Late Oregon state Sen. Aaron Woods was not someone who enjoyed “the actual art of politicking,” according to one of his friends. Woods cared more about building friendships than crafting a political message.

Brian Everest met Woods while they were both aiding former Wilsonville Mayor Julie Fitzgerald with her 2020 campaign, and they struck up a natural friendship. Everest described Woods as a collaborator and recalled that after being elected Woods, a Democrat, would excitedly call each time he had a discussion with a person who might be controversial to meet with. An example is when Woods met with a former chair of the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners.

“(Woods) didn’t have any qualms about having the meeting, but was very excited after the fact about how quickly he felt like he was able to make them … a partner going forward on deals, rather than an adversary,” Everest said. “His team was saying, ‘you probably shouldn’t meet with them right now, that may not look right,’ he’s like, ‘I don’t care about looks. I want it to be done.’”

To Everest, this exemplified who Woods was as a person: someone who didn’t see individuals by their politics or their race, but as people to be trusted.

Woods died of cancer last month at 75 years old, surrounded by family. A longtime Wilsonville resident who moved to Oregon from Chicago, Woods was a U.S. Army veteran and retired tech executive. He joined the Oregon Senate in 2023, representing Wilsonville, King City, Sherwood, Tigard, southeast Beaverton and Yamhill County.

Outside of the Senate, Woods was a member of the Clackamas Community College board. He also spent time on the Wilsonville Planning Commission and Development Review Board, and co-founded the Wilsonville Alliance for Inclusive Community.

To those who knew him well, Woods was a man dedicated to assisting others, following in the footsteps of those who helped him in his youth. Friends described Woods as an earnest man wanting to build relationships, a mentor, a hard worker who was unafraid of a challenge and a people person who was enthusiastic about life. Woods was passionate about giving people the resources they needed to better themselves or their career.

“(He) was a reluctant politician but knew that he had a calling to be able to make a change and to be a person that could bring people together, especially in times of division,” Everest said.

A mission to help others

Friends interviewed by the Wilsonville Spokesman said Woods’ passion for helping others stemmed from his youth, when he could have gone down a different path. Everest said Woods grew up with a good circle around him on the south side of Chicago, but could easily have fallen into a bad crowd in part because he “wanted to be friends with everyone.”

Wood was not the best student in his youth, according to Everest, but found his love for technology while working with secure communications and computers in the U.S. Army. That put him on the path to receive his bachelor’s and master’s degrees with the guidance of mentors. Woods became a respected tech industry executive with many connections, and his colleague Dan Walkowski said he was a mentor to many.

“That was his big thing in life, is that he just wanted to make sure he was helping anyone, no matter where they were in life, to make sure they got onto the right path and didn’t go down the wrong one, because he so easily saw himself falling into the wrong path,” Everest said.

In interviews friends described the ways Woods strived to help people in different areas of his life, such as expanding broadband internet access as a senator, brainstorming with Fitzgerald ways to help people earn higher income to address economic challenges, or developing a program to help technicians have access to trainings and resources to improve their skills.

“He had a personal mission to enable technology to the masses,” said Walkowski, who met Woods in the 1990s while working at Tektronix. The company was later acquired by Xerox, and over time Walkowski served as a friend, colleague and boss to Woods.

Walkowski admired Woods for being a mentor to others, describing him as a “man of integrity” and someone who would “assert himself to people if they weren’t stepping up.”

“He was a role model, (helping) people understand that nobody’s entitled to anything,” Walkowski said. “You have to work for it, regardless of who you are, where you’re from, etcetera.”

In a virtual memorial for Woods and his late wife hosted by those in the IT industry, one person said Woods was known to friends as someone who “wore his blackness with pride” — something some friends agreed with in interviews. Walkowski and Everest said that Woods did not allow hurdles from racism to hold him back.

“He and I used to have a lot of conversations about it. There are just natural obstacles (as a Black man in the Pacific Northwest), whether they’re intended or unintended, that occur,” Walkowski said. “And he never, ever used that as an excuse. He could work with people; he was very strong in his relationships.”

Everest said Woods, a strong advocate for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, actively sought out people who didn’t look, think or act like him and wanted to find common ground with people. Wilsonville mayor Shawn O’Neil, who was friends with Woods for ten years and bonded with him over shared values of inclusivity, echoed Everest and Walkowski. O’Neil added that Woods wanted to help others recognize the Martin Luther King Jr. ideal “that people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by their character.”

“And Aaron had character, deep devotion to family, deep devotion for fairness and equality for everybody,” O’Neil said.