the University of Washington campus and married two years later. They have two sons and five grandchildren.
