Founded by tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Conru, CAF supports local artists, art organizations, and initiatives that make art accessible to all.

Thank you everyone for coming. It's been such a whirlwind the last couple of weeks, going into this space not knowing what to do with it, finding Marty... Things just kind of happen for a reason. It's such a wonderful thing to happen.

Marty suggested that I might do a public introduction of who I am, so that you get to kind of see where my perspective is and give you some insight into what I'm trying to do here.

A little bit of background about me: I grew up in Northern Indiana, right outside of Chicago, on a small farm. My parents were workaholics, and they instilled that in me pretty early. At 3 years old, I was already working in our huge garden. We grew our own food, and when it was time to pick, we had so much that my first business venture was going door to door with five-gallon buckets, trying to sell them.

With this type of hands-on background, when it came time for college, I studied engineering. After my undergrad, I went to Minnesota for my master's, working on control systems for robots. Minnesota was too cold, so I picked my grad school based on temperature and ended up at Stanford, where I did my Ph.D. in design research.

Halfway through my Ph.D., the internet popped up. It was the right place at the right time. In 1993, I started the first internet company called Internet Media Services. We were so early that we were the only ones in the phone book under "Internet Services." People would call and ask, "Are you the internet?" and we'd say, "Yeah, of course!"

One of the problems with being early is that nobody knows what you can do. So, I kept building websites to show off what the internet could do. So in 1994, I created the first web social network - dine.com - kind of like Yelp with restaurant reviews, maps you could zoom in on, and a recommendation engine.

After getting out of a long-term relationship, I started trying to date again. But as a Stanford Ph.D. in engineering, I didn't really have game when it came to dating. So, I thought, "I've got this community thing, why don't I just use the code again, rename it a bit, and create an online dating site?" That's how I started the first (free) web dating site in 1994 and a commercial version called FriendFinder in 1996.

Over the next 12 years, we created 20 different online communities with hundreds of millions of members. By 2007, we were about twice the size of Match.com, but few people had heard of us. I was always working, with so many late nights that I had a bed under my desk. At some point, I said, "Enough." I had made enough money, and it was time for me to move on. I sold control of the company and made one of my better decisions in life: I moved to Seattle.

Seattle is a naturally beautiful city, and the people here are so creative. We have a wonderful, thriving art community, which I didn't know at that point. After moving here, it took a couple of years to find myself. I spent time reading books, taking liberal arts courses, and doing all the things I wished I had done earlier. It gave me a different perspective.

I realized that the money I had made came from the public, and it was my job to put it to good use. But as a doer-type person, just writing checks wasn't my thing. I wanted to keep building things.

So, I created the Conru Foundation about 10 years ago as a way to practice and learn how to effectively apply my resources. I supported various causes and built websites to promote free online classes, help people help each other, and even tried to address homelessness by creating a social network for homeless individuals to connect with social services.

One thing I learned is the importance of engaging with the community before building something. That's what I'm doing here, hopefully building a community with all of you before diving into the projects I want to pursue.

This brings us to the Conru Art Foundation. I love going to the Seattle Art Museum, but every time I walk by the Lusty Lady building across the street, I think, "Why hasn't that been fixed up?" It's a fantastic space, and it's an opportunity for us to activate it.

The challenge with these types of buildings is that they're money pits. The Lusty Lady building was originally a hotel in the 1890s, then partially demolished for a parking lot in the 1950s. It's been vacant because it's an unreinforced masonry building, narrow, and difficult to make profitable.

But this is something I'm willing to take on. We'll be talking more about the details in the coming months, and it's going to be exciting. The Conru Art Foundation is about supporting the local art community, and the Lusty Lady project is just the beginning.

Thank you all for being here and being a part of this journey.