Steve Becker remembers the downtown Vancouver of the 1960s, when local industry was dominated by the Alcoa aluminum plant, Fort Vancouver Plywood, Boise Cascade paper mill and five buildings of Lucky Lager Brewery.
When he moved back to the city five years ago, he returned to a starkly different scene: retail had replaced manufacturing, apartments had arrived, and the waterfront was in development.
“To see them replaced with a whole new slice of the economy is an exciting opportunity and I’d like to be a part of that process,” he said.
Becker, 58, was named the new executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Association last week. He succeeds Lee Rafferty, who led the business group for the past eight years before stepping down.
Becker starts in August. His day job is director of outreach at Daybreak Youth Services. His job with the VDA, for now, is to learn, he said.
“I’ve got a learning curve here, I’m running into it as fast as I can,” he said.
As executive director, Becker will be tasked with helping businesses thrive in the city center. That includes helping with marketing, business development and even overseeing the hanging of flower baskets.
Vancouver’s Downtown Association was incorporated in 1989 and is led by a board of directors. It is funded through donations, membership dues and the Main Street Tax Incentive Program, which allows business owners to earmark some of their taxes to benefit such programs.
Becker’s first priorities will be to draw in people already visiting other attractions, such as the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and Ilani Casino Resort. He said the fort attracts 800,000 new visitors a year, while downtown attracts about 100,000.
“One of my first priorities is to investigate the way we can capture more of those visitors,” he said. “Whether those are visitors to the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site or whether they’re visitors for the casino to the north.”
The downtown Becker inherits will be one in high gear. The handful of projects already underway there include multifamily residences, two waterfront development projects nearby and potentially three hotels.
“We’ve come to realize what an asset the waterfront and our downtown core are, and to me it’s very exciting to be a part of this cutting edge,” he said.
The Portland native moved to Vancouver in 1962 when his father got a job at Alcoa. He graduated from Evergreen High School and moved away for school and careers in northern Washington.
After graduating from the University of Washington, he spent a decade at Seattle radio station KING 1090, and followed that up with a job in Spokane at television station KREM.
Becker said he and his wife moved back to Vancouver five years ago to take care of his parents.
“It was a great reason to come back home,” he said.
Becker said he is confident about downtown’s potential to grow. He thinks shoppers these days tend to spurn box stores in favor of small businesses within walking distance.
“We have such an appealing place to live, work and play,” he said. “To have been of that generation to see it go away, and then to be a part of nurturing it again is a dream job for me.”
