PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend School of Woodworking can be an essential part of the renovation of Fort Worden State Park, a Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce audience was told Monday.
“As we figure out how people progress through the school, we can put them on a path to real job experience,” Tim Lawson, the school’s executive director, said in front of about 40 people at the Elks Lodge.
“I think the opportunities for the school to partner with the public development authority to improve Fort Worden are huge because if you get the opportunity to fund the project and hire local people, that’s a big win for the economy.”
The public development authority took over management of the campus portion of the park from Washington State Parks, with one of its purposes to renovate more than 70 historical buildings.
The school, located within the park, already has participated in a window replacement project on several buildings, where students learned how to renovate historical windows in a hands-on environment.
Lawson said the renovation projects could be incremental or all-encompassing, where former students could take on an entire building.
Some active students would be involved, but most of them would be paid a salary, following the apprenticeship tradition.
“We have ambitions to do one of the dormitory buildings where we would break it up into eight or 16 units,” Lawson said after his presentation.
“Doing that along with other projects, you could stitch together something that both benefits the fort and gives people the experience they need.”
Lawson said, “There’s a bunch of things we can do in small chunks” that could be accomplished in conjunction with a strong training component.
Lawson said that student labor can be unreliable in that the classes sometimes end before the project is finished.
“The PDA [public development authority] will be looking to take a lot of these projects to completion,” Lawson said.
“So we can partner with the PDA to make sure the projects get finished and delivered.”
Lawson said students always need to have educational content. As soon as the task becomes repetitive, it requires a salary.
“There are institutions that have tried to get students to do that — making nothing but skittle tables — and it drives them nuts,” Lawson said.
Lawson said the school is project-oriented, which gives students a purpose.
“Historic preservation is one of the obvious areas where we can help with Fort Worden,” Lawson said.
“The challenge is figuring out how to do that. The expertise of the school is traditional cabinet making and woodworking. In the next few years, we will need to start figuring out how we can do projects with the PDA.”
_______
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.