Hullwork - Happy New Year!

Dear members,

This is the first edition of what I'll be calling 'Hullwork' where I'll detail the underside hull work of the Coalition from the administrative staff position. If we've not met, I'm Dan Tucker, and I'm the staff here at the Working Waterfront Coalition - your Coalition. Over the past 3 years (time flies!) I've had the privilege to steward your Coalition and carry the issues, news, and stories that are important to you. This has been a growing and changing time for the Coalition, and it has been fruitful and productive. When I first contacted Deb Granger and the board about coming aboard as Program Manager, the original scope was part-time, and that was a big leap for the Coalition in terms of funding that work, this position, and making it sustainable. At the same time, we saw great opportunities in advancing the messaging and advocacy that our waterfronts remain working.

Right away, we were set to growing two programs - our Health Trust, and the newly-formed Working Waterfront Foundation's NW Maritime Apprenticeship program. Both programs were direct results of concerns that you, our membership, raised regarding the challenges you faced. The lack of skilled workforce available posed a hurdle to expand your businesses, and the ability to offer affordable benefits packages made retaining skilled workers more difficult. Both of these issues we sought to help with - and we are seeing the success of those efforts now.

The Working Waterfront Health Trust, which started with just a handful of members, is now looking at 34 participating companies spread across the state from Bellingham, out to Port Angeles, down to Tacoma, and all the way over to Spokane. We're excited to continue this growth next year, as we promote it even more. If you're not a member of our Health Trust, ask your broker to look into it. These pooled insurance plans are for any maritime-related company state-wide, through Premera. We're proud to host this Health Trust to the benefit of all our marine-trades workers and businesses.

The NW Maritime Apprenticeship Program, hosted and run by the Working Waterfront Foundation and initiated by Deb Granger and a small team, is also growing and now has apprentices starting their 3rd year of the program. It now has12 participating training agent companies in four counties and a full-time Program Director, Sierra Oliver. These are maritime trades businesses who've taken an interest in growing a skilled workforce here in the Northwest. Along with them come 17 apprentices, and 27 subject matter experts that teach a variety of subjects from fiberglass repair to welding, from wood finishing to composite work, and everything in between. The Working Waterfront Foundation is growing other programs as well. A Pre-Apprenticeship program in partnership with Lummi Nation, dubbed 'Bouyant Beginnings', is coming online this year will help create a pipeline of interest into the trade skills where workers are needed most.

Along with our growing programs, we're also growing our outreach and connections. Over the last three years, we've been networking and mingling with in the region - and nationally - to promote the importance of a working waterfront. Last January, we attended Maritime Day in Olympia with the Washington Maritime Federation, in front of Lawmakers and legislators to push for the changes that Whatcom, and the state, need to help keep our maritime industry strong. We'll be attending this again on January 29th. Some of these are hard asks, like money to install a commercial pump-out station in Bellingham for visiting ships to adhere to Coast Guard no-disharge zoning. Some are more intangible, asking the lawmakers to consider trends and effects of development and regulations that fail to account for the impacts to the waterfront industries they may displace. These can include the Working Waterfront Tax Credit Act that offers tax credits to waterfront businesses who own their own infrastructure if they upgrade and mitigate their shoreside docks, piers, wharfs and pilings for potential sea-level rise, or bills to include seafood in agriculture subsidy packages.

We've also connected more into the national discussion with agencies such as NOAA fisheries, and the Maritime Administration becoming familiar with our Coalition. The Maritime Administration (MARAD) attended our panel discussion at Bellingham Seafeast this year, and invited us to Bellevue this December for a state-wide roundtable on commercial shipping in WA State. We could not make it this year, but we have bookmarked it for next year and plan to attend. State-wide and national discussions like these are necessary to lay framework through which local policies and initiatives can further them.

We're also making friends with other working waterfront entities, and have collaborated with both the Portland Working Waterfront Coalition, who helped us navigate the recent moratoriums with their insight and experience, and the National Working Waterfront Network. We'll be attending the upcoming National Working Waterfront Network Conference in February, where we'll be presenting twice - a 90-minute panel discussion with the Port of Bellingham and NW Maritime Center in Port Townsend on collaborative efforts for waterfronts, and a 20-minute oral presentation on how we've built our Coalition, and the work we're doing here in Whatcom and beyond. We're excited to attend this national event, and we were invited directly by the organizers after they were impressed by the scope of our work.

We've also partnered with other efforts like Fisherman Friendly Climate Action, lead by Sarah Schumann, in helping craft a guidebook for lawmakers who are looking to set climate and emissions goals around the maritime industry so that they're more aware of the impacts to fisheries, and have the ability to craft legislation that will boost and enhance those industries into new energy transitions, rather than simply limit them. Northwest Innovation Resource Center has also had us collaborate with them on hosting innovation and incubator events for maritime start-ups here in Whatcom County, and Sustainable Connections has partnered with us to host 'Day on the Bay' last year, alongside Bellingham Seafeast.

