County Executive Dave Somers is the recipient of the Henry M. Jackson award. The award recognizes a person who demonstrates exemplary service to the community and is committed to the business interests of the region. Established in 1977, the award is named for the former U.S. senator from Everett.
For more than nine years, Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers has touted the county as a good place to do business.
He’s had some help. Boeing and its world’s largest manufacturing plant in Everett has created a supply of engineers and workers with advanced manufacturing skills based in Snohomish County. It has helped create an economic engine that has brought in aerospace, fusion energy and other high-tech companies to the county.
“The growth has been tremendous,” he said.
Steady job growth was interrupted by COVID-19, but the county got back on track until a slight decline in the last year as Boeing and other manufacturers cut jobs. While unemployment remains a low 4.1%, Snohomish County has 1.6% fewer non-agricultural jobs as of the end of March 2025 than a year earlier, Washington Employment Security Department Statistics show.
Somers comes from an environmental background. He earned a master’s degree in forest ecology from the University of Washington in 1995 and worked as a fisheries biologist for the Tulalip Tribes from 1979 to 1997.
Somers began his career in county government in 1997,when was was elected to the Snohomish County Council. He served three terms on the council before running and won the County Executive’s seat in 2015.
During his county tenure, Snohomish County grew from 609,000 residents in 2000 to 853,000 this year.
While encouraging development, Somers has put an emphasis on where it should be allowed.
He said he proud of being instrumental in killing a plan while on the county council in 2008 to build up to 600 residences on 3,000 acres of forestland in a proposed self-contained city by Lake Roesiger called Falcon Ridge.
The project was supposed to be built around a 18-hole, 190-acre golf course and called for schools, shops and offices so people wouldn’t have to commute.
“They call them fully contained communities, which is a bunch of nonsense,” he said.
“From a developer standpoint, they get to build a bunch of houses around a golf course and make a lot of money,” he said.
Somers said the project would have just created congestion and destroyed thousands of trees.
The county administrator seat is term-limited by law. Somers began his last four-year term in January 2024.
He said there could be rough times ahead.
“I expect the tariffs to really affect the economy here over the coming year, so it’s going to be a challenge,” he said. “But I think, at the end of the day, that’s going to be corrected.”
While President Trump has imposed a 149% tariff on imports from China, tariffs from many other countries are on hold while negotiations continue between the U.S. and other countries.
Somers, a marine biologist by training, talked about disturbance ecology — the study of floods and fires, landslides and earthquakes.
“They hurt at the time, but they open up a lot of new possibilities, new habitats, new lives, a spring forth of life and energy after the trauma,” he said.
Somers said COVID-19 severely hurt the economy in Snohomish County and nationwide, but everyone worked together and figured it out, and the economy recovered.
“It’s not a competition, one business against another, one population against another. It’s working together,” he said.
Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.
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