The business support specialist for the Clallam County Economic Development Corp. has been named the nonprofit organization’s interim executive director while EDC members decide if a permanent director will succeed Bob Schroeter.
Julie Knott of Port Townsend, a certified project management professional who lives part-time in Clallam County, accepted the $5,833-a-month position Tuesday, EDC board Chairman Doug Sellon said on March 29.
Schroeter quit his position March 2 after 10 months. The board decided to offer the position to Knott, an EDC employee for six months, during a March 16 executive session, Sellon said.
“She was the first one we thought of,” said Sellon, the former executive director of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s Economic Development Authority.
“She was the most likely choice.
“She has skills in being able to bring people together, to communicate in all directions, to know that when she hears something that is important to someone else, and if it’s shareable information, that that someone gets it,” Sellon added.
Knott has an ability “to bring those two somebodies together to collaborate, to cooperate on something,” he said.
Knott, a founder of the Jefferson County Community Arts and Recreation Alliance, was not immediately available for comment.
She will serve as interim EDC director for “no less than 30 days and hopefully not longer than 90 days,” Sellon said, adding that Knott has “expressed an interest” in succeeding Schroeter.
“At this point, we’re focusing on determining what the structure of the business model should be to make it a sustainable operation and what the staff infrastructure should look like to be a sustainable organization into the future,” Sellon said.
“It may mean there is no executive director.
“There will have to be someone running the show, although we are not at that point yet to make that decision.”
Knott, who has a bachelor’s degree from The Evergreen State College, helped implement the Puget Sound Water Quality Program during an internship in 1984-85, has been program coordinator for the Bellevue Utilities Department and was administrator-project manager for Wescom Capital Inc.-Bayside Housing and Services in Port Townsend from 2010 to 2015.
EDC board member Steve Burke, a Port of Port Angeles commissioner and executive director of William Shore Memorial Pool, is heading a board business committee that is researching and reviewing the EDC’s operations, Sellon said.
Sellon said he expects an update on the committee’s work next week.
The EDC is funded by business memberships and will receive public funding in 2018 including $60,000 from Clallam County and $40,000 from the Port of Port Angeles.
Paul Gottlieb is a Senior Staff Writer with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@ peninsuladailynews.com.
Terry Ward, publisher of the Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum, serves on the Economic Development Corp. board of directors.
