Contents

6 Welcome

8 Board of Directors

10 2025 Regional Happenings

16 First Fridays: Fun & Free

18 The Business Showcase

20 Spirit of Volunteering

22 Volunteers at the VIC

24 Celebrating Our Members

26 A Gold Medal-Worthy Wildlife Experience

30 Sequim Prairie Garden Club

36 Sequim Museum & Arts

40 Rebuild

43 Member Search

Welcome to Sunny Sequim!

In 2025, Sequim held our 130th Irrigation Festival, a celebration of the grit and determination of the community that turned an arid plain into arable farmland by using the Dungeness River and hand-dug channels to water the land. The transformation took the land from home to a native, flowering cactus to home to dozens of family farms and dairies.The City of Sequim grew like the fields, slowly and with the careful, guiding hands of those who built it.

This dry oasis, with only about 16 inches of rain a year, in the wet, green of Western Washington, is also the Lavender Capital of North America. Coming in 2026, the Dungeness Valley will celebrate our 30th Lavender Festival. Every summer, fields glow with the purple haze as dozens of varieties bloom in their time. Bees buzz through before returning to their apiaries, benefiting the various vegetable and flower farms across the valley on their trip.

We are proud of our farming heritage and feel the deep roots of our culture beneath the soil. The colorful fields paint our landscape. Beautiful views in every direction, from the Olympic Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, draw in new residents every year, and tourists flock to our region. This has deepened the arts and cultural opportunities for us all, from music to written words to stage performances. Sequim has so much to see!

Perhaps it is the creative spirit that cultivates the volunteer spirit that is the beating heart of Sequim, perhaps the echoes of those first farmers who worked together to create something new to thrive together. But when you come to Sequim, you feel it. Volunteerism, community and caring hearts – it is unmistakable when you start talking with the people you meet as you walk through local businesses and take a moment to visit.

For this edition of Sunny Sequim: The Guide, we want to show you our town, our culture, and our business community, which is as varied as the flower fields and art galleries that we enjoy. Within these pages, you can learn more about our economic development, family businesses, and our monthly First Friday Art Walk. We have a lot to share in Sequim

We hope to see you in the Dungeness Valley. Our Visitor Information Center is open year-round, and we cannot wait to welcome you to our home.

– Beth Pratt

Executive Director

Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce

Board of Directors

The Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce has a governing board of 12 directors who each serve a term of three years after election by our membership, and may serve up to two terms. Elections are held in November every year, with up to four seats vacating each year. During 2025, our Board was comprised of:

Board President

Colleen Robinson
Habitat for Humanity of Clallam County

Past President (2024)
Eran Kennedy
Sound Publishing

President Elect (2026)
Mitch Koonz
Clallam Economic Development Council

Treasurer
Julianne Coonts
Costco Wholesale

Membership Chair
Darrin Liggins
Liggins Landscaping LLC

Directors at Large:

Robert Beebe
Olympic Game Farm

Sheila Everett
Olympic View Community Foundation

Eric Thomson
Tedesco’s Italian Fresh

Heather Nelson
Olympic Medical Center

Dennise Kettle
7 Cedars Resort

Ginger Wierzbanowski

Olympic Bluffs Cidery & Lavender Farm

Lara Stanton

Sequim Gazette

Sara Nicholls

Sequim Free Clinic

Jaycie Wakefield
United Way of Clallam County (Courtesy Director)

About Us

The Chamber is a membership-based organization, with a small staff of three. We also operate our local Visitor Information Center, which is staffed by a dedicated and enthusiastic group of about two dozen volunteers.

Executive Director

Elizabeth Pratt

Financial Administrator

Melanie Sands

Membership Coordinator

Kendall Melton

2025 Regional Happenings

Every year, the Chamber of Commerce hosts or supports a number of events for our community. We kick off our event calendar each year with Sequim’s Citizen of the Year award.

