A Force For Change In North Bend -- Longtime Residents Have Also Helped Preserve Past In This Foothills Enclave

NORTH BEND - Dick Zemp had $300 in cash and was $100,000 in debt when he and Rosanne Ryba married in 1963.

Rosanne didn't know that, and it probably wouldn't have mattered, but to some young couples that first winter in a drafty rental house on the edge of North Bend might have been a dark omen.

No one could have known, of course, that the Zemps would eventually parlay a small logging and construction business into a major development company and rub shoulders with the European aristocracy.

Or that they would be responsible, perhaps more than any two individuals, for transforming their rural community.

The Zemps, who grew up in North Bend and raised their own family there, brought in the Factory Stores of America Mall, helped lure Nintendo to the city and turned 62 empty acres at Exit 31 off Interstate 90 into a moneymaker.

Agents of change, they've also helped to preserve North Bend's past. The Zemps were among the partners who sold the 522-acre Meadowbrook Farm, once the nation's largest hops-producing farm, to King County and the cities of North Bend and Snoqualmie.

Still, their first winter together in 1963 remains frozen in memory.

"We woke up one morning, and the bedroom floor and the bed were covered with a thick layer of snow," said Rosanne, recalling the $58-a-month house with siding so loose the weather drifted in.

Today, they live on 273 acres part way up Rattlesnake Ridge with a mural-like view of craggy Mount Si, Granite Mountain and Mount Teneriffe.

So far, they've helped to create more than 500 jobs, with more to come, in a community where work had been hard to come by.

They've been in the center of things. Metro turned to Dick Zemp as a consultant when it began its silvaculture program, using treated sludge to fertilize forest land.

He's brokered land deals for German nobility and Asian partnerships.

The business the Zemps brought to North Bend has translated into more than $1 million annually in city tax revenues.

Not all the changes have been welcome. North Bend's population has swelled from about 1,700 to 2,900 over the past decade. In the face of opposition to development, Dick Zemp acknowledged "cajoling and convincing" public officials that the city needed a larger economic base to support that growth.

Virginia Sweetland, for one, a longtime activist who now serves on the North Bend City Council, felt that Zemp's Southfork project at the I-90 interchange was out of sync with the city's growth plan. "I have come to realize over the years that Dick probably has a greater vision for this city than myself and others have," Sweetland said, adding that she now sees the value of the factory-outlet stores and the open space at Meadowbrook as a tremendous legacy.

"His projects have certainly changed the face of the city," said Mayor Joan Simpson, who hasn't always agreed with Zemp.

But she called the factory-outlet mall "a superior product" and applauds the many new jobs. "I do know that he really cares for North Bend," she said.

Zemp's mother, Alma, who taught third through sixth grades in local schools for 29 years, stressed the importance of giving back to one's community. Dick Zemp, 57, has served on the Planning Commission and has long been active with the Boy Scouts.

Rosanne Zemp, 53, opened the Upper Valley's first preschool and has been involved with many youth activities. She was awarded the Washington State Governor's Volunteer Award in 1989 and has been a member of the Bellevue Community College Foundation since 1990.

Most recently, she co-chaired a drive that raised $800,000 to build the new Children's Services of Sno-Valley Center on land donated by the Meadowbrook partnership.

Back in the old days, Dick Zemp did selective logging and ran up his $100,000 debt amassing 3,000 acres of timber land from North Bend to Preston. His Alpine Construction Co., a logging, construction and gravel business, required long hours.

One night after he arrived home late, Rosanne led him to 18-month-old Bryan's bedroom.

"I want to introduce you to your son," she said. "You never see him."

After that, they sold the construction company and took off with their three children for a six-week trip to Alaska in a camper. Dick Zemp switched to selling real estate.

A new generation of Zemps is now at work. Bryan works for the family's Conifer Northwest realty brokerage and is project manager for the $16 million Mountain Valley Center, a shopping center scheduled to open in mid-November at the Southfork interchange.

Son Greg operates his own construction company and also works in the family business.

A longtime North Bend resident, Carl Blomberg, says of Dick Zemp: "Somehow, some way, he sets his goals and, despite any problems, succeeds in carrying them out."

Zemp doesn't deny that he's well-focused.

"I have this intimate faith that once I set out to do something, I can achieve it," he says. "I look at things differently than many other people. I'm willing to work hard and take a lot of risks."