Nov 4, 2008

In 2008, Kai ran for local political office.  After a grassroots campaign focused on open government, he was elected to Harrisonburg’s City Council, a five-member body atop the city government.  On January 2, 2009, Kai was unanimously elected by his colleagues on the city council to be mayor of Harrisonburg.

In early 2009, Kai took a position with the Community Mediation Center as a facilitator and trainer with the Bluestone Group, where he is assisting groups and businesses creatively collaborate to achieve their goals.  He is also recommitted to The OrangeBand Initiative.  As part of this work, Kai created and leads Listening 101, a four-week online course focused on practicing listening.

Kai is a double-graduate of James Madison University, receiving a bachelors degree in Integrated Science and Technology and a Masters in Business Administration.  During his time at JMU, he got involved in a number of academic and civic projects that connected him to the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County community in a number of ways.

In 2003, Kai started The OrangeBand Initiative with a team of friends.  This project intended to create more dialogue at JMU about the issues that matter to us.  Anyone could take an OrangeBand and put it somewhere visible (like on a backpack) to start a conversation about a topic important to them.  The overwhelmingly positive response to this project convinced him of the yearning people have for respectful conversations about issues that matter, as well as the relationships those types of conversations can build.

Montpelier Article

Through this project, Kai coordinated and moderated over 200 community discussion events on and off campus.  This work connected him with a national network of people and organizations passionate about effectively talking, listening and making decisions.  In 2006, he served on the steering committee for the National Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation.

After graduation, Kai continued to work with OrangeBand and as a consultant to environmental groups before taking a job as Executive Director of the Arts Council of the Valley, a position he held until the end of 2008.

JMU's Quad OrangeBanded

Kai’s American mother, Gwyn, and German father, Thomas, live in Baltimore, MD, where they are educators; and his brother, Philip, lives in Mooresville, NC – the NASCAR capital of the world (he works for Team Redbull).  Kai was born in Wuerzburg, Germany, and the family stayed there until moving to Maryland before Kai started school.