PORT ANGELES — After at least a half-dozen moves across the United States and the world during his 27-year Navy career, Capt. Craig Fulton knows a thing or two about changing locales.
“We’ve got it down to a science,” Fulton said, referring to his wife and two children.
Having been selected the new Port Angeles public works and utilities director, Fulton said he hopes he’ll be able to stay in the Pacific Northwest for a good long while.
“We’ve always wanted to get out to Washington state, and so it was a golden opportunity,” said Fulton, who will retire from the Navy before taking the Port Angeles job.
Fulton, 51, will take over the public works director position from Glenn Cutler, 62 — also a former Navy captain — who announced in March that he would retire.
Fulton is expected to start work in Port Angeles on Aug. 15.
City Manager Dan McKeen’s selection of Fulton was announced last week.
Fulton’s annual salary will be $120,513, roughly 9 percent lower than Cutler’s current salary of $133,082 per year, which among city staff is second only to Mc-Keen’s $137,725.
Fulton and his family are coming across the country from North Carolina, where he’s director for facilities at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.
At Camp Lejeune, Fulton said he was overseeing $600 million in base construction projects just this year alone, $100 million of which were roads and bridges stretching across the 246-square-mile base.
“We have a massive construction program going on at Camp Lejeune,” said Fulton, who was also responsible for about 460 total staff and a $120 million budget facilities management budget.
Fulton will be coming into a municipal public works and facilities department in Port Angeles with 98 employees, an $84 million budget and 12 separate departments, including an electric utility, though he said working for a city will undoubtedly have its own unique challenges.
“From a professional standpoint, it continues what I’ve been trained in and [will have] lots of challenges to keep me busy,” Fulton said.
Cutler, who has been the city’s public works and utilities director since June 1999, said he’ll begin familiarizing Fulton with those challenges during the roughly two-week transition period between Fulton’s first day with the city and Cutler’s last, likely in early September.
“There’s a lot going on,” Cutler said.
“[We’re] going to be feeding him with a firehose.”
For example, Fulton will be starting work in Port Angeles just as work is expected to start up on the $4.5 million Lauridsen Boulevard bridge replacement project and at the halfway point for the $41.7 million combined sewer overflow — or CSO — project, the largest public works endeavor in the city’s history.
Slated for completion in 2015, the CSO project will keep backed-up storm and wastewater from flowing into Port Angeles Harbor by diverting it into a 5 million-gallon tank on Rayonier’s former pulp mill property before the waste is treated and released into the harbor.
Cutler said capital projects will not be Fulton’s only responsibility, citing the 2014 city budget process Fulton also will be walking into.
An initial budget proposal from Cutler’s department is due by July. Cutler said Fulton will be on deck by the time the budget is presented to City Council members.
Cutler said he plans to bring Fulton up to speed with all the public works director’s responsibilities in part through having Fulton sit in with Cutler on meetings, though there will be times when Cutler will leave Fulton alone with his work.
“There will be times we’ll be joined at the hip doing certain things, and other times we’ll be going our separate ways,” Cutler said.
“I want to make his transition as easy as possible.”
Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
