“Mr. Hopeful.” I’ve got an incredible family
life; I’ve got an incredible law firm. I’ve
survived a heart attack when I was helicopter
skiing 10 years ago up in northeastern
Canada, and 30 days later I went back
and was helicopter skiing again after they
fixed me. I was at the top of an 8 ,000-foot
mountain when I had the heart attack, in
the middle of nowhere. I’ve survived cancer,
and I figure I’ve got another 20 years at the
least of doing what I’m doing, because I
have no interest in retiring, I am having so
much fun. This is the beauty of it: I get to
use my experience working in government—
national, state, local government—my
experience working in the private sector,
my experience working with all kinds of
nonprofit organizations. I think what I’m
going to get to do for the next 20 to 25 years
is going to eclipse what I’ve been able to do
in the last 40 years.
Q: What do you think you’ll be
remembered for?
A: One of my greatest accomplishments
was working with Plum Creek to do a huge
land exchange on the eastern slope of the
Cascade Mountains that we called the I-90
Land Exchange. The environmental groups
were all fighting among themselves, and
this [land deal] had to go through the White
House and the Congress. It was all tied up;
Bill Clinton was president. It was at the
end of the last session of the Congress that
could have approved this, and the thing was
dead; and I remember out there at Overlake
Golf Course one afternoon with Rick Holley,
who was the president of Plum Creek, and
he had been trying to do this [project] for
four years and he was just distraught. I said,
“I have an idea,” and that idea turned into
us—Plum Creek—suing the environmental
groups. It was front-page Seattle Times, kind
of like: You won’t believe this, this is one of
the greatest reversals ever seen, a timber
company suing the environmentalists. We
forced them into court and the judge forced
them into settlement negotiations; and in my
conference room for four days, we hammered
out a compromise. The appropriations bill
that could approve this land exchange had
already gone from the Congress to Bill
Clinton’s desk, and it was arranged for the
president to send it back to the Congress.
Having reached a settlement agreement,
the Congress then approved the I-90 Land
Exchange. That was 36,000 acres of pristine
high-quality habitat on the eastern slope of
the Cascade Mountains, totally preserved
now forever; and Plum Creek got comparable
lands, mostly down in southwest Washington
that the environmentalists were okay having
harvested. So everybody won. Another
legacy. Every time I drive over the [mountain]
pass, I look north as I’m going to Suncadia;
I see all those trees, and I think, “Hmm, I
played a little role in that, you know?”
