EVERETT — He is the longest Port of Everett employee on record.

After a career spanning 47 years, Jim Weber retired at the end of July, leaving behind the “best office in the world.”

It’s hard to disagree.

A bank of picture windows offer a commanding view of the port’s Central Marina, Jetty Island and, some days, glorious blue skies.

He leaves behind an armada of boats, boaters and friendly sea lions — “our sea dogs,” Weber calls them.

“The Port staff and boaters have always been like family to me,” he said. “That is what has always made this a special place for me.”

The Port of Everett turns 105 years old this year. In the 1970s, it was peopled by fishermen, mill workers and log tug crews.

While still a student at Marysville Pilchuck High School, Weber snagged a seasonal job at the marina in 1976. He pushed a broom, checked moorages, took meter readings, whatever needed to be done.

In 1980, he was offered a permanent job with the marina maintenance team.

In the years that followed, Weber was promoted to maintenance journeyman, then maintenance foreman, then the marina’s operations director, the role he held when he retired.

“Back then it was just the central marina (built in 1965),” Weber said. “It had 700 or 800 slips, we didn’t have the south or the north yet.”

The south marina opened in 1980, the north docks in 2007.

Today, Everett’s is the largest public marina on the West Coast with 2,300 boat slips and 5,000 lineal feet of guest moorage.

“As the longest Port employee on record, he not only has witnessed a lot of change at the Marina but also had a hand in guiding that change to bring us where we are today,” said port CEO Lisa Lefeber.

Bryan Johnson Jr., a former senior operations facilities coordinator for Seattle’s Shilshole Bay Marina was hired to take on the majority of Weber’s role.

“I am so excited to join the Port of Everett Marina,” Johnson said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Johnson became marina operations manager in June. He oversees maintenance operations of the marina facilities, boatyard operations, landscaping and fuel dock.

“If you look at the respect Jim has, he’s basically been here for half the Port’s life,” Johnson said. “He’s been there every step of the way.”

A changed waterfront

In the early 1970s, Everett was still very much a mill town, with half a dozen large waterfront mills operating.

“You didn’t see a lot of people back then strolling the waterfront,” Weber said.

Everett’s waterfront would change under his watch, moving away from lumber, pulp, paper and fishing.

As the decade progressed, the big pulp and paper mills began shutting down. The last fish processing plant at the port, the Olympic Fish Company, closed in the early 1990s. Kimberly-Clark, the last mill, ceased operating in 2011.

“Now, it’s just a handful of fishermen,” Weber said.

The port is still a working waterfront.

Everett’s seaport, which handles more than $20 billion a year worth of exports, is the third-largest cargo container port in the state, after the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.

Nearly two-thirds of the port’s total revenue is derived from its three business lines: shipping, the marina and real estate. Those revenues help drive development of the recreational waterfront, now home to a growing fleet of residences and retailers.

Apartments, restaurants, bakeries, bars and spas have sprung up in the past few years, with more in the works.

Weber helped usher the changes.

He helped design, build, maintain and upgrade many of the marina’s facilities, from the south, central and north marinas to the Jetty Landing boat launch, Jetty Island docks and Boxcar Park. He was part of the Waterfront Place project planning team, port officials said.

“The Port is doing a great job,” Weber said. “I’ve always said, this is going to be the jewel of Snohomish County. I think it really has become that and will be even more so moving forward.”

From car shows, to drive-in movies and summer concerts — “to me, there’s not a more beautiful spot in Puget Sound, including Jetty Island.”

In retirement, Weber plans to dig his toes into the sand a bit, he said, and “buy a few more classic cars.”

Janice Podsada: 425-339-3097; jpodsada@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @JanicePods.