We last spoke about the contrast between primary and secondary jobs, and about how the former brings wealth into our area to support the latter. Whereas the relationship between these two types of jobs is serial, we encounter a different kind of dynamic in maintaining the long-term stability of an entire local economy. The Kitsap Regional Economic Development Council sums up this dynamic with the call for diversification in jobs.

For over a hundred years our county specialized in trees, and then in defense, but we must now get from here to diversity, just as King County had – and to some degree, still has – to get from Boeing to diversity. We are on the same quest, taking different paths. The author of “The Phantom Tollbooth” spoke of getting to the Islands of Conclusion by jumping. Would that we could get to diversity the same way, but it’s a harder trek. As we embark on it, consider some of its perils, especially that of specialization.

Intel Corporation initially specialized in memory chips, but nearly became extinct when Japanese manufacturers built better ones at a lower cost. Had Andrew Grove not moved his company into the microprocessor product line with a vengeance, Intel may have joined the legion of corporations that floundered and fell by virtue of untimely reaction to external forces. It is notable that Grove’s switch from one major product line to another seems to represent the “put all your eggs in one basket and then watch them closely” school of thought. This makes sense if you are sufficiently quick-footed, or if you are confident of your ability to control a given market. However, it makes no sense if you are at the mercy of inertia or of other market makers.

There is a lesson in this for Kitsap County. Kitsap’s local economy, in a nutshell, has the latter set of attributes. Its non-defense economy can’t be turned on a dime, and its dependence on defense jobs leaves it at the mercy of external influences. Changing its direction requires a multitude of individual entrepreneurial decisions, and even a mild cold in the headquarters of our defense industry can bring on a hacking cough in our provincial economy.

It is therefore incumbent on us to preserve our strength as we best can – that is, to maintain our military and civilian defense jobs at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Keyport Undersea Warfare Center, Submarine Base Bangor, and Naval Station Bremerton – even as we expand the range of jobs available in our non-defense-related civilian sector.

Permit me a personal illustration of our meager choices. One of my sons has an interest and talent in organic chemistry, while the other is embarked on a career spanning business and international affairs. The Kitsap yellow pages have a single entry under “chemicals,” whereas the Seattle metropolitan yellow pages have thirty-four entries under “chemical milling, chemical plant equipment and supplies, chemicals, and chemists.” A similar comparison reveals three entries under “manufactures’ representatives” in Kitsap, but more than three hundred in the Seattle area. Given the paucity of choices in Kitsap in their respective fields, what likelihood exists for either of them to choose to both live and work here? Not promising, to say the least – yet there is intrinsically nothing to prevent such jobs from being headquartered here, especially now that the world is wired, there is no material impediment to freight mobility for smaller value-added products to and from Kitsap, and our proximity to Seattle’s cultural center is so intimate.

Mine is but a microcosm of the larger concern for choice through diversification of jobs that others share in the county. Many are like me – parents wishing their kids had the chance to stay here; others are high school, trade school and college graduates entering the world of work; and still others are the thousands who migrate each day to jobs on the East Side for lack of comparable choices. Our collective challenge is to figure out what has to be done to provide choice of work for our residents – and then to do it. It is this challenge that the KREDC has accepted as its mission. Its accomplishment, unfortunately, requires dedicated slogging, for jumping won’t get us there!

(Editor’s Note: Zoltan Szigethy is Executive Director of the Kitsap Regional Economic Development Council. He may be reached at (360) 377-9499 or szigethy@kitsapedc.org. This is the second article of a series on the KREDC.).