Citizen of the Year

In 2025, we had the honor of awarding both a Citizen of the Year and a Bill & Esther Littlejohn Humanitarian. In 1968, the Sequim Citizen of the Year Award was created and named for the first winner, Sequim’s Mayor Peter Black. In 2007, the Citizen of the Year committee, made up entirely of previous winners, voted to create a new award for those who made considerable financial contributions to the community after Bill and Esther Littlejohn made a multi-million-dollar donation to the Cancer Center.

The awards are given in February, to honor contributions of service and financial gifts given in the year before. The 2024 Citizen of the Year was Rod Stecker, and the Humanitarian Award was given to George Brown.

To see all the past winners, you can find the list at https://www.sequimchamber.com/coty/.

Bird Quest

Bird Quest is a partnership between the Chamber of Commerce, Sequim High School arts department, the Dungeness River Nature Center, and the Audubon Society. During the month of April, sculptures of birds created by local students are put on display in local businesses for all to enjoy. To make it fun, it is also a hide-and-seek game, where you have the list of venues, and the list of birds, but you have to match them up to enter for the prize. There is also a vote for “People’s Choice” which awards the top three vote-getting students $50 each. At the end of the display, the artwork goes to the high school for their annual art show.

Sunshine Festival

Started in 2019, we celebrate the sunny skies of Sequim with the Sunshine Festival during the first weekend of March. The weekend kicks off with a ribbon cutting, a tribal dance, and First Friday Art Walk events on Friday evening, and Saturday is full of events at both Carrie Blake Park and Pioneer Park. Installations of light-themed art, live music, artisans showcasing their wares, and more entertain and delight festival attendees. For the fleet of foot, a Color Run starts the day Saturday, with varying lengths for families, walkers and serious runners of all ages. Finally, the day culminates in a lighted drone show by Firefly Drones.

Sequim’s Irrigation Festival

The longest, continually running festival in Washington State, Sequim’s Irrigation Festival celebrated their 130th anniversary in 2025. A two-weekend event beginning with Crazy Callen Weekend, filled with an Innovative Arts and Crafts Show, Kids Parade, Family Fun Days, and Trashion Show, it culminates in Grand Finale weekend. During the last day of the festival, folks come home to Sequim like it is an all-school reunion to take in the Grand Parade and Classic Car Show.

This festival is fun and full of laughter, music and energy. But it is also deeply rooted in the traditions of farming, family connection and heritage for the Dungeness Valley.

Lavender Festival & Tour de Lavender

Sequim is the Lavender Capitol of North America, boasting nearly two dozen lavender farms and an annual Lavender Festival during the third full weekend of July every summer that brings about 30,000 people to Sequim and the Peninsula. In 2026, the Lavender Festival will celebrate their 30th anniversary!

Just a couple of weeks after the festival, but while the fields are still blooming in shades of purple, the Peninsula Trails Coalition holds their annual Tour de Lavender, a guided bicycle event across the farmland of the Dungeness region. Farms host snack and water stops, open their gift shops to their visitors, and offer special amenities for the day.

Halloween Trick-or-Treat

The Chamber of Commerce, in support of our merchants in Downtown Sequim, helps to organize the Halloween Trick-or-Treat event for our community. We start early, finding out which businesses along Washington Street will be participants for the event, and pull together lists for publication in local media, sharing across social media platforms to ensure that the public knows where their children can come for a safe event. Then, we don our costumes and gather our volunteers to act as crossing guards at every uncontrolled intersection through downtown. It is always a great day to see our families in Sequim!

Hometown Holidays

Wrapping up our events calendar, the Chamber hosts Hometown Holidays on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We start the day with our friends from the Sequim City Band performing as Santa arrives at our City’s Christmas Tree, with a courtesy ride in Clallam County Fire District #3’s antique engine. He is joined at his sleigh by the current royal court of the Irrigation Festival in their full parade ensembles, and they are all available for photos throughout the afternoon.

