PORT TOWNSEND — Josh Peters, Jefferson County’s director of the Department of Community Development, will become the county’s next administrator.
“I’m humbled and pleased and looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work in my new position,” Peters said. “It’s an incredible responsibility to serve the community that I love. I know that there was tough competition, and I’m pleased that the board had confidence in me.”
Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour said that details on the transition are yet to form, but there likely will be a period of overlap between the current county administrator, Mark McCauley, and Peters.
Peters said McCauley, who is retiring in Port Townsend, already told him he would make himself available for advice over coffee.
Commissioners Eisenhour and Heather Dudley Nollette made their choice from four finalists: Greg Brotherton, Roxanne Miles, Sheri Patterson and Peters.
Eisenhour and Dudley Nollette each led panels and interviewed the four candidates on Wednesday before making their decision following an executive session.
Brotherton, the third county commissioner, was a candidate for administrator and recused himself from the proceedings.
“Josh had decades of experience in different regulatory settings at the state and local level,” Eisenhour said. “He’s been a leader within our county. He’s brought that department through a serious phase of turmoil.”
Peters has served as Jefferson County’s director of the Department of Community Development (DCD) since 2023.
He said his years as DCD director have involved some major challenges, but he feels the department has stabilized under his leadership.
“I was speaking with a gentleman who reminded me we still have a lot of work to do,” Peters said. “I agree with that. I think continuous improvement, lean techniques, it’s all part of the process. I’m excited to take that to the next level, which would be the whole county organization.”
Peters started at the county as a planner in 2000.
After 13 years with the county, Peters left to work at King County, where he said he worked on transportation issues.
Peters also had stints both with the state Department of Natural Resources and with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Peters returned to Jefferson County in 2022 when his friend and former DCD director Brent Butler invited him as a part of his succession plan. Peters took over as DCD director in June 2023, he said.
“The department went through a lot of big problems,” Peters said. “In my first two years, I think we lost 15, 16 people. That’s in a department of just over 20. There was a lot of turmoil there. One thing I tried to do was bring a sense of calm, ‘It’s going to be OK, we can make it through this.’ There was a big morale problem there. I will say, knock on wood, since I became director, we haven’t lost anybody. We’ve stabilized to try to get back to a place where we’re operating efficiently.”
Port Townsend resident Cliff Moore, a consultant with executive search firm Prothman, led the search to fill the county administrator role.Moore said he had experience as a county and a city manager.
Moore described the process of developing the job posting and narrowing down the candidates.
The job was posted on county and city job boards in Washington and Oregon as well as on national job boards, Moore said.
“We worked very closely with the county staff and county commissioners to come up with a profile that we used to promote the position,” Moore said. “I met with (Eisenhour and Dudley Nollette). They gave me a list of probably 20 individuals in the county that they wanted me to have one-on-one conversation with to talk about both the hard skills, the soft skills and the personal characteristics that would best serve Jefferson County in this role at this time.”
After collecting his extensive notes based on those conversations, Moore handed them off to a colleague at Prothman who wrote a profile for the position, Moore said.
The listing saw 19 candidates from five states, including as far away as Florida, Moore said.
“I did an initial screening and 10 met or exceeded minimum qualifications,” Moore said.
After conducting initial interviews with those 10 candidates via Zoom, Moore said, several candidates dropped out. Moore noted that one received another job offer, one decided to pursue a different line of work and another could not relocate to Jefferson County.
Moore put together candidate packets with information on the remaining six or seven with the candidates: resumes, cover letters, responses to supplementary questions and his notes from the preliminary interviews.
“County commissioners Heather Dudley Nollette and Heidi Eisenhour, myself and their (human resources) staff met and had a really long executive session,” Moore said. “Ultimately, they decided that those four, they would like to move through to the final interview process.”
On Tuesday evening, county staff and members of the public met at the Humphrey room in the Jefferson County Library for an informal opportunity to get to know the candidates.
Attendees were given forms and encouraged to submit notes based on their conversations with the candidates, which would later be reviewed by the interview panels.
Brotherton is in his second term as a commissioner. When the role of county administrator opened up for the second time during his time as a commissioner, Brotherton said he realized it was his dream job.
“I felt like a race car driver who was steering the policy of the county and really enjoying that work but kind of looking over at the pit crew and thinking, ‘Huh, I want to make this car run better,’” Brotherton said.
Brotherton is a former county business owner four times over. His experience includes time in information technology and filmmaking. His interest in understanding the inner workings of government work and moving toward it compelled him to pursue his masters in public administration at The Evergreen State University, where he is currently part way through his second year.
Miles, a lifetime Pierce County resident, said she’s been a public servant for 32 years. Her work started in juvenile justice, but the majority of her work has been in parks and recreation.
Most recently, Miles spent eight years as the director of parks and recreation for Pierce County. Miles oversaw 92 staff members in that position and $161 million in resources, she said.
“In parks and recreation, we are community centric,” she said. “We do everything integrated with public safety, with economic development and tourism. We are innovative about how to take what we have and give the community the absolute best. Learning to tell the story well about what citizens are getting with their tax dollars and tying that together with how to achieve the things that people say they want the most.”
Patterson is the budget and finance director at Hood River County, Ore., where she has worked for three years.
“I’ve always considered myself second to the lead, and I’m interested in moving to the lead position,” Patterson said.
Much of Patterson’s 35 years of public service work has been with nonprofits, she said.
“(The position) ties to my values in so many ways,” Patterson said. “I love working with the people and for the people. I have this sort of subservient side that enjoys serving others. I like being part of a group, I’m a collaborative leader. I like to listen and learn and move forward with the majority’s idea, not my own idea. I will serve the board of commissioners in every way I can. It would be my job to take their dreams and make them a reality.”
Patterson said she’s been in executive management for more than seven years.
In addition to budget and finance, Patterson said she also does risk management contracts and grant management.
Patterson holds a master of business administration from Corban University in Salem, Ore.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
