William A. Cavanagh | Executive Director

William (Bill) Cavanagh is Executive Director of the Repatriate Washington Policy Research Institute. His route to Washington fiscal policy was not a conventional one.

Bill spent much of his career in medical research and medical technology, with a particular focus on cancer. His work with large-scale data analysis began in Seattle in 1991, when he was asked to lead data collection and modeling for research involving radioactive seed implantation for prostate cancer. That work helped establish an analytical foundation for a treatment approach that would become an important part of prostate cancer care.

He subsequently moved into leadership roles in cancer research and biotechnology, including organizations working on cancer immunotherapy. Along the way, he authored or co-authored dozens of papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

More recently, at IsoRay Medical in Richland, Washington, Bill served in senior leadership positions including Chief Operating Officer and Chief Research & Development Officer. There he led a team that secured regulatory approval for a cesium-131-based implant for the treatment of brain cancer.

His career also includes service as Chief Scientific Officer of Sangretech Biomedical and Director of the Haakon Ragde Foundation for Advanced Cancer Studies. Across those roles, a recurring part of his work was finding information, determining whether it could be trusted, building models from reliable evidence, and testing whether the resulting conclusions survived scrutiny.

That experience eventually led him somewhere quite different.

Over many years, Bill's friend Randy Aamot kept pressing an idea: the economic health of Washington could not be fully understood without understanding the enormous flows of money into and out of the state. If those flows could be measured, Randy argued, Washington residents could make better-informed decisions about the policies governing them.

Bill became convinced that Randy was right.

That question—can we actually measure the fiscal relationship between Washington and the federal government?—ultimately brought him to Repatriate Washington PRI. It also brought with him a research philosophy carried over from his scientific career: distinguish measurements from assumptions, preserve the evidence, make the methods reproducible, and allow the data to challenge the hypothesis.

Bill holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Portland. Today, his work at Repatriate Washington PRI focuses on taxation, public expenditures, fiscal flows, and the development of transparent quantitative tools for understanding Washington's economic relationship with government.

Contact:
cavanagh@repatriatewa.org‍ ‍

Randall Aamot | Founder & Executive Chairman

Randall (Randy) Aamot is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Repatriate Washington PRI. A native of Washington's Skagit Valley, Randy established the organization to advance informed discussion regarding Washington State's fiscal relationship with the federal government.

Drawing on experience as a mortgage broker and commodities trader, Randy brings a strong background in macroeconomic analysis, public finance, and economic policy. His work is focused on understanding how federal taxation, spending patterns, and fiscal transfers impact Washington's economy, businesses, and residents.

Through Repatriate Washington PRI, Randy advocates for fact-based research and transparent economic analysis that helps policymakers, business leaders, and citizens better understand the fiscal challenges and opportunities facing Washington State.

Contact:
aamot@repatriatewa.org