When the sun goes down, we tell the crowd who has one the “Guess How Many Lights?” game and countdown to the lighting of the tree for the year. The Chamber, along with our partners at the Sequim Museum and Arts, works with the FFA students of Sequim High School to host a Lighted Tractor Cruise, too, that rolls through town, celebrating our farming heritage in the Dungeness Valley.

First Fridays: Fun & Free: How one Sequim citizen brought accessible art to the community

By Steven Lindsey

When mixed media artist Renne Emiko Brock first moved to Sequim in 2003, she noticed that local venues, such as the Blue Whole Gallery and the Sequim Museum & Arts, were hosting their own art receptions. Yet the dates and times differed throughout each month, so she had the inspiration to unify their efforts, partner with other businesses, and create a larger-scale destination event.

“I initiated the First Friday Art Walk Sequim in 2006 to sponsor and produce an encouraging and educational arts event,” Brock says. “The mission of the Sequim Art Walk is to create approachable and accessible art and cultural venues that inspire the community to connect and celebrate expression and diversity.”

She has spearheaded this labor of love ever since, writing press releases, creating social media posts for each participating venue, updating the website, creating a map of venues, and helping artists find places to exhibit and sell their work. The self-guided tour celebrates local artists, culturally supportive small businesses, and venues that honor the arts.

“We began with 14 venues in 2006 and it has grown to 30 today. Participating venues are required to exhibit original local artwork or highlight local artists in visual, musical, performance, literary, culinary, or decorative arts,” she says. “Many venues also offer special events on Friday evenings, creating opportunities for the community to engage directly with the arts.”

Over the years, Brock says she’s observed how organizations and special community events have come to use the art walk as an anchor for their unique activities.

“The Sequim Art Walk has cultivated a loyal, vibrant, and supportive audience, people who cherish having a recurring moment each month to celebrate imagination with friends. I love when folks share their itinerary with me for the evening: starting with a treat with loved ones, making must-see stops for music and art, then finishing the night with dinner or a performance. Some have even told me the Art Walk was a reason they chose to move to Sequim.”

She believes the experience of a unified creative community helps create a life of well-being, improved mental health, a stronger economy, civic engagement, support of education and innovation, empathy, and social prosperity.

Each month’s art walk centers on a color theme. The year ends with blue, orange, brown, and gold for the final four months, September through December.

“I believe the fastest way to make an impression, especially one rooted in personal motivation, is through color. To foster inclusion among venues, artists, and audiences, I encourage everyone to join in the Art Walk’s monthly color themes as a fun, community-wide creative prompt.”

Brock says one of her favorite moments each First Friday occurs when strangers approach her to comment on what she’s wearing and showing off their own interpretations.

“It fills me with joy to see people advocating for togetherness through color and art. That’s my invisible art made visible,” she says. “Filling the streets of Sequim with warmth and shared color, inviting everyone to feel included and part of this artistic expression.”

To find out more about the next First Friday Art Walk, visit sequimartwalk.com.

The Business Showcase: Growing Sequim Strong

The Sequim-Dungeness Chamber of Commerce began hosting a Business Showcase in 2008, giving our members an opportunity to meet their customers in a fun, casual environment.

Over the years, the event has grown, has changed venues, then back again, and was even interrupted by a global pandemic in 2020 and 2021. But in 2022, with a new executive director in the driver’s seat who was dedicated to honoring the traditions of the Chamber while continuing to improve wherever improvements could be made, we came back better than ever.

In 2024, the theme of the event was Growing Sequim Strong for the Business Showcase, bringing together our members from every sector of the economy for their customers to find in one place. To keep the party lively, we invited members like our event and entertainment businesses Peninsula Party Booth and Strait Up Foam Fun, and hospitality partners like Southern Nibble, Home Plates and the Black Bear Diner (who brought samples!) – and our host location, Sunland Golf Club even opened a no-host bar.

