Leaving Lynnwood

Associated Press

LYNNWOOD — Even before Sept. 11, Darlene and David Goodsell of Lynnwood were getting fed up with Western Washington: the traffic, the skyrocketing cost of living and the famously gray weather.

Then came the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and David Goodsell soon learned he was losing his assembly mechanic job at the Boeing Co. plant in Renton.

The Goodsells aren’t alone.

The aftermath of Sept. 11 will cost Washington state thousands of jobs, adding even more burden to a state already struggling with a downturn in the tech economy. Unable to afford the high cost of living and facing one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, many laid-off workers say they will move.

"I am not even looking (for a new job) in Washington state," he said. "We are done with this state."

For those who stay, the outlook is expected to remain bleak.

"The recession in Washington will last longer than the U.S. recession and be deeper than the U.S. recession," said Chang Mook Sohn, executive director of the state’s economic forecast council.

The turnaround was abrupt.

Until Sept. 11, many believed the state’s robust economy would continue to buck the trend, perhaps sputtering but not slipping into recession. "But after Sept. 11, the whole thing changed," Sohn said.

While the technology slump and other factors already had put the state on the brink, the Boeing cuts are sending it over the edge.

Boeing plans to eliminate as many as 20,000 Puget Sound-area workers. What’s more, economists believe that for every Boeing job lost, another 1.7 jobs are lost in related supply and retail sectors.

Goodsell, 38, is one of the victims.

He started work at Boeing in 1997, attracted to the high pay and generous benefits. Like many of his co-workers, he was part of a family tradition. His father worked there for 15 years, his uncle for 45.

But in 1999, he was laid off as part of Boeing’s last major round of job cuts.

Still, his family wasn’t too worried. The state economy was booming, and Darlene Goodsell, 44, went from part-time to full-time at her grocery store job. With tuition reimbursement, David Goodsell went back to school for an information technology degree and took various part-time jobs.

The Goodsells were also frugal. The couple arranged their work schedule so they could care for their two kids, now 3 and 6 years old. The family built fires for heat at their Lynnwood home rather than using the heater, removed light bulbs to save electricity and shopped carefully at a discount grocer.

Moreover, David Goodsell was convinced he’d be able to get a tech job quickly — until, a year later, the dotcom boom went bust.

Then, on Aug. 23, relief came when Goodsell was recalled to his Boeing job.

Darlene Goodsell bought a new car, but otherwise the family continued to save. He worked the swing shift so they could avoid costly child care, and he took on weekend shifts whenever possible, making $33.60 an hour in overtime.

"I figured I’d weathered the storm pretty well," Goodsell recalled.

Less than three weeks later, early on Sept. 11, Goodsell came home from his swing shift and sank into bed. He was awakened by a phone call from his wife, who told him to turn on the television. He hit the remote just in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

"I said, ‘Oh my God,’ " Goodsell recalled.

But it wasn’t until that evening, back at work — on an American Airlines 757, the same model used in the terrorist attacks — that it dawned on him what the attacks would mean to his family. Looking at the big passenger jet, Goodsell wondered, "Would I want to fly on an airplane right now?"

"I felt like I got hit twice," he said.

First, his country had been attacked by terrorists, and now, he sensed, he was about to lose his job.

Goodsell received his layoff notice a couple of weeks later, and his last day of work was Dec. 14.

Like countless other Boeing workers, the Goodsells are looking to move to Texas, with its lower cost of living and the promise of jobs at rival Lockheed Martin Corp., which recently beat out Boeing for the Joint Strike Fighter defense contract and is recruiting Boeing workers.

A patriot with two American flags flying in front of his modest home, Goodsell says it’s hard to feel angry about what’s happened to him since Sept. 11. He understands why people are afraid to fly. Until he lost his job, he had a daily reminder.

"Every day I’d go to work on the 757, even on my last day, I’d wonder, ‘What would it be like to be one of those people on that plane?’ "