Navy base’s No. 2 leaves the helm

EVERETT – His voice cuts through the room like a lighthouse horn on a foggy night.

Navy Cmdr. Steve McLaughlin’s voice is the product of a seventh-grade drama teacher who taught him to project from the diaphragm.

People are forced to listen to him, but there are other reasons why the 26-year Navy veteran, who had extensive training in homeland security issues, is heard.

He nearly always has something important to say.

McLaughlin, Naval Station Everett’s executive officer for more than three years, has stepped down from the No. 2 job on the base and his naval career. He was feted Friday in a service retirement ceremony at the naval station.

Being executive officer here was one of his most rewarding of many Navy duties, he said, in part because of the base, its people and the community support for the Navy.

“I’d stay here another 40 years if the Navy would let me,” McLaughlin said. “We have incredible community support and I think paying back to the community is an important part of what we do.”

One of his jobs while executive officer was to be the Navy’s point of contact with the community on homeland security issues.

His education and experience made him well suited for that job.

In 2003, he earned a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

In 1995, he served as a battle captain and planner for peace enforcement operations in Bosnia. Five years earlier, he attended the Royal Naval College in London, earning a master’s degree in international affairs with an emphasis on environmental security.

While at the Everett base, he was active in several local and state committees dealing with homeland security. He helped found the Snohomish County Threat Early Warning Group – a combination of public and private entities that aims to increase communications and head off possible terrorist threats locally.

McLaughlin was the driving force behind establishing the warning group, said David Behar, head of security at the Snohomish County PUD.

“He has an incredible background,” Behar said. As a naval officer, “he will be missed.”

Work on homeland security is important prevention, McLaughlin said.

He’s convinced that somewhere, a terrorist network is now planning a high-profile attack on U.S. citizens, particularly large gatherings of people.

At the same time, the community is “getting a lot better at keeping an eye out for threats,” he said.

A self-proclaimed adventurer who was raised in Medford, Ore., McLaughlin, 50, loves the outdoors and has bought property in the hills near Wenatchee where his family lives. He came up through the ranks, attending officer candidate school after getting his undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Oregon.

He’s a free thinker who brought unbridled enthusiasm to every task.

“Sometimes I’m like a salmon swimming upstream in the current,” he said. “I’m a concept guy. I like to throw spaghetti and see what sticks.”

And he’s stubborn.

His love of nature fostered one of his proudest achievements while in Everett. It took nearly two years, lots of political maneuvering and persistence, but old-growth forest on Navy property near Arlington is now permanently preserved. It also has been named after the person responsible for saving it in the 1990s, Navy forester Walter Briggs.

“Walter Briggs’ singular effort deserved recognition by naming the forest in his name,” McLaughlin said.

Although he’s retiring from the Navy, McLaughlin will keep in contact with people in this community. He plans to go to work for Sound &Sea Technology Inc. of Edmonds, a company that specializes in ocean engineering for complex undersea systems and for port security.

He also will retain his chairmanship of the Threat Early Warning Group. He said there are some things yet to be accomplished and he wants to see them through.

“I believe in attacking,” McLaughlin said. “I am not one who ever sat idly by and watch the world just happen.”

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.