North Bend Visitor Center gets new manager

A new face is welcoming visitors in North Bend this fall. Valley native Jessica Tate has been hired as the manager of the North Bend Visitor Information Center and Art Gallery.

A new face is welcoming visitors in North Bend this fall. Valley native Jessica Tate has been hired as the manager of the North Bend Visitor Information Center and Art Gallery.

Tate was born in Snoqualmie and grew up in Redmond. A graduate of Central Washington University, she majored in recreation and tourism management and minored in event planning. During her time at Central, she also worked as the visitor information specialist and event coordinator for the Kittitas County Chamber of Commerce in Ellensburg, before becoming the director of events in 2015.

After graduating, Tate tried to relocate to Michigan but ended up coming back to Washington to move into her childhood home.

“My dad still owns the house that my parents lived in when I was born. The renter left, and my dad said ‘do you want to move back into your old house?'” Tate said. “It’s cool, because I never would have thought I would end up here. I traveled the whole country and then ended up right where I was born.”

When Tate moved back to the Valley, she learned that the North Bend Downtown Association was looking for a manager for the visitor center.

“They were looking for someone with a degree in the industry. It was just so perfect,” she said.

Day to day, the manager’s job is to give people visitor information about North Bend when they come into town. Because Tate had been away from the Valley for so long, she has been doing a lot of research on the area’s recreation options, restaurants and entertainment.

“I’ve been trying to get out there a lot, which is another reason I was super excited to start this job, it forces you to get outside,” she said. “I knew a few things, but I have been doing a ton of hiking to try to catch up, because that’s one of the most frequent questions, hiking and biking,”

Tate has also been working with local artists to refresh the art on display in the visitor center, and meeting with organizations like the Mount Si Artist Guild and various businesses in the city.

“I talked a little bit with the Mount Si Artist Guild. They’ve done a show here before, and they said they are interested in doing that again,” she said.

“I’ve just been reading, researching, and reaching out, trying to form more partnerships and relationships with people.”

Another new project in the works for the visitor center is North Bend branded merchandise. Tate said they are thinking of starting with postcards and stickers.

The research doesn’t just stop with recreation, Tate has also been catching up on one of North Bend’s biggest pop culture icons, “Twin Peaks.”

Tate said she was surprised by the amount of visitors to the city who said they came because they watched the show and so she wanted to watch it herself, to understand what everyone was talking about.

“We get a surprising amount of visitors here because of it,” she said. “I said I’m going to watch it just so I know what people are talking about and now I’m obsessed. I see why people are so into it. I had someone from Japan come in… he really came here because he liked ‘Twin Peaks’ that much.”

There are even some “Twin Peaks” art pieces in the visitor center created by North Bend local Leslie Moon. Tate wants to capitalize on the revival of the show with some more pieces like that.

She is happy to be back in the Valley and excited to work with people of North Bend.

“I’ve been to all 50 states and many countries and being gone for so long really made me realize how beautiful it is here,” Tate said. “Not only is our inventory of things to do higher, but the quality is higher, too.”