Port Gets A New Member With Clare Nordquist

WITH a vacancy to fill, Port of Seattle Commissioners made a solid choice in picking Eastsider Clare Nordquist.

Looking to replace Paul Schell, who resigned in the middle of his term after his election as Seattle mayor, the commissioners broadened their geographic representation and enhanced their management and international-trade experience.

A Seattle native who lives in Bellevue, Nordquist is a prominent fixture in Eastside business circles, including his service as a director of the Bellevue Convention Center Authority Board. Trained in college as an engineer, Nordquist has managed a Kirkland venture-capital firm and run a subsidiary of a Singapore industrial-ceramics company. He's served on boards for the Washington Technology Center and the Bellevue Schools Foundation.

Nordquist, 62, says he's taking the job with no specific agenda. He wants to ask questions and consult with people before taking positions. A self-styled fiscal conservative, he has no position, yet, on whether the port should get off the property tax.

The job of the port commissioner may be the region's most important obscure job. Though the public has little understanding of ports, Seattle commissioners can have tremendous influence over taxes, freight movement, public access to the waterfront, international trade and how the region presents itself to the world.

Among specific current problems, the Port of Seattle is wrestling with how to get cargo quicker to freeways, improve longshoremen productivity and improve treatment of women and minorities and expand Sea-Tac in cost-effective, neighbor-friendly ways.

The port's first concern is business, and Nordquist seems well-equipped for that task. But as a tax-funded public agency, the port, through commissioners, serves a larger agenda, representing the values of King County citizens.

The port is always trying to strengthen public awareness and support for its varied functions.

If Nordquist runs for a full four-year term, as he says he will, voters will ask how well he pursued that goal.