The event is meant to be fun – we encourage participating businesses to have a game or activity, and to have giveaways for their customers. Laughter and the spirit competition were thick in the room – and you can see it in the photos!

But the best part is watching how the customers, both current and prospective, can meet in person the owners and managers of local companies. To see the conversations happen in real time – partnerships beginning, new opportunities growing – is exactly what the Chamber of Commerce is here for.

The Business Showcase is an important part of the Chamber’s annual
calendar – every October, we look forward to bringing together our community. We hope to see everyone there!

Spirit of Volunteering

Sequim is a special place. Home to both the longest continually running festival and the oldest family owned farm in Washington state, recognized as the Lavender Capitol of North America, and one of the driest spots in western Washington, there are a lot of reasons to think so.

But, for those who live and work in Sequim and across the Dungeness Valley, there is something that starts to stand out: the spirit of volunteerism.

The big festivals, marathons, and bicycling events rely on volunteers giving time and energy to setting up, operating and cleaning after everyone has gone home. The Peninsula Trails Association, Sequim Irrigation Festival, and Lavender Growers Association are made up almost entirely of volunteers. Music is made by volunteer performers at the Sequim City Band and Sequim Community Orchestra. The Visitor Information Center, Dungeness River Nature Center and Sequim Museum & Arts are staffed with volunteers. The Blue Whole Gallery is a collective of artists who give their time to keep the gallery open and their events lively and engaging.

The list could go on for pages. But you see the point. The volunteers of the Dungeness Valley make our home what it is for all who live here, and without them, the events that bring tourists to our region every year couldn’t happen.

When you come to the Sunshine Festival, or enjoy the Grand Parade during the Sequim Irrigation Festival, take a look around. The people in yellow vests directing traffic, the parade marshals, and all of the people who are helping to distribute information are probably volunteering their time.

If you are interested in volunteering some of your time with one of these organizations, or any of the other service clubs or groups in Sequim, the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce is glad to help connect you with them. You can find a list of volunteer opportunities on the website at Volunteer Opportunities - Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Information Center.

Volunteers at the VIC

Welcoming visitors is easy when you live in the Dungeness Valley - we all love where we live and cannot wait to share what we love most about this beautiful place we call home.

The volunteers at our Visitor Information Center, a team of more than two dozen experienced travelers and Sequim lovers, staff the front desk from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday, all year long. They come from various careers, from many locations around the United States, and have varying interests that drew them to Sequim.

What these volunteers have in common is their passion about Sequim. For some, it is the opportunity to fish the Strait of Juan de Fuca or sail from John Wayne Marina. Others found a new community in the arts, writing ekphrastic poems while viewing art at the Blue Whole Gallery. And more came for the access to the innumerable trails in the Olympic National Park, National Forests, and local parks across the North Coast.

Outside the Visitor Information Center, many of our regular volunteers also step up for our events. We provide crossing guards for the Downtown Trick-or-Treat (in costume!) every year to keep our families safe. When we offer the Visitor Center as a stop along the Olympic Discovery Trail during races, like the North Olympic Discovery Marathon or Frosty Moss Relay, they step up to act as hosts to the many runners and supporters along the race. And when we hold our annual events, like our Business Showcase or Citizen of the Year Luncheon, they are there to help us set up, greet our guests, and clean up at the end of the day.

One of our volunteers (who does not take a regular three-hour shift each week) is Emily Westcott. Westcott donates more of her time to Sequim’s beautification than anyone. She works to collect sponsors for the hanging flower baskets that decorate Washington Street, helps to set up Christmas lights all over downtown, advises the city crews when selecting and setting up the Sequim’s Christmas Tree, and works with people who need community service orders for the courts. For community service, Westcott deploys her team to mow, edge, weed and clean up all through town, including at the Visitor Center.

