On June 4, 2025, Vibe Founder, Alanna Imbach, had the honor of speaking at the Leadership Kitsap Class of 2025 Celebration of Leadership, where she also received the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award.
What follows is the text of the speech she shared that evening—offered in gratitude for the doers and dreamers who continue to invest in the people and places that make Kitsap home.
Those of you who’ve spent time with me know that I’m rarely at a loss for words.
But hearing that I’d been selected for the 2025 Leadership Kitsap Distinguished Alumni Award actually did leave me speechless for a bit.
I’ve joked that I don’t think I have enough silver in my hair to be getting “distinguished” anything just yet, but the Leadership team has assured me there is no minimum grey-hair requirement.
So here I am—grateful, very humbled, and so honored to be with you all tonight.
THANK YOU.
When I look around this room, and listen to all that the Class of 2025 has accomplished this year, I see doers and dreamers. People who understand something simple yet profound: That each of us has the power to change the world around us in both quiet and remarkable ways.
But you cannot do without first dreaming.
As I reflect on the projects from the Class of 2025, what I see isn’t just service—I see imagination and vision. Before a problem can be solved, or something new can be created, there is a magical moment in time that’s called possibility.
The projects we’re hearing about tonight began with a team of people who dared to imagine ways that our community could be more inclusive, more connected, more resilient. And because they acted on that imagination, our community is a little better today than it was just yesterday.
When Marcel Imbach and I first announced plans to open a shared workspace and coworking community here in 2017, many people—including some in this room—thought we were crazy.
The idea that a physical space could fundamentally transform how people live, work, and pursue their dreams in Kitsap seemed impossible.
We did it anyway.
Launching Vibe Coworks, and most recently Matchstick Lab, has given me the extraordinary privilege of working alongside entrepreneurs, creatives, and change makers.
People dreaming bold dreams right here, right now.
People who are creating jobs, solving problems, and working to improve life not just for themselves, but for their friends and neighbors too.
We know that innovation doesn’t just happen in big cities or on big stages.
It happens around kitchen tables.
In community centers.
On ferry rides.
At farmers markets.
It happens when someone says: I have an idea. And someone else responds: I’ll help.
That’s the kind of community that Leadership Kitsap builds.
Recently, I had a conversation with a newly minted entrepreneur who had just landed her first big opportunity. She told me that she never imagined she could do this. But that being surrounded by people at Vibe Coworks who are following their dreams made her believe that she could follow hers too.
And then she said: thank you.
It wasn’t the kind of automatic ‘thank you’ that you hear a hundred times a day. It was the kind of ‘thank you’ that says: you saw me, and you believed in me.
I think of that conversation often, because it reminds me that real gratitude is rooted in recognition.
Recognition of the courage it takes to try.
Of the people who help make it possible.
And of the communities that dare to say ‘what if’.
That’s what Leadership Kitsap teaches us.
It teaches us that leadership is about listening. It’s about lifting others up. And it’s about creating the conditions for more people in our community to bring their most powerful, innermost dreams to life.
My greatest hope is that we can collectively succeed in unlocking all the potential that exists here in this place that we call home.
That Kitsap is a place where people discover confidence they didn’t know they had. Where joy and possibility are part of everyone’s journey. And where even the wildest, most audacious dreams are met with meaningful support.
To the Class of 2025—and to all of you here tonight: Please continue to imagine the ‘what ifs’. Speak those dreams out loud. And dare everyone around you to do the same.
As grateful as I am for this tremendous honor, all of us here tonight know that leadership isn’t about titles or awards.
It’s about showing up. It’s about believing in possibilities. And it’s choosing—again and again—to invest in people and in place.
Fourteen years ago, this place–this very room–is where my husband Marcel and I celebrated our overseas marriage with our family in the US. To be back here tonight—surrounded by all of you, and four generations of my family–my grandparents, my parents, my sister, my daughters, and Marcel–my partner in both business and in life–means more than I can say.
So I’ll close with the kind of thank you that goes beyond tradition. The kind that says: you saw me.
Thank you.
Thank you for believing in me, in my work that I’m so honored to have the chance to do, and in the collective power of community-based leadership.
Keep seeing one another.
Keep dreaming.
And please, please keep building.
