Louise Chernin

Louise Chernin Louise is currently the executive director of the Greater Seattle Business Association, the largest LGBT chamber of commerce in the nation.

Prior to moving to Seattle, Louise was involved in both the civil rights movement and the peace movement and was a proud participant in the early March on the Pentagon and the Poor People’s March. She spent her early 20s holding many meetings in her living room, an activity that continues to this day. Of course, at that time the meetings were about how to end the Vietnam War.

After arriving in Seattle, Louise, a young mother, did volunteer work around children’s issues and, when her daughter started school, changed her focus to working on desegregation of the Seattle School district.

In 1982, Louise was hired as the director of the Seattle Chapter of the National Organization for Women. Seattle NOW was one of the chapters most active in lesbian rights and it was at NOW that Louise came out and started working on lesbian rights, including work with the Lesbian Resource Center.

During her time at NOW, Louise was totally immersed in working on issues of violence against women, including sexual assault. She was among the group of women who forced the Seattle police department to form a task force concerning a series of murders of women, especially those in the sex industry, in and around Seattle, in the 1980’s.

For the past fifteen years, LGBT rights of primary importance for Louise. She served on the Pride Foundation board from 1999–2003 and has worked worked on LGBT economic issues, scholarships for LGBT and allied students and, of course, civil rights. The common thread is a commitment to community and to bringing people together.

Louise was born in Brooklyn, New York and lives in Seattle with her partner of sixteen years, Mary Klein.