Tyler Lafferty

Executive Director / Founder

The Executive Director and Founder of Slingshot, Tyler Lafferty, a longtime entrepreneur, has built five successful companies in digital marketing, advertising media, and health and fitness. This investment over 20 years, has produced services purchased by multi-billion dollar companies and clients across the nation including AT&T, Amazon, Nike, Nintendo, MTV, Tiktok, Disney and many others. 

Tyler holds a deep-rooted belief that we have an obligation to align our unique skills and interests to an industry and profession that we are passionate about. He has been living into his own passion of helping students dream big and discover new career opportunities.  He's done this through mentorship, speaking in classrooms and developing an online platform connecting professionals and educators (www.a2e.com). 

He’s created a blueprint, called the IDEAS Framework, for helping young adults uncover their passions, align their unique skills and interests to an industry they love and build a network to help them create informational interviews, job shadows and internships. 

His book, Be More Like You, is a story of a young man unsure of his future and his fortunate encounter with a successful business woman who bestows her wisdom and tactics to help him find fulfillment, purpose, and happiness on his professional journey.

Slingshot was born of that same notion, to teach young adults to honor their real, authentic, being and in this place find true fulfillment and happiness in work, life and service to others.

Tyler is father to three amazing kids and his wife is a longtime educator.

He is a graduate of the University of Washington in Political Science.

Lisa White

Program Director

Lisa White is a professional educator, consultant, and former administrator with Spokane Public Schools.  She has a career spanning thirty-five years including directorship in Express Child Care Programs, Career and Technical Education (CTE) and After School Programs, and Summer STEM Camps.  Lisa leads with a focus on social justice and equity, workforce and economic development, and access to high quality academic enrichment and after school experiences for all children and youth pre-K – higher ed.

Lisa catalyzed opportunities for all students (K-12) in Spokane Public Schools to participate in engineering, robotics, and computer science through FIRST Lego League/JR, and FIRST Robotics Challenge. 

She has held leadership roles in local, state and national boards and panels, advising various industries on best-practice working with students and families. Lisa is known for connecting with students and families in deep and meaningful ways. 

As Program Director, she leads our IDEAS Framework program implementation in our high schools and universities.

Lisa is the proud parent of three beautiful daughters Krysten (31), Neva (22) and Bailey (20).

Lisa is an alumna of Gonzaga University with a master’s degree in Educational Administration.

Sam Abrams

Lead Coach

Sam Abrams is an innovative educator that puts students' needs above all else. He has proven that his approaches are able to ensure students' successes at the next level. Sam’s ability to recognize the blindspots in education has allowed him to leverage non-traditional approaches to engage students in learning. Sam is frequently looked toward as a wise leader that can transfer his professional background to adult learning.