You are invited to the VIC to visit with our volunteers, whether as a one-time guest to Sequim or long-term resident. They will surprise you with their knowledge and give you recommendations for adventures you hadn’t even considered.

CELEBRATING OUR MEMBERS

Our favorite thing to do at the Chamber of Commerce is celebrating our member organizations. From grand openings, to new products for sale, we come with our team of Ambassadors. The Ambassadors are volunteers, staff, and member employees who take time out of their day to celebrate milestone achievements. We roll up in our purple vests, in our purple glasses, with our big, purple scissors and ribbon, and countdown to the big CUT.

Since 2016, we have also recognized a Member of the Month from our membership roster. We bring a certificate, a gift, our board members, and our cheer to celebrate the business being honored. Animal rescue organizations, community partners, businesses who support our local events - any of our members are eligible to be recognized for their good work! Winners of this monthly award are selected by our board of directors at our monthly meeting. You can see all of the past Members of the Month at our website at http://www.sequimchamber.com/business-of-the-month.

Our members are what make Sequim the amazing Olympic Peninsula gem that it is – join us as we celebrate all they do for our community each month.

A Gold Medal-Worthy Wildlife Experience

Visit Olympic Game Farm for up-close-and-personal encounters with more than 200 animals

By Steven Lindsey

The next time you add bread to your shopping list, consider venturing off the beaten path to make your purchase. And while you’re at it, better get two loaves. Because in one particular part of Clallam County, “hungry as a bear” should be taken quite literally. Black, brown, and Kodiak bears represent but a few of the majestic creatures roaming around Olympic Game Farm’s (OGF’s) 80+ acres just beyond 1423 Ward Road.

Since the 1950s, the farm has been a beloved destination for locals and visitors who enjoy interacting with animals, whether admiring them from the comfort of their vehicles as they embark on the drive-through safari, or visiting the petting farm goats and freshwater aquarium.

The farm was founded by Robert Beebe’s grandparents and has remained in the family ever since. In 2008, he took over as president and has since been joined by his brother, James, in running the business.

“Olympic Game Farm sees approximately 115,000 people a year traveling through Sequim and Clallam County,” he says. “OGF is a destination visit that is off the normal path of travel.”

Beebe says that due to the large number of visitors to the exotic destination, the cities of Sequim and Port Angeles benefit tangentially. Revenues increase for hotels, bed and breakfasts, short-term rentals, and local retailers because people want to build a trip around their visit to OGF.

Once at Olympic Game Farm, visitors have the opportunity to encounter more than 200 animals, including bison, elk, zebras, llamas, tigers, lions, bobcats, coyotes, emus, and peacocks, among several other varieties.

“A vast majority of animals are born here,” he says. “On occasion, we are asked to house animals that need to be rehomed for various reasons.”

The diverse menagerie represents a natural progression from OGF’s early origins as a key provider of animal actors to Walt Disney Studios in California. Over the years, it has evolved into an essential sanctuary dedicated to the conservation and care of wildlife in need.

Visitors can take an active part in animal care by purchasing special bread loaves to feed to the creatures they encounter.

“The whole wheat bread we use is veterinarian-approved, baked fresh, and delivered every week from Franz Bakeries with no preservatives and with necessary minerals and vitamins,” Beebe says. “This bread is a small portion of their normal diet of hay, meat, fruits, and vegetables.”

To experience Olympic Game Farm in person, Beebe offers an insider tip that may make planning easier.

“Mornings are best, and Wednesdays and Thursdays are usually the slowest days to visit. Major holidays and summer weekends are the busiest.”

Regardless of time of day or day of the week, however, making a dedicated trip is a wonderful way to get out into nature — and in touch with your own wild side for a couple of hours.

For more information, visit https://olygamefarm.com.

