Biography
Avakian joined the Atkinson team as an Assistant Contributing Professor in 2019, and brings more than 20 years of experience building successful public, private for-profit and nonprofit organizations. He is known for creating strong, committed, mission-oriented teams; advancing equity and opportunity; maintaining sound fiscal operations; and establishing internal and external systems to support excellent service delivery.
Avakian established his own law practice and put his law degree to work prosecuting civil rights cases and helping develop statewide labor, employment and civil rights policies. He then turned to public service, serving in the Oregon House of Representatives, Oregon Senate and as Oregon’s Commissioner of Labor and Industries. In addition to his Atkinson duties, Avakian is the Vice President of Human Resources and Compliance at Clark College and assists local courts and attorneys as a mediator and arbitrator.
In the legislature, Avakian’s accomplishments included authoring the Oregon Renewable Energy Act, expanding Oregon’s iconic Bottle Bill and Clean Indoor Air Act, helping create the Oregon Climate Research Institute and carrying the Equality Act to passage. As Commissioner, he led the effort to return over 800 career education classes to Oregon schools, created the “Pay Equity Report,” which provided the roadmap to end pay disparities in Oregon and achieved the state’s highest ever participation rate for people of color and twice the national average for women in construction apprenticeship programs.
In his spare time, he enjoys all things wilderness – backpacking, canoeing and exploring the PNW. He also is a woodworker and antler artist.