Welcome, Jim Leighty!

SDRG is pleased to welcome Jim Leighty to our staff. Jim is the project director for the FORE Foundation project to use evidence-based family-focused interventions to support families in recovery from opioid use disorder. Jim was born in Roseburg, OR, and lived in Newport and Knappa before his family moved to Tacoma, WA, where they still live, and where Jim graduated from Curtis High School. A proud veteran, Jim spent twenty years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He holds a BA in economics and political science from the University of Rochester and an MS in management (with a concentration in finance from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA). After a stint in the business world, Jim returned to school at the University of Washington, where he earned an MSW.

Jim started a practicum at Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Service Center in the Program of Assertive Community Treatment, where he worked his way up to mental health professional and team leader positions. His career as a social worker then took him to Navos PACT and then to Navos Children’s Long-term Inpatient Program. Jim’s time at Navos was followed by a stint at UW Psychiatry and Bx Sciences, where he was the juvenile detention mental health lead. He is now combining his managerial acumen, social work training and experience, and strong ethos of service as an SDRG project director.

Jim and his wife Jayne (from Sumner, WA, and a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University) live in West Seattle with their Boston Terrier Maui. The couple enjoys traveling, spending time with friends, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and cheering on Seattle’s Mariners, Seahawks, and Sounders.