An Interview with Commissioner Jim McEntire

This is the first in a series of interviews of local leaders in government and leaders in the private sector discussing economic development and the future of Port Angeles and Sequim. In this article, we interview Jim McEntire, one of our three Commissioners of the Port of Port Angeles.

Jim McEntire served with the U.S. Cost Guard for 32 years, retiring as a Captain, and then served another six years in high federal positions. In the Coast Guard Jim commanded three ships, served as the principal officer responsible for preparing the Coast Guard’s annual budget, and later was charge of long term strategy. In the Departments of Transportation, Labor, and Homeland Security, Jim served in civilian positions in charge of program planning, budget preparation, agency strategic planning, and business transformation. We can be thankful Jim brought his wealth of experience to serve as Commissioner in January of 2008.

The Port of Port Angeles is a major player in the economic development and future of Clallam County. The Port is the first full-service operating port available to eastbound ships on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and provides fully equipped marine facilities with a variety of cargo services. The Port also owns and operates the Marina in Port Angeles and the John Wayne Marina in Sequim. In addition, the Port operates two airports, Fairchild International and Sekiu, and other commercial properties.

Sequim-News.com. Jim, let’s talk about economic development in Port Angeles. Many locals say that Port Angeles is stuck in terms of economic and business development. Is this true, and if so, how do you feel the private sector of business owners can move forward?

Jim McEntire. It strikes me that it’s past time for us elected leaders and business leaders to all collectively think about where we as a county, we as a region want to be in the next 10 years, our ideal future 10 years from now. Ten years goes by in a flash. There are some things that are going to be constants here. We’ve got the Olympic Park, fishing, forestry, agriculture. Those are not portable businesses.

Your observation that Port Angeles is stuck is apt. That’s not a value judgment in as much as it’s a statement of need for all of us to sit down and think collectively about where we want to be in 10 years. Let’s make explicit what everyone’s role is. What is the role of the Port? What is the role of the county? What is the role of the city? Government can create the basis for that future, or at least not hinder it.

But the creativity and talent and energy of the citizenry here is what’s going to make it happen. This is America, and we can do this. I don’t know who’s going to start that little pebble that creates the avalanche. It’s well past time, however, that we had this kind of conversation about the future of Port Angeles.

Sequim-News.com. Some small business owners have said they don’t feel they have an advocate in the public or private sector. There clearly is a need to foster a healthy business environment for growth and to attract families and businesses to the community. How do you see the business environment here?

Jim McEntire. There’s not a clearly defined leader or advocate for the business community.  And I include future businesses in that category. But one thing I’ve been impressed with is that we have an extremely intelligent and energetic citizenry, and there is a legion of business ideas that are just waiting to be hatched. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is how can the Port provide the kind of infrastructure or environment to make it more possible for businesses to form and to flourish?

Sequim-News.com. There are some who feel that government should do more to foster business growth downtown and in the county. But isn’t the real impetus for economic growth going to come from entrepreneurs themselves?

Jim McEntire. Yes. But here’s an opportunity. We’re going to have elections this fall, the city council in P.A., Forks, and Sequim. We’ve got a Port Commissioner position coming up. There’s an opportunity to make this conversation happen, and an opportunity for business owners and citizens to elect officials who they feel will best represent the private sector. The question is how can businesses, smart and intelligent and energetic people, get together and create and support a candidate where these topics are addressed.

Sequim-News.com. I’m hearing you say that there are two powerful approaches that businesses could take. First, local business owners could get very serious about finding candidates for elective offices who will be their advocate and foster the kind of healthy business climate that will help them thrive. And second, private entrepreneurs ought to unleash their real potential, their creativity, their energy, the extraordinary ideas and action that is the source of greatness in America, which comes from the private sector. If business owners don’t feel they have a support network to facilitate this, what can they do?

Jim McEntire. Competition is what stimulates improvement. If current organizations are not focused in all the right places, one way to help them focus is to have alternative conversations some place that people have got to take notice of. That is quintessentially American. Competition is at the root of just about every good thing that I can think of that has happened in this country.

Now we’ve got, of course, some boundaries on what’s possible here. We’re a bit limited in our transportation with a two lane road coming into the county. And we’ve got a sea port, but there’s not enough export cargo here to justify a scheduled barge service for sea transport. Business owners ought to be thinking about high value, low volume kinds of things where the transportation cost of your business is manageable. Internet businesses, product on demand, ecological services. We have great environmental and ecological potential here. One of our crown jewels is Battelle. They’re doing some great research. Peninsula College is also doing great work.

