Phil Rockefeller

Biography

After public school education in the state of New York, Phil Rockefeller attended and graduated from Yale University, then Harvard Law School.  Following active duty with the U.S. Air Force, he became a resident of Washington, joined the Weyerhaeuser Company’s law department, and was admitted to the Washington State Bar Association.

In 1967, Rockefeller moved to Washington, D.C. and took a staff job with the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education & Labor.  In 1969, he joined the Office of the Secretary in the U.S. Department of Health, Education & Welfare, working on Departmental legislative requests and testimony before the Congress.   In 1970 he returned to Washington as Regional Attorney for the newly formed regional office of “HEW” (for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington) and later held other regional management positions, including Regional Commissioner of the United States Office of Education and Regional Administrator for the Office of Student Financial Assistance in the U.S. Department of Education.  In 1981 Rockefeller accepted an invitation to serve as education aide to then-Governor John Spellman, and did so through 1984, returning to the U.S. Department of Education in 1984.  He retired from federal service in 1994.

Senator Rockefeller was elected to his second four-year term as State Senator on November 4, 2008, and was sworn in on January 12, 2009.  He came to the Senate in 2005, after election to three two-year terms as State Representative from the 23rd Legislative District, from 1999 to 2005.

In his current duties as a Senator, Rockefeller chairs the Environment, Water & Energy Committee, the Joint (House and Senate) Legislative Audit & Review Committee, and the Joint Committee on Energy Supply & Energy Conservation.   He also serves on the Senate Ways & Means Committee.  He also finds time to serve on the Statute Law Committee, and the Ecosystem Coordinating Board of the Puget Sound Partnership, an agency created by legislation championed by Senator Rockefeller in 2007.

Senator Rockefeller has been a board member of numerous civic and community service organizations, including Kitsap Community Resources, the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Council, Bainbridge Public Library, Bainbridge Island Land Trust, and the Kitsap Area Agency on Aging.  He also participates in the work of the Environment & Natural Resources Committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the Western Water & Environment Committee of the Council of State Governments (West).

In his spare time, the Senator enjoys hiking, traveling, jazz and classical music, and growing and especially harvesting raspberries and blueberries at his home.  He was also a beekeeper until the mites destroyed his colonies.

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