EVERETT — At his retirement party Feb. 25, Pat McClain dressed in a green and black plaid vest and a lime green bow tie. He grinned like a leprechaun as guests streamed into the club room at Legion Memorial Golf Course.
Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson later ribbed him from the podium, as he’d done many times before. “You look like your new career is a bartender in an Irish bar,” Stephanson said.
The guests were a who’s who of Everett’s elite: city staff and council members, old friends and political hands from the city and around the county, people from the Everett Chamber of Commerce, Washington State University, and the offices of both U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray.
It was McClain’s day in the spotlight, which those familiar with his way of doing business know is very rare.
McClain’s official job title was executive director for governmental affairs for the city of Everett. But his real role was as chief negotiator, man-behind-the-curtain, éminence grise, the operator behind the scenes whose career successes paralleled many of Everett’s milestones over the past four decades.
“There haven’t been many, if any, milepost moments in the city, county or region over the last 40 years that haven’t had Pat McClain’s touch on them,” said Bob Drewel, former Snohomish County executive and now senior adviser to Washington State University president Dan Bernardo.
Stephanson was the fourth mayor of Everett to have worked with McClain. “I think he’s been the quarterback of the team, getting all the things done, but just not something he wants to take credit for,” he said.
McClain’s son, Tim McClain, turned to another sports metaphor at his father’s retirement party: In his father’s fantasy baseball hobby, Pat McClain always (and inadvisably) selected catchers in the first round of the draft.
“I think my dad subconsciously idolizes catchers because he is one,” the younger McClain said. “He reports to camp early. He knows and admires his teammates — past and present. He builds rapport, networks, shares credit and accepts criticism. He knows how to call the game, what balls will end up in the dirt, and how to block a wild pitch. He’s the backstop. The field general. The coaches’ and manager’s most reliable sage.”
Bringing in the Navy
Pat McClain was born in Maine, but by 1952, when he was six, his family had moved first to Iowa where his parents were from, and then to southern California. Until 1976, McClain called the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance home.
He moved to Everett to take a job as the manager for the Everett Area Chamber of Commerce.
“Everett at that time, the mills were leaving, timber was leaving, aerospace was flat, Colby (Avenue) was empty,” McClain said.
The chamber was in debt and Boeing only had about 6,000 employees in Everett. McClain focused on helping the chamber again become more of a political force, then took a job at Weyerhaeuser for about 10 months. That’s when he accepted a job in Mayor Bill Moore’s administration, handling governmental relations and public affairs. He had much the same job until his retirement last week.
The word in economic development in Everett those days was “diversification.”
“When there was a recession, Everett was in a position to fall first and rise last,” McClain said.
McClain credits Mayor Moore with recognizing that the city needed to get its house in order, not just land the Navy, but lay the foundation for decades of future growth.
In early 1983, the plan for the U.S. Navy to build a new base in Puget Sound rose to the top of Everett’s agenda. Out of 13 ports initially considered, it ultimately came down to a choice between Seattle and Everett.
Navy officials twice came to the Northwest in early 1984 to visit representatives from both towns. McClain, Moore and other city and community leaders prepared their pitch.
Then they got a tip from somebody in the state government, McClain said: The Navy review team had been sitting in Seattle’s offices for 45 minutes waiting for their meeting with that city’s leaders.
The Everett team saw an opportunity.
McClain called all the local players — leaders at the Port of Everett, the chamber, even the school district — and told them to show up early and all be in the room at the same time for Everett’s meeting with the Navy.
“We set up a meeting with a buffet at 1 p.m. with all the players,” McClain said. “We were done by 4:30.”
Everett city councilman Paul Roberts at the time was chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, who was on the House Appropriations subcommittees for defense, the interior and military construction. Roberts said the level of preparation and enthusiasm Everett showed — and Seattle lacked — made the choice easy.
“I went back to Norm Dicks after all these meetings and I said, ‘This is a no-brainer,’” Roberts said.
Shortly after the deal was done, however, the first of five Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) sessions began in 1988, putting the not-even-completed Everett base under threat of early closure. The same thing happened in subsequent BRAC sessions of 1991, 1993, 1995 and 2005.
“It takes a lot of grunt work to put together the best case about why any one base should stay off the BRAC list,” said U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, who worked with McClain and Stephanson during the 2005 sessions.
With McClain, you always knew he was prepared, and had the support of the city behind him, Larsen said.
“I think the most important thing about Pat McClain, if he didn’t have the mayor’s ear at the time, he would find the mayor’s ear,” Larsen said.
Roberts said McClain knew how to sell the city, which to the Navy meant emphasizing liveability, the natural deep-water port, and the consolidation of services that would help support the base in Everett.
“Pat understood that, and he knew how to pull those together to tell the story and paint us in the most positive light,” Roberts said. “That could really move the needle.”
Fairly typical of McClain’s method of operation were his actions during the 1993 BRAC session. He was in Washington, D.C., preparing to lobby the committee that held the station’s fate, when he got a phone call from Drewel, who was then county executive.
It turned out that Jacqueline E. Schafer, assistant secretary of the Navy for Installations and the Environment, was visiting Everett at that moment.