Sequim-News.com. What would break loose the creativity and facilitation of private industry here?

Jim McEntire. That’s the 64 million dollar question. I wish I knew the answer to that. I think one of the keys is to start talking about it. There’s nothing like the power of ideas. If you can find a way to get people to talk, the ideas will break loose, and somebody will see the potential.

Sequim-News.com. Isn’t one of the challenges that existing organizations, whether governmental or private associations, will feel threatened? Every organization, by its very nature, has a responsibility to survive and to protect its territory. That’s normal. Each organization has it’s own goals and its own agenda. But what we are talking about is doing something for the betterment of the community, of all business owners, to improve the lifestyle and opportunities here, so this rises above individual organizations and people. But let’s be honest. Isn’t that going to be hard to do? How do we get cooperation among people and organizations? Good people will feel their positions and authority is being threatened, won’t they?

Jim McEntire. The challenge is to create a thirst for change or improvement, not just for its own sake, but for a particular objective, which is to make Clallam County not just a great place to live, which it already is, but a great place for families to grow up. My biggest concern is that we are growing in population but school enrollment is dropping. This is not good for families here. Sometimes they have to put together two or three jobs to stay here. A more dynamic economic environment here would make it more possible for people to not to have to move away to sustain a family. That’s my challenge here for the next several years as an elected official.

Sequim-News.com.  Do you see a difference in the culture of Port Angeles and Sequim?  Is the business climate different?

Jim McEntire.  The demographic make-up is certainly different.  That could lead each in a little different direction, but the fundamentals are the same.  Sequim is a service economy plain and simple.  Port Angeles is a mixed economy, a lot of services, some manufacturing, some agriculture and some fishing.  Forks is a pure natural resource economy.  Those three different economies are going to lead to three distinct cultures, but the fundamentals are the same.  Families have got to make it.  That leads to some sort of similar policy goals for all three places.

Sequim-News.com.  Let’s talk about leadership.  It would appear that Port Angeles as an older city has leadership that has been in place much longer, more established, leaders who have been involved for decades.  It would seem that Sequim as a younger city has leaders who are less entrenched, higher involvement by the citizenry, maybe newer and evolving leadership, more so than Port Angeles?

Jim McEntire.  I think that’s generally true.  The population on the west end of the county has been here in the aggregate much longer.  But leadership is leadership.  It’s all about leading folks into a better place.

Sequim-News.com.  Where do you see Port Angeles 5 or 10 years from now?

Jim McEntire.  I see Port Angeles with a mixed economy and the largest school district, as a place where businesses can form and compete and die or change and adapt, where the water front is a livable place, a place where people are attracted to shop and stay and not just pass through.  I see Port Angeles, Sequim, and Forks as places of possibilities.  Our challenge is to keep up with the population growth in a way that preserves the qualities that attracted people here in the first place, but gives other people the opportunity to move here.  This is a joint process between city, county, local government and community leadership in the private sector.  We’ve all got to have this ongoing conversation.  This is not a static process.  We’ve all got to constantly challenge our thinking and be open to change.

Sequim-News.com.  You were with the Coast Guard for 32 years.  What was that like, having a whole career in the Coast Guard?

Jim McEntire.  It was fun.  I’d go back and re-do it in a minute.  For a young kid from North Georgia who saw the ocean for the first time when he was 11 or 12, the Coast Guard afforded me a life of adventure.  I enjoyed the things I did and the people I worked with.  I’d go back and do it again in a heart beat.

Sequim-News.com.  Any particular event or experience in the Coast Guard that sticks out in your mind?

Jim McEntire.  Well, there were a lot of them.  The last ship I was on interdicted about a five ton load of marijuana that was inbound to the U.S., and that was in the Caribbean.  So I like to think that I contributed to the safety of our country.  The other time, a ship I was on previously was headed down to Grenada.  We were going down the old Bahama channel between Cuba and the Bahamas, and chanced upon two Haitians who had been marooned on one of the uninhabited islands in the Bahamas.  We picked them up.  The national policy then and now is to repatriate them to Haiti.  Had it not been for us coming by there, goodness knows what would have happened to those two.  They might have died.  The thing I really valued was that we got paid to help people, and that’s what we did.  From the time I was a little boy I wanted to serve something bigger than myself, and I got to do that.

Sequim-News.com.  Jim, thanks for spending this time with us and sharing your vision of the future.

Jim McEntire.  My pleasure.