Seafeast itself has collaborate with us a lot on getting our fishing community integrated back into the festival and this year we're proud to announce that Seafeast will be hosted on the last weekend of September! This will allow our fishing community to participate more in the event, and we're excited to help Bellingham Seafeast connect to our fishing industry and work with Kevin Coleman, Director, to showcase the bounty that our local fleets bring in. Seafeast has also began, with KMRE 88.3, a radio show where we co-host with them to share the news and stories of our waterfronts in an effort to reach more of the community with the human connections at the heart of our shores. Sharing these more human-experience stories of the waterfront helps to create an emotional appeal to the working waterfront to further the support for those who work in, on, and around the Salish Sea.

We've also been very involved with local government these last few years. Many challenges arose around our waterfront land use that we are still following closely. A noise ordinance on the waterfront proposed last year involved many negotiations with Port and City staff and commissioners, as well as the community. Ultimately, it was decided to be too broad a stroke for what amounted to an acute problem with a specific work evolution. We were able to connect with our local Longshoreman's union Local 7, who are now members of the Coalition as well, through this issue. We have, in the process, been invited to meet with Mayor Lund's office regularly, and now have scheduled check-ins with Mayor Lund to update her every six months on the concerns and progress of our waterfront sector. If you have issues or concerns for the Mayor, please let our staff know ahead of our next meeting in with the Mayor, in June.

We also worked to mitigate impacts to marine trades industries in the Marine Drive Industrial Park after moratoriums, and later limited-use exclusions, were proposed for the area around them. These discussions connected us to County government staff and councilmembers. All told, we've helped by hosting stakeholder and community meetings via zoom and in person at our offices, connecting our community to the councilmembers involved in decision making. We've encouraged tours of waterfront businesses, and helped to coordinate representatives in seeing for themselves the impacts that are made every day for those working along our shores, and at the end of this last year, we saw County government adopt a compromise that wouldn't have been proposed, had our community of waterfront workers, businesses, and peers not been involved. The County thanked us by name during the deliberations. During this last year, we've presented at Rotary Clubs, the Small Cities Partnership meetings, Western Washington University, Team Whatcom, and the Chamber of Commerce regarding the work we're doing. We attended the Economic Forecast Breakfast with the Whatcom Business Alliance and the Leaders of Industry Forum. Our connections continue to grow in the new year.

We continue to attend Port Commission meetings, and are following the discussion around expanding the commission closely. This issue, as well as the Comprehensive Plan Review that is beginning this year, will be focal points for the Coalition in 2025, along with issues at the state and national levels. We've collaborated with the Port itself on hosting tours of the shipping terminal to promote trades industry work there, as well as partnered with them to offer the very first Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) engine upgrade program to local fishermen and women, or anyone who operates a commercial vessel in Whatcom County. This effort was in large part due to the collaborative nature of our relationship, which has been intentionally and carefully built. Another result of collaboration has been our invitation to sit on the panel to review proposals for one of the tenant properties at the Port of Bellingham, where we can help ensure that marine trades tenants get the spaces they need. We also were invited to collaborate on an Economic Impact Study, which was just published from McKinley Research, detailing our marine trades sector in Whatcom County.

It has been a busy three years since I came aboard, and thanks to your support and engagement, we've grown as a Coalition more than we anticipated. Our staff position, which started as a 20hr/week position, grew to full time within a year and half. Tackling systems administration, coordination of committees and the Board of Directors, and handling communications, the work continues to grow. With it, the Board of Directors have seen fit to grow the staff position as well. The Program Manager has now been changed to Executive Director, and this represents the investment of your time and energy, your engagement and enthusiasm for what our Coalition could grow to accomplish in the future. As your representative staff, I am humbled to work on your behalf, and these last few years have been a joy to get to know all of you in the community. I look forward to hearing from each of you in the new year as we expand our outreach to members. Starting this year, we're going to make concerted efforts to meet with each individual member on a yearly basis, to hear and understand what you do and your concerns around the waterfront, and find our next points of advovacy.  We'll also be getting monthly updates published from the office on our current work, progress of issues, or other news relevant to you regarding what we've been up too. These will go out with our Waterfront Wednesdays (every other edition - this is the first!).

Finally, our office is open to you, our members. If you'd ever like to stop by and chat with us about something important to you around waterfront development, please reach out any time to staff to schedule a meeting - or - if our lights are on and we're there at 708 Coho Way, in Squalicum Harbor, just stop on in!

We're excited for the new year with all of our members, community, and partners. Thank you to our members, and our Board of Directors, for all the hard work you do day in and out to make our waterfronts vibrant. The Coalition's mission statement simply a reflection of that work you all do: Promoting the economic vitality and diversity of a working waterfront.

Happy New Year!

Dan Tucker
Executive Director
Whatcom Working Waterfront Coalition

*Photo: A hull ready for seam work, Seaview Boatyard. Dan Tucker