Pierce County Library System
Information & Imagination

Daren Jones, an Orting resident, is the president of Pacific Investing, Inc., a management group for real estate. He has extensive residential and commercial real estate experience. Daren's professional experience and community knowledge will be of great value to our Board in its service to the nearly 600,000 residents the Library System serves. His professional experiences and genuine compassion for public service will complement our strong Board of Trustees.

Term expires: Feb. 14, 2024

Pat Jenkins, a Puyallup resident, is the program director and editor of Senior Media Services, a Lutheran Community Services Northwest program which publishes news and information resources for older adults. He also has served on numerous boards and committees for school districts, food banks and other organizations, and has volunteered as a reading tutor with several school districts.

Term expires: Mar. 31, 2022

Robert Allen, a Gig Harbor resident, is a Community Researcher/Policy Analyst for Pierce County. Allen has worked for Pierce County since 1998, researching and analyzing demographic and economic data to build and support communities.

Jamilyn Penn, a Steilacoom resident, has extensive K-12 and higher education experience. Currently, she is the director of transfer education at the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges in Olympia. Penn was a dean of instruction at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood and at Lake Washington Institute of Technology in Kirkland. Previously Penn was a program director for federal programs at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Penn volunteers with local agencies to help individuals with low literacy learn to read. She also volunteers as a change facilitator for Guided Pathways, equity-focused work to close opportunity gaps, particularly for students of color and other historically underrepresented groups. Penn is a student at Northeastern University, where she is working towards a doctorate in Higher Education Leadership.

Term expires: Aug. 13, 2024

Brian Thomason of Gig Harbor is a higher education specialist within J.P Morgan’s Commercial Bank. He works with higher education industry leaders to understand and address the strategic treasury concerns of these organizations. Thomason has 20 years of experience in the higher education and not-for-profit industry. 

Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2018, Brian worked at various institutions of higher education, most recently as Associate Vice President of Finance and University Controller at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA.  He also oversaw the Pepperdine’s student financial literacy initiative and taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses in Accounting, Finance, and Hispanic Studies. He is a graduate of Abilene Christian University, a licensed Certified Public Accountant and serves on the boards of several other not-for-profit entities.