Derek Kilmer

Kilmer was born on January 1, 1974, in Port Angeles on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where he grew up, and graduated from Port Angeles High School in 1992.⁠[1][2][1]

In 1996, Kilmer earned a bachelor’s degree in public affairs from Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry. His undergraduate thesis focused on his hometown, examining the social and economic effects of the timber crisis in the Pacific Northwest and analyzing the local implementation of the Clinton Forest Plan adopted in 1994.⁠[1][3]

After graduating, Kilmer went to the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar to study social policy, earning a doctorate in 1999. From that year until 2002, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company.⁠[3][1][1]

After his consulting work at McKinsey, Kilmer returned to Washington State, where he worked at the Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County and also served as vice president of an economic development nonprofit.⁠[2][3][4]

In 2004, Kilmer was elected to the Washington House of Representatives, entering the state legislature.⁠[1][3]

From 2007 to 2012, Kilmer represented the 26th Legislative District in the Washington State Senate. Together with his earlier term in the state House, he served eight years in the state legislature.⁠[1][5][4]

On November 6, 2012, Kilmer was elected to the 113th Congress, defeating Republican candidate Bill Driscoll 186,661 votes to 129,725 in Washington’s 6th congressional district, and was reelected in every subsequent election. The district covers the Olympic Peninsula, the Kitsap Peninsula, and most of the city of Tacoma.⁠[1][6][6][7]

Kilmer represented Washington’s 6th district from 2013. He later joined the House Appropriations Committee, serving on its subcommittees including Defense, Energy and Water, and Interior; he focused on housing and infrastructure investment in tribal communities and took part in restoring Community Project Funding. He also served as one of Representative Steny Hoyer’s assistant whips and as the Region 5 lead on the Regional Leadership Council.⁠[2][8][8][9][9]

Beginning with the 116th Congress (from 2019), Kilmer chaired the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress (ModCom) for four years. The committee met with Democratic and Republican members seated around a round table, with questioning not bound by the usual five-minute limit, and adopted more than 200 recommendations to improve how Congress works, including bipartisan orientation for new members and shared bipartisan office space.⁠[2][2][10]

In the same Congress, Kilmer also chaired the New Democrat Coalition, a group of moderate Democratic members.⁠[11][2]

Kilmer developed the research in his undergraduate thesis on struggling timber communities into the RECOMPETE Act, which supports areas facing long-term economic distress; it passed in August 2022 as part of the CHIPS and Science Act. The Economic Development Administration later selected 22 regions to receive assistance under the program, including northwest Washington State, where Kilmer’s hometown is located.⁠[10][10][11][10]

The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress dissolved at the end of the 117th Congress; in the 118th Congress it was replaced by a Subcommittee on Modernization under the Committee on House Administration, on which Kilmer served as ranking member. In 2023, he co-founded the Fix Congress Caucus with Republican Representative William Timmons, who had served as the committee’s vice chair, and served as vice chair for policy of the New Democrat Coalition.⁠[2][2][2][11]

On November 9, 2023, in his sixth term, Kilmer announced that he would not run for reelection in 2024. He said the job had taken a heavy toll on his family and mentioned the sense of distance between him and his family after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot; he also said that more than a quarter of the modernization committee’s 200-plus reform recommendations had been fully implemented.⁠[2][7][2][2][2]

In early 2024, Kilmer taught a Junior Task Force course titled “Fixing the People’s House” on reforming the House of Representatives at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). Discussing his reasons for retiring, he said that “20 years of public service is just right,” and that he was not tired of Congress but enjoyed the job.⁠[10][10][10]

On October 21, 2024, the Rockefeller Foundation announced Kilmer’s appointment as Senior Vice President of its newly created U.S. Program and Policy team, starting in January 2025. He would be responsible for the foundation’s domestic U.S. programs and for advancing its global policy strategy, while overseeing existing programs including Invest in Our Future, the Pro-Working Family Tax Policy Initiative, Global Economic Recovery, and the Economic Opportunity Collective.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4][4][4]

In November 2024, Washington State Senator Emily Randall was elected to succeed Kilmer in his House seat. At the end of his term, Kilmer noted that the North Olympic Peninsula had just received $35 million in Recompete funding, and said his two main priorities in Congress had been improving the economy and making government work better.⁠[12][12][12]

In January 2025, Kilmer concluded his 12 years in the House and moved to the Rockefeller Foundation. As of October 2026, he is the foundation’s Senior Vice President of U.S. Program and Policy, leading its new economic opportunity agenda to help communities navigate economic and technological change and connect more people to good jobs, and leading the foundation’s global and domestic policy teams.⁠[12][13][13]

He is also the Terker Distinguished Fellow at George Washington University’s School of Media & Public Affairs.⁠[14]

The Rockefeller Foundation: Official website: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]