Leading with
a Purpose 2026

Hosted by Stroke Awareness Oregon

Impact Through Leadership.
How leaders create meaningful change through their work, organizations, and communities.

Event Purpose

  • Bring together community and business leaders for a conversation on purpose-driven leadership and community impact
  • Raise awareness and support for Stroke Awareness Oregon’s programs, education, and survivor resources
  • Provide an engaging networking opportunity for local professionals and community members

Audience

  • Business leaders
  • Community members
  • Entrepreneurs and professionals
  • Supporters of Stroke Awareness Oregon

Event Details


Location: 
Tetherow Pavillion Bend, Oregon

Date:
May 5, 2026

Theme:
Impact Through Leadership – how leaders create meaningful change through their work, organizations, and communities.

Ticket Pricing
1 Ticket: $75    |     2 Tickets: 125     |     Nonprofit Tickets: $50 each    |    At the Door Tickets: $85

Event Format


4:00–5:00 PM
 – Cocktail hour & networking

5:00–6:30 PM – Moderated leadership panel discussion

Appetizers will be provided

No-host bar (drinks available for purchase)

 

Key Marketing Messaging

 

  • Leadership and purpose
  • Community impact
  • Inspiring leadership stories
  • Community connection and networking
  • Supporting stroke awareness, prevention, and survivor resources

 

Moderator

Deborah Flagan

Vice President of Community Engagement & Giving, Hayden Homes

Deborah is a longtime advocate for workforce housing and community development across the Pacific Northwest. For more than 25 years, she has led community engagement, philanthropy, and marketing initiatives for Hayden Homes, the largest private home builder in the region, helping advance the company’s Give As You Go™ philosophy focused on building strong communities.

She serves on several regional and statewide boards, including the Oregon Governor’s Housing Production Advisory Council and the Central Oregon Regional Solutions Advisory Board, and is a leader within the Oregon Home Builders Association.

Panelists

Pat Bailey

Pat Bailey is a longtime educator and coach who spent more than 40 years mentoring student-athletes across Oregon. He served as head baseball coach at George Fox University, leading the program to the 2004 NCAA Division III National Championship, and later helped guide Oregon State University to the 2018 NCAA Division I National Championship as associate head coach. Today, Bailey continues investing in the next generation as a Multi-Area Director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

Jo Wells

Jo Wells has taken the principles she’s learned early in life around honesty and integrity and has committed to diving deeper to lead a life of authenticity and vulnerability. She has learned how to bring those principles into her career as an architect and project manager, leading large public projects where end users are heard and team members come together to create not only great projects, but great memories and relationships. Team members have consistently reached back for mentorship, recommendations and to present at conferences together across the US, speaking about lessons learned and helping others apply similar lessons to their work.

Michelle Mitchell

Michelle co-founded Humm Kombucha, growing the company from a kitchen startup into a nationally distributed brand. From early infrastructure and scaling teams to leadership development, Michelle has built  high-functioning, high-trust teams. Her strength lies in translating vision into execution, empowering her team to grow both professionally and personally, creating healthy cultures that support sustainable growth. She is currently the COO of Design Bar Interiors, bringing with her the experience of growing, funding and successfully selling her kitchen start-up, to another incredible, local brand and team.

Tia Lewis

Tia Lewis is a shareholder at Schwabe and has practiced land use and real estate law in Bend since 1993. She graduated cum laude from Lewis & Clark Law School with a certificate in Environmental Law and brings decades of experience guiding clients through complex permitting, development approvals, and land use processes. Tia is also a dedicated community leader, serving with the Rotary Club of Bend, where she was named Rotarian of the Year, and on several local boards including EDCO, the Deschutes Children’s Foundation, the Bend Chamber of Commerce, and the Bend NEXT Foundation.

Ticket Pricing
1 Ticket: $75    |     2 Tickets: 125     |     Nonprofit Tickets: $50 each    |    At the Door Tickets: $85

Interested in sponsoring this event?

Your Donation Can Save a Life & Enhance
the Recovery of a Stroke Warrior!

SAO Contact

Thank you for your interest in Stroke Awareness Oregon! We look forward to connecting with you further. You can reach the SAO team by phone, email, or in-person at the SAO office in Bend, Oregon. If you or a loved one are displaying signs of stroke please Call 9-1-1 immediately. Time = Brain!


    Become a STROKE CHAMPION for only $18 per month!

    Story Preview | A DRIVING FORCE – Alesha Goodman

    by Jake Sheaffer

    “I once threw a canister of my supplement powder at the wall and dented it. That’s something I can’t imagine ever doing before my stroke, but it’s just another part
of my recovery to work on.”

    ______________________________

    On an early October weekend in 2019, Alesha Goodman and her longtime boyfriend Drew hiked over 50 miles of rugged desert landscape in the Ochoco National Forest in Central Oregon. They were on a nine-day hunting trip they’d been planning for months. While Drew streaked up the steep slopes of sagebrush and loose rock, Alesha tarried behind breathing heavily, fighting the searing pain radiating from the base of her skull. An active thirty-four-year-old who frequented local gyms, walked her dog daily, and hiked on weekends, Alesha never suspected the severe neck pain and nausea she’d had for the past week and a half were signs of an impending stroke. And not just one stroke, but two. Two potentially fatal strokes that would occur within an hour of each other the day after she returned from the Ochocos.

    An only child, Alesha was close to her parents and her grandmother who lived on her parents’ property later in life. As a kid, she delivered newspapers in her Bend, OR neighborhood, and in her spare time, she wrote children’s books for fun and read voraciously, prompting close friends to refer to her as a “living encyclopedia of odd information.”

    On the Monday morning after she got home, Alesha sat in traffic at a parkway off -ramp, still in discomfort from the neck pain and the nausea. She had new symptoms, too, dizziness and feeling faint. Regardless of the pain, she readied herself for work, but she had an uneasy feeling about her job.

    Over the weekend, Alesha had received multiple text messages from her employer, a jewelry company in Central Oregon, about an issue with her company email and password, but with no cell reception, she couldn’t respond to her manager’s concerns. After searching through Alesha’s desk for her email password and not finding it, but instead finding an important legal document she’d already dealt with but had not yet disclosed to her boss, the company hired a specialist to get around the digital safeguards. That day, Alesha was let go from her position.

    Purchase the Book to Learn More About Alesha’s Journey!