SU Grad is New Rainier Scholars CEO

Eddie Lincoln’s distinguished career helping Puget Sound-area youth recently took another step when the 2005 College of Arts and Sciences grad was named the Chief Executive Officer of Rainier Scholars.

In this role Lincoln will work with the Board of Trustees and Executive Leadership team to lead an organization focused on cultivating academic, social and leadership success of students from traditionally underserved communities.

“Joining Rainier Scholars is a homecoming for me,” Lincoln said in a Rainier Scholars press release. “It’s focused on students from my old neighborhoods—kids who look like me, have the same backgrounds and whose families I know in many cases.”

A native of south Seattle, Lincoln graduated from O’Dea High School, where he was the 2000 Class 3A Boys Basketball Player of the Year. He played hoops for Seattle University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communication and media studies. After earning a law degree from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in 2009, Lincoln embarked on a career helping youth in the Seattle/Tacoma area.

In 2011 he returned to Seattle University as a School Success Coordinator, developing afterschool programs to increase educational opportunities for students of color. He then helped launch the Seattle University Youth Initiative as the Assistant Director of K-12 Programs, working with other agencies such as the City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools on programs to support youth and their families living within two miles of the SU campus.

Later he joined Equal Opportunity Schools, a national nonprofit focused on equitable enrollment for underserved and underrepresented students in advanced coursework, eventually being named the organization’s CEO in 2021.