Columbia Banking System Announces Elections of Two New Board Members

    TACOMA, Wash., April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbia Banking System, Inc.
 (Nasdaq:   COLB) announced that at today's Annual Meeting of Shareholders,
 voters elected Kelso Gillenwater and William T. Weyerhaeuser as new members of
 the Company's Board of Directors.  They will join the existing 15 members of
 the Board who were all reelected at today's meeting.
     New Director Kelso Gillenwater recently retired as president and publisher
 of Tacoma's daily newspaper The News Tribune, a position he held for seven
 years.  Prior to his move to Tacoma, he was for ten years the publisher of the
 Tri-City Herald in the communities of Pasco-Kennewick-Richland in southeast
 Washington.
     Active in civic, cultural, governmental and business activities in
 Tacoma-Pierce County and throughout Washington, Gillenwater is immediate past
 president and director of the Pacific Harbor Council of the Boy Scouts of
 America and is on both the board of directors and executive committee of the
 Washington State Historical Society.  He is a director of the International
 Glass Museum and the Pilchuck Glass School.
     Gillenwater also serves as a member of the Washington Commission on
 Judicial Efficiency and Accountability and on the 2020 Commission, a blue
 ribbon task force appointed by Governor Gary Locke to recommend changes in the
 state's higher education system.
     New Director William T. Weyerhaeuser, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist
 operating a private practice in Tacoma.  He is director of Potlatch
 Corporation, a position he has held since 1990, as well as owner and chairman
 of the board of Comerco Inc., holding company for the Yelm Telephone Company
 since 1984.
     His civic affiliations include service as chairman of the board of the
 University of Puget Sound since 1993.  Previously, he was vice chairman of the
 board as well as a trustee for that University since 1978.  He is both past
 president and former trustee of the Tacoma Art Museum.
     Weyerhaeuser graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in Economics.
 He earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fuller Graduate School of
 Psychology, and an M.A. in Theology from the Fuller Theological Seminary.
     Columbia Banking System is a Tacoma, Washington-based bank holding company
 which operates Columbia Bank, a state-chartered full-service commercial bank
 with 23 branch offices in Pierce, King and Cowlitz counties.
 
 

SOURCE  Columbia Banking System