Ryan Walters is an attorney, planner, and city councilmember in the island community of Anacortes, Washington, which five generations of his family have called home.
Ryan started his legal career as a civil deputy prosecutor for Skagit County. For nearly a decade, he advised the the County Planning Department, Planning Commission, and County Commissioners on land use issues, and the County Public Works Department and Farmland Legacy Program on natural resource issues. On assignment to the criminal division, he prosecuted involuntary treatment act hearings and a variety of misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors. Skagit County played a leading role in development of the statewide Voluntary Stewardship Program for agricultural areas and Ryan led the County's enrollment in that program, resolving more than a decade of non-compliance with the state Growth Management Act.
Ryan later served as assistant director of the Skagit County Planning Department, delivering the 2016 update of the County's Comprehensive Plan on time and under budget, modernizing department processes, and launching an effort to standardize and streamline the County permit process.
In the following three years as Planning Director for the Samish Nation, Ryan drafted its first development code, planned and permitted a 15-unit housing development, purchased and renovated waterfront office buildings, renovated 4000 sf of office space and a 4000-sf Head Start facility, purchased property and permitted a new early learning center, recodified and reorganized the Samish Tribal Code, standardized the organization's contract templates, and drafted a wholesale rewrite of the tribe's strategic plan.
Ryan's current practice as a private attorney continues his assistance to local governments and the state Department of Commerce. The flexibility of this work allows him to devote more time to the City of Anacortes, where he's served on the City Council since 2012.
Ryan obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester in upstate New York. With summer studies in Rennes and Peru, and a Congressional internship in Washington, D.C., Ryan graduated cum laude with majors in Political Science and French and with a certificate in International Relations.
Ryan returned to the west coast to attend UC Davis School of Law. During law school, he worked on the Business Law Journal and spent a summer at the London School of Economics.
Ryan and his wife Allison enjoy hiking, backpacking, bicycling, traveling, and photography—frequently stopping to document inspiring landscapes and downtowns, innovative streetscapes and features, and captivating architecture. Their recent adventures have taken them to Croatia, the Alta Via 1 in the Italian Dolomites, the Hoh River Trail to Blue Glacier, and the Berg Lake Trail.
Ryan and Allison live in a century-old home they've remodeled in old town Anacortes across the street from where Allison's great grandparents lived in the 1950s.
