Red Hills

Carrick grew up in Vernonia, a small logging town in the Coastal Range. He had a tough start to life. His family was poor, broken, and after a flood destroyed their house, homeless. While this made him tough, it never made him hard. He took responsibility to shelter his little brother as best he could and up into his teenage years wanted to become a pastor to help others. This combination of strength and kindness remains at the core of his character today.

Blue Valley

Carrick had no plans to go to college. His life changed when the Ford Family Foundation intervened. The Ford Family Foundation to this day provides scholarships to poor Oregonians. They awarded him a full scholarship to study at the University of Oregon. Coming down from rugged red hills to the cultivated blue valley was a stark transition but he worked hard and his education at UO was world class. He studied economic development, so he could help others escape poverty too, and he excelled.

Making his mark

He decided to go to law school and studied hard. Four years previously he and his brother shared a bare double mattress on the floor in a room with the electrical wiring torn out of the wall; now he had been accepted to every top law school in the country. Needless to say, Carrick had a different background than most people at Yale, but that didn’t stop him from succeeding.

Oregon Kind

Experiencing poverty first-hand, Carrick has always been motivated to help others facing desperate situations. He directed a billion dollars to health programs to save children’s lives and removed a legal barrier that may have cost several thousand more lives. Along the way, he met a woman every bit as determined, caring, and tough as he is. Carrick married Kathryn Mecrow in his brother’s backyard in the Tualatin Mountains in 2018. 

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Carrick began to look at the potential of new technologies to help others. He focused on artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and preventing pandemics. Believing we need greater understanding, he went to Oxford University and co-founded the Center for the Governance of AI. Wanting to apply this knowledge to U.S. national security, he took up a Research Faculty position at Georgetown University. He advised and shaped the government’s approach to new technologies, shifting the allocation of billions of dollars’ worth of equipment and improving the security of the U.S. He worked closely with Congress, including consulting on the CHIPS Act, which should create thousands of new jobs in our district by reshoring the manufacturing of computer chips. 
 

Returning Home

When Covid struck, Carrick left Georgetown to advise the government on how new technologies can stop and prevent pandemics. Able to do this valuable work from home, Carrick came home to Oregon. Carrick is the right representative for our community. He is Oregon from the mountains to the valley. He knows what it is like to be helped and to help. Strong, experienced, and motivated by a deep caring for others, he will find the solutions that actually work for you.

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