PORT TOWNSEND — Three years ago, Jake Beattie looked around the Northwest Maritime Center and envisioned the future.
“To be efficient and to serve the people we really need to serve, we needed to get bigger,” Beattie told about 40 people Monday during a luncheon hosted by the Chamber of Jefferson County.
The Maritime Center has seen rapid growth in the past couple years, and Beattie said part of it is by design.
He spoke about growing programs, bringing other nonprofits into the fold, and focusing on education and the job-focused pathways the classrooms create during the event at the chapel at Fort Worden.
“This place as it is now, it couldn’t be what it is without this community behind it, dreaming it and then participating in it,” he said.
Beattie said the Maritime Center will have a projected budget next year of $4.5 million with 65 percent earned and 35 percent contributed.
There are about 100,000 annual visitors and 2,200 students, he said.
A majority of the center’s income comes from the Wooden Boat Festival, retail sales and the 48° North Magazine, he said.
“That helps defray the costs of the education programs we do,” Beattie said. “And about 70 percent of [the income] comes from out of the area.”
Those programs, which started about 30 years ago under the Wooden Boat Foundation, now have a robust offering unlike any other maritime-based location, he said.
“I’ve seen other organizations do a piece of our education, but we’re one of the only ones that puts it all under one roof,” Beattie said.
Earlier this month, there was a pirate camp on the second floor at the Maritime Center while sailing lessons were taking place on Port Townsend Bay.
Others were learning how to build a Japanese boat on the boat shop floor, and pilots were learning how to sail in the Puget Sound inside the pilothouse simulator.
Next door, people were getting ready for a wedding, and it was all taking place simultaneously.
Beattie also highlighted the Maritime Discovery Program, which most seventh-grade students in Jefferson County get to experience.
“It’s a two-week course, and the school bus drops them off,” Beattie said. “It’s not like a field trip; it’s just school.”
Students take regular classes with a maritime twist. They apply algebra to navigation charts, and then they get to sail in the bay. Rowing is tied to physical education, and history focuses on the maritime industry and culture, he said.
“The seventh-graders build a boat every year, and it’s great,” Beattie said. “It inspires kids, discipline programs go down, and learning goes up.
“It’s a great investment for our community.”
It’s also an example of giving students workable problems instead of solutions they can memorize, he said, and it teaches them responsibility and work ethic.
Beattie spoke about the addition of Salish Sea Expeditions, a nonprofit based on Bainbridge Island that recently became part of the Maritime Center with its science-based education programming.
The center also started its first Port Townsend Maritime Academy on Sept. 4, a high school program similar to Running Start. While they complete their diploma, students can attend for part of their day and earn many certificates that will put them on a fast track to getting a job at sea.
The curriculum is part of a collaboration between the Port Townsend School District, the Maritime Center and West Sound Tech from the Bremerton School District, he said.
Beattie said jobs in the maritime industry average about $77,000 annually, between $20,000 and $30,000 higher than the median income.
“The vessel on-board jobs, you can actually live on these jobs and still live in Port Townsend,” he said. “You can live anywhere you want to, so you may as well live in paradise.”
With the recent addition of the 48° North Magazine, Beattie said the Maritime Center now has an office and staff members who work in Seattle.
That might also be the most logical place to put additional workers, he said, because with 44 full-time employees in downtown Port Townsend, he said he’s running out of room.
“We feel like we’ve just added a lot of new stuff,” Beattie said. “We’re going to see how a lot of these pieces fit together.”
________
Jefferson County Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 6, or at bmclean@peninsuladailynews.com.
