To say Art Castle enjoys conversation, would be an understatement. Anyone who knows him, knows he’s enthusiastic about any subject you might engage him in conversation about.
Castle stunned the local construction industry, as well as the political establishment earlier this year with the announcement that he would step down from his position as executive vice president of the Homebuilders Association of Kitsap County (HBA) — a post he has held since May of 1994 — at the end of this year.
While Castle is one of those people who has become an icon in construction circles both locally and statewide, perhaps his proudest achievement is the cooperative relationships he has forged between the builders and construction interests he represents, and the local environmental community.
Originally from Wheaton, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C., he migrated to South Florida where he attended Miami-Dade Junior College. He was elected president of the student body, and got involved in local politics until joining the U.S. Marines. While in Florida, he worked on the 1972 gubernatorial campaign of a relative political unknown by the name of Ruben Askew. Askew went on to defeat first-term incumbent governor Claude Kirk — Florida’s first Republican governor since Civil War reconstruction.
Castle landed in the Pacific Northwest after getting out of the Marines. He was visiting a cousin in Tumwater on the way home from his last tour of duty in Okinawa, and like so many people who have ended up here, fell in love with the area’s natural beauty.
He worked at several jobs in Olympia, until finally taking a job with Draper Farms in Bellingham. While there, he met and later married, his boss’s daughter, Janice.
His career as a building industry executive began in the summer of 1988, when he was hired as executive vice president by the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County. He served six years there before being recruited to Kitsap in 1994 by then HBA president Larry Ward. The HBA had been rocked by a major embezzlement, and suffered through less than stellar executive management afterwards. Ward was singularly focused on bringing in an executive who was experienced, competent, politically savvy, aggressive and above all, like the folks the HBA represents, highly entrepreneurial.
Castle is all of those things and more. Upon arrival, he quickly got the organization moving forward by handling a major tax problem the board wasn’t even aware of, as well as motivated a staff sorely in need of leadership.
Over time, he has also put his entrepreneurial skills to work by significantly expanding the size and scope of the HBA’s signature events — the Home & Garden Expos at the Kitsap Pavilion. Originally there was only one event. Now there are two — spring and fall. The shows themselves have expanded to the point they now fill three buildings at the fairgrounds, not just one. He also oversaw the creation of two high quality HBA publications, Remodel Kitsap and Kitsap Peninsula Builder, which are distributed at those home shows. Castle was instrumental in making the HBA’s Parade of Homes, which showcases his members’ work in all prices ranges, a much-anticipated local event.
He also partnered the association with the non-profit Holly Ridge Center, making it the recipient of the Builder’s Surplus Sale. HBA members donate new and used surplus building materials — everything from light bulbs, to cabinets, windows, doors, sheetrock, electrical and plumbing fixtures and much more, which are sold to the public at the Home Shows, with all proceeds going to Holly Ridge.
Castle has also molded his membership into cohesive units depending on their particular specialties. He organized the highly successful Remodelers Council, which promotes remodeling to the public as a professional specialty — not a sideline. He raised the bar for remodeling contractors by offering specialized education, coupled with nationally recognized professional designations, and public recognition of their work with the prestigious Excellence in Remodeling (REX) Awards. He has done the same thing with developers, and the Developers Council.
Castle has built the HBA, which is affiliated with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the politically powerful Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), into one of the strongest local organizations in the state. He’s doubled its membership, and immersed it into the local political scene with a passion — and level of power — matching that of its political opponents. The Affordable Housing Council — the HBA’s Political Action Committee (PAC), has become the largest, and arguably richest, PAC in the County under Castle’s leadership.
However, when it comes to politics, Castle hasn’t forced the HBA to march to the conservative BIAW’s tune, but has guided it on a much more pragmatic path. While BIAW usually endorses Republican candidates almost blindly, the HBA has traditionally endorsed a mixture of local Democrats and Republicans, taking a more independent stance that mirrors the demographics of it members, and Kitsap County.
That doesn’t mean the HBA doesn’t aggressively stand up for the rule of law when it comes to land use issues, and for what’s in its members best economic interest. On that score, it is as almost as pugnacious as the BIAW, winning four major lawsuits that have had a profound impact on local land use policies — as well as the finances of one local City — Bainbridge Island.
The HBA also joined the NAHB and the Oregon Homebuilders Association (OHBA) to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) over critical habitat designation for salmon. Castle explained, “The outcome was proving that NMFS had not done a proper habitat analysis. As a result of the litigation, NMFS was required to go back and do the analysis correctly. That resulted in a critical habitat designation area that became substantially smaller once NMFS was forced to follow its own rules.”
The HBA also joined the NAHB in another lawsuit that prevented FEMA from denying people flood insurance in flood plains.
But it was four lawsuits with Bainbridge Island — and the cost of defending its overzealous, arrogant, and ultimately illegal, land use practices, that have impacted that City’s finances.
The lawsuits involved excluding wetland areas from density calculations for plats, as well as forcing the City to abide by a State Supreme Court ruling concerning open space regulations. The City later adopted some draft shoreline rules in spite of litigation at the state level saying otherwise, and later adoped a surcharge on building permits.
“We felt that surcharge was an illegal tax,” Castle said. “And while the local court agreed with the City, the appeals Court ruled that the local court was wrong and the City would have to prove that surcharge was authorized by the RCW. Rather than lose the fight, the City settled for just under a half a million dollars that has been paid out to those permit applicants who were assessed that illegal fee.”