An Outdoor Sanctuary

How the Sequim Prairie Garden Club brings nature to the community

By Steven Lindsey

Step foot onto the grounds of Pioneer Memorial Park and you’ll soon be transported to a landscape that stimulates senses beyond the vibrantly colorful sights. From the beautiful melodies of native songbirds to the floral fragrances accompanying seasonal blooms, the four-acre park offers a slice of paradise within the already gorgeous Clallam County. And it’s all thanks to the ongoing efforts of the Sequim Prairie Garden Club (SPGC).

“The location is the area that was the original cemetery in 1880s Sequim and it was part of the William Bell farm,” says Priscilla Hudson, Sequim Prairie Garden Club historian. “Some records say he sold it for $50, others say he gave it to the county because it was poor for farming and grazing because it got too wet from the runoff from the mountains.”

Hudson says that the garden club was formed in the 1940s to address the eyesore the land had become what would one day become Pioneer Memorial Park.

“The acreage was on the outskirts of town,” she says. “It was on the main road coming in and and the garden club decided, ‘Let’s clean it up. Let’s make it useful. Let it be a gathering place.’”

The care of Pioneer Memorial Park was entrusted to the SPGC through a 99-year lease that originated with the Sequim Cemetery Association and now exists through the City of Sequim. Any resident of Sequim or the surrounding districts may become members of the garden club.

“Throughout the park we have developed gardens that portray designs that we hope will inspire others for their gardens,” says Ellen B. Castleman, President of Sequim Prairie Garden Club since June 2023. “We have border gardens, a trellis garden, several rose gardens, including one with a sundial, and the Remembrance Garden.”

Other park highlights include a circa-1893, hand-hewn, pioneer cabin that was donated by the Earl Barrett family. The Clallam County Historical Society took on the responsibility of moving it from its original location in Blyn to the park.

“The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe has always been a community partner and gifted the club with a Totem Pole and the Sequim Prairie Pavilion,” Castleman says. “With the help of the community, we also have a water fall facing East Washington Street, and a Veteran’s Memorial.”

Major fundraisers throughout the year include a plant sale the last weekend of April, as well as a yard art and bake sale. They also launched a free holiday tea the first weekend of December with Mr. and Mrs. Claus in attendance.

One of the park’s biggest accomplishments came when it achieved Arboretum Status Level I with ArbNet several years ago.

“We are the only Arboretum on the Olympic Peninsula,” Castleman says. “We have 190 different tree specimens, with 68 of those trees native to Washington State.”

More recently, on April 19, 2025, the Sundial Garden was dedicated.

“The sundial was created by Joe LaCour, husband of garden club member Della LaCour. It is a replica of a sundial donated by the Govan Family in the 1960s that disappeared/went missing in the 1970s,” she says. “Joe and Della researched it and created a beautiful sundial using just a found photo of the original.”

It’s traditional for sundials to have quotes and this one is no different. The plaque reads “Let others tell of storms & showers, I’ll only tell your sunny hours.”

For more information on the Sequim Prairie Garden Club or to make a donation to the new 1800-foot perimeter pathway project, visit sequimprairiegardenclub.org.

A Red Barn Filled With Wonder:

Sequim Museum & Arts offers glimpse into the past, celebration of local culture

By Steven Lindsey | Photos by Paul Muncey

If you’re looking to view a piece of local history — along with several pieces of a nearly 14,000-year-old mastodon — make plans to visit Sequim Museum & Arts. Since its official founding in 1976, the all-volunteer institution has become a preeminent attraction in Washington, chronicling the history of the Sequim and Dungeness regions for locals, visitors, and vacationers aboard American Cruise Lines and Spirit Cruises river ships. As a designated Blue Star Museum by the National Endowment for the Arts, it boasts countrywide prestige beyond its community pride.

It all started back in the early 1950s when an artifact collection began taking shape. Locals had started dropping off bones, tools, and various curios at Sequim Town Hall that they thought had cultural, historical, or some other significance. Soon, it was apparent that these important antiquities deserved to be seen by everyone.

