The Sea Boss Retires

When Bob Davidson visited the Seattle Aquarium 22 years ago as newly appointed CEO, he brought his three college and high school age sons along to tour the facility. Little had changed or been invested in the city-run Aquarium over the past decades, and it showed. Aging exhibits and informational signs did little to inspire or excite Davidson or his boys.

“Well pops, you have your work cut out for you,” Davidson recalls one of his sons commenting.

Last month, it was his granddaughters who were on hand to explore and delight in the brand-new Ocean Pavilion. The dramatic new building features a massive shark and ray tank, a mangrove forest, stunning views of Elliott Bay, and a rooftop pavilion and Overlook Walk that connect the Seattle waterfront to Pike Place Market for the first time in the city’s history. Davidson watched his granddaughters run in circles around projected images of a coral sea, as if they were swimming with the tropical fish. Their joy, and the excitement surrounding the new Aquarium and Seattle waterfront, will be what Davidson walks away from as he ends his 22-year Seattle Aquarium career.

Davidson plans to retire next June from his position as Aquarium CEO. He waited to step down from his post until he’d seen the completion of the $160 million Ocean Pavilion, which highlights sea life in the biodiverse Indo-Pacific Coral Triangle and educates guests on how we must work together to protect the world’s oceans. Davidson’s Aquarium tenure is marked by significant expansion and improvement of the Aquarium’s buildings, the ongoing transformation of the Seattle waterfront, and the growing reputation of the Seattle Aquarium as a global leader in ocean conservation.

Davidson’s background in politics, business, and nonprofits helped him forge the partnerships necessary to launch an Aquarium overhaul. He has served as chief of staff for former Congressman Joel Pritchard and worked in private investment management. He came to the Aquarium after leading the Woodland Park Zoo’s $40 million renovation project that transformed the zoo into a modern leader for design and habitats. 

When Davidson was asked to replicate his zoo success at the Aquarium, his first response was, “Are you nuts?” He considered the city-run Aquarium “very dysfunctional,” with a director appointed by the Seattle mayor for political reasons and a board that disagreed on the Aquarium’s future direction. The Seattle Aquarium was built in 1977 for only $5 million, with no major capital investments over the next couple of decades. (As a comparison, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which also opened in the late ‘70s, cost $55 million.) Though board members created an ambitious, cutting-edge design for an entirely new Seattle Aquarium in the early 2000s, they didn’t have any funding to execute the plan. Davidson recalls chuckling as he read a Wall Street Journal ad for the job, he ultimately ended up accepting, as the ad copy made it sound like the Aquarium was ready to break ground on a brand-new building. 

With no illusions about the project he was inheriting, Davidson ultimately decided he was up for the challenge. He was a realist, but he also wasn’t afraid to dream of a better Seattle Aquarium.

“I saw the opportunity,” Davidson says. “Where else in the world should there be a thriving aquarium than Seattle?” 

During Davidson’s Aquarium tenure, he helped negotiate management transfer of the Aquarium from the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation to the nonprofit Seattle Aquarium Society. The structural shift enabled the Aquarium to form a more powerful board and raise money to transform the facility. Now that the Ocean Pavilion construction is complete, the Aquarium will turn to plans to renovate both older buildings on Pier 59 and 60. 

Aside from the obvious physical changes to the Aquarium, the organization’s reputation and mission evolved significantly during Davidson’s time at the helm. Once overlooked by environmentalists, the Seattle Aquarium is now seen as a global leader in protecting the world’s oceans. 

“It’s like night and day,” says Martha Kongsgaard, a conservationist who chaired the campaign to build the Ocean Pavilion. “It’s been a thrill to see an old institution behave like a startup and put conservation first and foremost.”

In his early years at the Aquarium, Davidson asked local conservationists what they thought of the organization, and most told him that didn’t see the Aquarium as a key player. Davidson uncovered seven mission statements from throughout the decades, all with slightly different messages. He and the Aquarium board decided to move forward with the mission of “Inspiring conservation of our marine environment,” and it’s driven all of Davidson’s subsequent decisions over the years. Kongsgaard calls him, “the greatest learning machine I’ve ever worked with,” and indeed, Davidson committed himself to studying ocean conservation.

“Bob understands the absolute catastrophe that awaits us if we don’t take care of the ocean,” Kongsgaard says.   

Under Davidson’s watch, the Aquarium built its research projects, educational exhibits, and hands on work in ocean ecosystems locally and around the world. Davidson hired Dr. Erin Meyer from the California Ocean Science Trust to lead conservation programs and partnerships. Aquarium scientists now chart sea acidification and monitor the growth or decline of certain ocean mammals and fish. The Aquarium, along with partners around the world, has been working to breed and transport endangered leopard sharks to their home waters off Indonesia. 

In addition to building the Aquarium into a conservation leader, Davidson will be remembered for his part in transforming the Seattle Waterfront. He inherited the Aquarium when it occupied a humble building on an aging pier, cut off from downtown by a noisy highway. He walks away from an impressive new Ocean Pavilion, a waterfront park, and an Overlook Walk that allows people to stroll from Pike Place Market to the Seattle Waterfront. From the Overlook Walk and the rooftop of the Ocean Pavilion, locals and visitors can take in the views of Elliott Bay that were once only possible from inside a car roaring by on the Alaskan Way Viaduct. 

When Davidson joined the Aquarium in 2002, he became a key voice in the drive to take down the Viaduct and reinvent the Seattle Waterfront. Thanks to the 2001 Nisqually earthquake damaging the Viaduct, discussion was already underway about whether to replace or get rid of the highway. Davidson recalled meeting someone for an outdoor lunch of fish and chips on one of his first days at the new job.

“I couldn’t hear anything that was being said to me because of the noise of the highway,” Davidson says.  “Seattle walled itself off from the water.” 

Drawing from his background in both politics and business, Davidson helped navigate the public private partnerships required to reinvent the waterfront. One of the waterfront’s biggest boosters is Bob Donegan, who is also president and CEO of Ivar’s. When Donegan began lobbying for a tunnel as a replacement for the viaduct, Davidson was one of the first people he asked to join his team. Not only did Davidson share Donegan’s vision for an accessible waterfront where park space trumped highways, but he had the political background to make things happen.

“Bob Davidson’s guidance on who to talk to was invaluable,” Donegan says. 

Both Davidson and Donegan were on hand to celebrate the opening of Overlook Walk in early October. The promenade features plazas, a playground, a future café, and dramatic views of the Olympic Mountains and water.

With the new Seattle Waterfront, the Aquarium should be positioned to capture a larger audience than ever before. As the unofficial mayor of the central Seattle waterfront, Donegan has watched the Aquarium’s evolution under Davidson’s watch, as it went from a small, regional aquarium to one with an international reputation.

“Everybody in the world knows about the Seattle Aquarium, and that’s a result of Bob’s persistence,” Donegan says. “He has been relentless.”

The Aquarium hopes to continue the momentum with Davidson’s successor. A search firm is now looking for candidates, with the hope of finding the next CEO by spring. Kongsgaard believes Davidson is walking away at the perfect moment.

“Bob has set the table for success,” Kongsgaard says. 

As for Davidson’s future, he hasn’t made plans for idle retirement afternoons just yet. 

“I need to do everything I can to get the Aquarium through the first half year of having the Ocean Pavilion open,” Davidson says. “We need to see how it can be run successfully, and how the Aquarium can take advantage of its new position in Seattle and the world.”

After that? Davidson plans to look for new opportunities where he can continue to serve and offer his skills. He will, however, consent to at least taking next summer off.