But it isn’t lawsuits and litigation Castle wants as his legacy, but rather his organization building skills, and his ability to find common ground with political adversaries, and build consensus. “The legal actions are just a small piece of what we’ve done,” he added. “I’ll let others decide how good a job I did, but I believe I’ve left two organizations better than I found them.”
Odd as it may seem, Castle’s proudest achievements have more to do with the environment, than with construction. He oversaw the creation of the Built Green program in 1997. Originally called “Build a Better Kitsap,” it was the first environmentally-friendly building program in the state and second in the country. It became the model for what is now the nationally recognized Built Green standard.
However, the crown jewel of Art Castle’s career at the HBA is undoubtedly the Low Impact Development (LID) program he authored, and has subsequently managed to have included in the County’s as well as every local City’s building code.
“I became a fan in the mid-1990s of market-based environmental solutions, and the leadership of this organization gave me the latitude to pursue that. In the end, how many organizations — especially in our industry — have the opportunity to lead major environmental public policy initiatives through a collaborative effort in the community?” he asks. “That’s pretty special.”
Establishing a non-profit foundation through the HBA allowed him to apply for a series of grants to move the process forward. It also required buy-in from a number of environmental organizations and the tribes — groups who were normally adversaries of the HBA and oppose development in general.
“I met Art through a mutual acquaintance at the Business Journal, then worked with him to secure grants in 2002, when the foundation was young, and low-impact development was but a sparkle in his eye,” stated Kathleen Byrne-Barrantes of Grant Solutions, the contract grant writer that helped secure funding for the project. “In those relatively short years, Kitsap has become known as the King of LID in no small part due to Art Castle’s contagious enthusiasm.”
Essentially, what LID does, is give builders and developers an additional set of tools to deal with stormwater runoff — one of the main sources of pollution in Puget Sound — and allows land inside the Urban Growth Areas (UGAs) that wasn’t originally buildable to be responsibly developed. That allows land that might have been developed, to be left as open space, and helps keep UGAs smaller than they otherwise might become. These, and Castle’s boundless enthusiasm for LID, were major selling points that helped convince the environmental groups to work with him and support moving the concept forward.
LID techniques keep the majority of runoff on-site, by use of new technologies such as bio-retention cells and pervious pavement, which allows water to seep through it. The water is then stored in the cells for sequential release back to the ground and the aquifers, rather than run off into storm drains, and ultimately Puget Sound — or with no where to go, cause flooding, such as Kitsap County experienced in 2007. Putting its money where it mouth is, the HBA did a demonstration LID project at its own office site. During the severe flooding in 2007, the HBA office was high and dry, while everything around it was flooded.
When asked to assess his tenure at the HBA, Castle is quick to credit others with his success, but being a consensus builder he’s seemingly most proud of — especially when it comes to politics. “Politics is all about perception,” he said. “We’ve matured during my tenure in terms of policy advocacy. I’ve been able to help enhance the HBA’s role as a community partner, and our involvement in non-traditional relationships with people and organizations that builder associations don’t usually associate with — local engineers, all the governments, fire districts, environmental groups, tribes — we’ve been able to work together to collectively achieve common goals. I’m proud of that. Nobody does anything alone, and it’s required a lot of other people for everything that’s happened,” he said. It’s because I’ve been able to work with a lot of other people that we’ve been able to achieve all we have. I wasn’t the only one rowing the boat — a lot of other folks were pulling at the oars as well.”
So what made him decide to give it all up at this particular point tin time?
“Our association, like our industry, has been hit hard by the recession,” He answered. “I chose basically, to lay myself off rather than cut other staff, and I believe it was in the best interest of the organization. I’m leaving the organization with substantial financial reserves — and it was basically a business decision. I defacto laid myself off. How many people can say that?” he chuckled.”
What now? “That’s a good question. I’m looking at a number of opportunities,” he admitted. “I’m financially secure, so there’s no rush. I’ll make some decisions this fall. But right now, I really don’t know.”
For the time being, he said he’ll indulge his passion for golf. He’s also a voracious reader. “I’ll read almost anything — novels, biographies, history, spy novels, you name it,” he laughed. He and Janice are also dog lovers, and breed and show and lurechorse Whippets.
But people who know Art and have worked with him, uniformly praise his high energy, and the fact he is quick to share the credit for everything.
“Working with Art has been amazingly rewarding — dynamic, fast paced and always goal driven,” says Byrne-Barrantes, “But at the end of the day you could look back, reflect and appreciate how much was accomplished.”
Teresa Osinski, the HBA’s Government Affairs Director, is a former legislative lobbyist, and has been named to succeed Castle as the organization’s executive vice president. She believes Castle has intentionally mentored her for the job in the time she’s been there. “I have felt truly honored to work with someone as creative, and as encouraging as Art,” she stated. “I think he’s a genesis. He’s so generous with his ideas. It doesn’t matter whose project it is, and if he’s involved or not. His ideas come from a place born of a genuine desire to see people succeed.”
Current HBA President Ron Perkerewicz, lauded Castle by saying, “Art has been Mr. Homebuilders Association for as long as most folks can remember. He has worked for many years developing, nurturing and creating this association. He has been instrumental in having the HBA recognized as a responsible organization that is working to better the way of life for the community, and to put a positive feeling in the community about local member developers. He has also been recognized locally, statewide and nationally for his Low Impact Development efforts. Art is leaving some very big shoes to be filled.”
But perhaps Kristine Reeves, district director for Senator Patty Murray, summed it up best when she said, “Art Castle is a highly creative thinker, and someone who is always willing to share his enthusiasm for good ideas — even when they aren’t his. He’s leaving Kitsap County a better place by the work he’s done here. How lucky are we?”