“It grew from there, starting in the janitor’s closet, and then when they moved the prisoners to Port Angeles to the county jail, the jail became the museum,” says Executive Director Judith Reandeau Stipe. “It continued to grow until we built our current red barn building that was opened in 2019.”

The museum was the first to be built in Clallam County in more than four decades, adding to its significance. However, curiosity surrounding one of the museum’s most unusual inhabitants continues to attract visitors and ignite the imagination — the Manis Mastodon.

Endemic to North America, living toward the end of the Miocene epoch to the beginning of the Holocene, mastodons belong to the order Proboscidea, making them early ancestors of mammoths and today’s elephants. The remains of this particular mastodon were discovered on the Clare and Emanuel “Manny” Manis’s property when Manny was digging a pond.

Today, multiple fragments of the massive creature’s bones can be seen displayed in front of a life-size mural to help show the impressive scale of the ancient mammal. A separate aquarium-style display houses a completely intact tusk, one of the most unique and well-preserved specimens in the United States.

“We have the oldest Mastodon kill in North and South America by a human-made spear,” Stipe says. “That’s our claim to fame.”

Luckily for the thousands of visitors to Sequim Museum & Arts each year, there’s much more to admire. The content includes monthly rotating art exhibits, a “Journey Through Time” exhibit, a 60-foot Pocock rowing shell, and a gift shop stocked with history books that cover the region and people who have lived there. Five miles away, the two-story Old Dungeness Schoolhouse is a key monumental artifact and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We’re very proud of our little town,” Stipe says. “We have so many beautiful things here to see.”

For more information on Sequim Museum & Arts, visit sequimmuseum.com.

$41 Million Infusion Aims to Rebuild Clallam County’s Economic Future

By Alec Harvey

Two recent multimillion-dollar federal grants are going a long way toward economic development and job creation in the Clallam County area.

Colleen McAleer, executive director of the Clallam Economic Development Council and commissioner for the Port of Port Angeles, calls the $35.8 million Recompete grant and $4.2 million (plus $1 million in local matching funds) for the Clallam Forest Products Innovation Program “transformational.”

“That’s $41 million, when normally we spend less than 2% of that annually on economic development,” McAleer says. “So, this is suddenly a real, focused attempt to really try to change our economy.”

The game-changing grants began with the $35 million Recompete grant last year from the U.S. Department of Commerce to the North Olympic Peninsula Recompete Coalition. Led by Clallam County and supported by Jefferson County, the NOPRC includes municipalities across the Peninsula, ports, economic development agencies, educational institutions, nonprofits and the Hoh, Makah, Jamestown S’Klallam, Lower Elwha Klallam and Quileute tribes.

“Everyone got involved,” said Mitch Koonz, communications manager for the Clallam EDC and incoming president of the board of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce. “Everyone pulled together and realized we have a lot in common.”

The five-year Recompete grant does not fund job-creation programs, and that’s where the $4.2 million grant from the Economic Development Administration for the Clallam Forest Products Innovation Program comes in.

That three-year program is funding 12 projects in four overarching areas: Logistics, Forestry Workforce, Wood Product Manufacturing and Tribal Pre-Manufactured Low-Cost Housing. Some of the individual programs being funded include a tribal housing market study, a feasibility study for a publicly owned kiln and a forestry workforce training program.

It’s all an effort to change and boost the economy of the Port Angeles area, which has suffered since the forest products industry declined in the 1980s and 1990s.

“What we are doing on our end is infusing innovation and sustainability into what formerly had been just a commodities market and trying to add more value-added manufacturing processes to the timber, so that there are more high-wage jobs and we sell the product at a much higher price point,” says McAleer of the Clallam EDC.

She’s excited about the progress the Clallam Forest Products Innovation Program has made.

“We’re working with all sorts of different businesses that have expressed interest,” she says. “We’ve got sites in our community that can be redeveloped … we’re really going to try to make a difference for Clallam County and Jefferson County.”