Drewel asked McClain how Schafer could help.
“I need to get into the Pentagon,” McClain told him.
Several visits with high-level Navy and Department of Defense officials later, Naval Station Everett was spared the ax once more.
The base was officially opened and dedicated the following year, in April 1994.
Hand-in-glove
Throughout his career, McClain has built trust and close partnerships to get the job done.
“What Pat brings most importantly to the office is his integrity, and you knew that when he communicated something he was communicating it accurately,” Larsen said. “He had the trust of the leadership of the city of Everett.”
Doug Levy, Everett’s longtime lobbyist in Olympia, said McClain’s technique was to find common ground as the basis for making connections.
In the Legislature, McClain identified many people with ties to southern California and Iowa.
“He disarms with kindness and common background and a laugh and a twinkle in his eye, and off he goes,” Levy said.
That sort of coalition building has contributed to successes both large and small in the city’s recent history.
Examples include establishment of the University Center on North Broadway to house WSU; bringing the minor league Everett Giants (later the AquaSox) to town; keeping Everett in a Congressional district separate from Seattle; even getting road signs on I-5 to point toward Everett.
“When you left Seattle in the late ‘70s, the next principal city was Vancouver, B.C.!” McClain said.
But his mode of operating always could be summed up as building strong coalitions among parties.
“It’s got to be hand-in-glove,” McClain said. “Too many times I’ve been in partnerships in name only.”
Reid Shockey, a land-use consultant who has worked with the city and county over several decades, said McClain could always be counted on to be one of the calmer voices in the room.
“To the extent Snohomish County and the city of Everett are moving forward on a bunch of issues, Pat’s particular personality and demeanor has balanced out some of the stronger personalities,” Shockey said. “Some of the fist-pounders.”
McClain also always followed through on his commitments to make sure the job got done, Shockey said.
For example, in the middle of planning for Naval Station Everett, the city heard that Bob and Margaret Bavasi were looking for a new home for their minor league baseball team, the Walla Walla Mountain Bears.
“Pat saw the potential for professional sports in the community and energetically coordinated efforts to lay the groundwork and put out the welcome mat for the soon to be born Everett Giants,” Bob Bavasi said in a letter read at McClain’s retirement party.
McClain said he saw the team as a great opportunity for family entertainment in a city that then didn’t have much. People rallied to welcome the team.
“It was like a barn-raising,” McClain said. “We had people coming out of the woodwork wanting to help. I think we bolted the seats together. I pulled tarp with Bob Drewel during the first rain-out.”
The long term
If landing the Navy was McClain’s first big success in Everett, bringing Washington State University to Everett is his career-capping achievement.
Drewel said that both McClain and Stephanson recognized that filling the gap in higher education in Snohomish County was key to setting up the region for future growth.
“Pat was engaged 40 years ago when we started this conversation about having a research institute for Everett and Snohomish,” Drewel said.
McClain left the city to work as vice president of community relations for Everett Community College from 1989-2003, taking time out to work on the BRAC committees. He could see that there needed to be a four-year university to keep graduating students in Everett and to drive economic growth.
Stephanson said it was frustration with back-and-forth talks with the University of Washington that led to his reaching out to Elson Floyd, the late president of WSU.
“What Pat did — and this is what is typical on big projects we’ve worked on — he did the heavy lifting,” Stephanson said.
Stephanson hired McClain in 2003, and he got to work hiring experts, shepherding bills through Olympia, and ultimately managing the transfer of the leadership of the University Center from Everett Community College to WSU. It took a lot of finesse to bring all the parties to the table, Stephanson said.
“For a lot of us, it’s been 25 years, waiting on this,” said Connie Niva, a former regent for Washington State University and Everett city councilwoman.
With the new University Center building rising over North Broadway, “Now we can say it’s happening,” Niva said. “Pat can finally retire.”
Drewel said that McClain could see the big picture, in which WSU would not only anchor higher education in Snohomish County, but that the new Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at WSU would spur growth in the nascent health care sector in Everett.
Levy said McClain was never one to get visibly excited or emotional over anything he was working on.
It was different in August, when the ground was broken on the new home for WSU on North Broadway.
“You could tell he had an extra spring in his step,” Levy said.
Moving on, staying put
McClain’s last day at work was Wednesday. Mayor Stephanson required him to stay through the evening’s council meeting, where the council members praised his long commitment to the city and regional issues.
The next steps for him are simple: on Monday, he and his wife Claudia fly to Arizona for Major League Baseball Spring Training. They plan a longer trip to Ireland in July. Then it’s back home to Everett, where he said he’ll likely stay involved, both in the family business — Claudia runs McClain Insurance Services — and in civic life.
“It’s been an honor to be part of the community,” he said.
He remarked that when he first arrived in Everett, Seattle TV stations would do live spots on Colby Avenue and no one would be around. That’s all different, and the appeal of the city is only going to grow.
“When you look at this from a Californian’s standpoint, where views are valued, you can stand on Colby and see Puget Sound, the Olympics and the valley,” he said. “I’m not leaving. It’s as simple as that.”
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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