Jake Beattie is New Executive Director

Jake Beattie hasn’t missed a Wooden Boat Festival in eight years and has always wanted to find a way to return to Port Townsend, where he lived for a year and a half in his late 20s.

So the Bellingham native, tall-ship sailor, longboat captain, experiential educator, and former deputy director of The Center for Wooden Boats couldn’t be more thrilled to be taking the helm of the Northwest Maritime Center on January 1, 2011.

Beattie, 34, has been hired as the nonprofit organization’s next executive director, the Northwest Maritime Center & Wooden Boat Foundation (NWMC/WBF) announced today. He succeeds Stan Cummings, 65, who announced his pending retirement in May of this year and will transition out as of Dec. 31.

In his four years as director, Cummings closed out the $12.8 million capital campaign to construct the new maritime center and opened the doors to the 27,000-square-foot “built-green” facility featuring a boatshop, boathouse, classrooms, meeting rooms, offices, maritime library, chandlery retail store, public open spaces and a deep-water pier.

Beattie brings to the role proven leadership and collaborative skills, organizational and financial savvy, and a strong regional maritime network. Oh, yes, and his passion for this unique port city and its potential.

“Port Townsend has long held a place in my heart as hallowed ground in terms of maritime industry and heritage; the venue best positioned for the maritime experience to enthrall new audiences and to solidify the engagement of those already converted,” Beattie wrote in his application. “I would like nothing more than to dedicate the next chapter of my life to contributing to the continued success of the Northwest Maritime Center and Wooden Boat Foundation.”

QUALIFICATIONS
Beattie is currently the executive director of the Seattle nonprofit Bike Works, which uses bicycles as a medium for experiential education, community building and social change. He holds a B.A. from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and earned a certificate from the Nonprofit Executive Leadership Institute at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs in 2006. Earlier this year he graduated from the renowned civic leadership training program Leadership Tomorrow.

Betsy Davis, executive director at The Center for Wooden Boats, worked with Beattie for five years and thinks the Northwest Maritime Center is a natural fit for her former deputy director. “I am over-the-top excited about working with Jake in this new role,” she said. “He’s going to bring so much creativity, energy, entrepreneurship, collaboration and passion for sharing the joys of the waterfront. He’s going to hit the ground running.”

Selected from a robust candidate pool of nearly 100 applicants, Beattie was one of five finalists who made site visits and met with the board and staff. It was immediately clear that the board wouldn’t have to choose between a candidate with maritime education experience and one with strong organizational capacity building, budgeting and fundraising skills. Beattie has outstanding qualifications in both areas, with the added bonus of being very well known in the Pacific Northwest maritime community.

“He was the clear consensus choice,” said NWMC/WBF Board President Steve Oliver, who co-chaired a search committee with Kris Morris (vice president) that included David King (past president) and Carol Hasse (co-chair of the program committee and Wooden Boat Foundation director).

“I’m really excited about having Jake take the helm of our organization,” Oliver added. “I think he has just the right mix of experience and skills to help us fully utilize these magnificent buildings and pursue the mission that the board has defined.”

PAST EXPERIENCE
In his current position as executive director of Bike Works, Beattie has updated the strategic plan, refocused fundraising efforts, and managed to grow the organization 20 percent this past year at a time when the economy is forcing other nonprofits to reduce size or close altogether.

In his five years as deputy director at The Center for Wooden Boats, Beattie created new programs, income streams, and management structures to accommodate the organization as it expanded with a second campus at Cama Beach on Camano Island. Much of his time was devoted to collaborating with partner nonprofits to create a more unified presence at the new maritime campus at South Lake Union Park, through pilot programs in joint planning, staff sharing, joint branding and marketing.

“I learned at South Lake Union that all ships truly do rise on the same tide,” said Beattie. He hopes to harness the regional resurgence of maritime activity to benefit the Northwest Maritime Center & Wooden Boat Foundation and its partner organizations.

Beattie is also deeply passionate about serving the public through maritime programs and has the on-the-water experiential education credentials to prove it. He’s been an instructor/captain with Outward Bound’s longboat programs out of Anacortes and Baltimore, the first mate on the schooner Denis Sullivan and the ship HMS Bounty, and a relief mate on our own schooner Adventuress and yawl Carlyn. He served as interim director for Odyssey Wilderness Programs when it was incorporating longboats into its wilderness therapy for struggling teens. He earned his sea time in the early 2000s on a Chesapeake Bay tugboat and a 185-foot freighter serving remote fishing villages in Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea.

‘UPSIDE POTENTIAL’
Search committee member and Townsend Bay Marine CFO David King is impressed by the depth of relevant experience that underlies Beattie’s youth and energy. “To use a buzzword, he has a lot of ‘upside potential,’” said King. And as a Northwest Maritime Center volunteer since its inception in 1999, King is taking the long view when he says, “I’ve worked on this project for 12 years. I feel really good about Jake being the one to take us forward.”

For his part, Beattie was not looking for a new job. He was enjoying his position at Bike Works, but colleagues in the maritime field urged him to apply for the Port Townsend job opening that seemed tailor-made for him.

“Without the experience I’ve had and without what I believe the Northwest Maritime Center needs right now, I probably wouldn’t have applied,” said Beattie. “It feels like I’m the fit for the organization. It feels natural, like a glove.”

Beattie’s wife Jean Scarboro is currently in graduate school studying to become a school counselor. The couple looks forward to relocating to Port Townsend, reconnecting with old friends, and making many new ones.

“The thing that I’m most excited about is making a difference in a community that has a strong maritime focus,” said Beattie. “Port Townsend is a place where we can catalyze the region toward adventure and education on and around the water.”

THE NORTHWEST MARITIME CENTER
The Northwest Maritime Center’s resources and activities aim to engage and educate people of all generations in traditional and contemporary maritime life. There is no admission fee and always something going on in the boat shop, which is open to the public seven days a week.