Published March 2001

Kirtley-Cole co-founder
to leave Snohomish firm

By John Wolcott
Herald Business Journal Editor

The 27-year partnership that has made Kirtley-Cole Associates in Snohomish one of the region’s most successful design-build contractors is ending, but Ray Kirtley and Gordon Cole say they remain the best of friends as each goes his own way.

“Gordon Cole will be selling his interest in Kirtley-Cole and concentrating his activities around his real estate development and management interests. I will be purchasing Gordon’s share of the construction company,” President and CEO Ray Kirtley said in a letter sent to staff and clients.

“It is important for you to know that this transition is a positive restructuring of our business assets and that Gordy and I are, and will be, close friends,” Kirtley said. “This ownership transition will have no impact on the day-to-day operations. … As most of you know, Gordon has been largely involved in the real estate and development activities over the last five or six years and not in the day-to-day activities of the ... company.”

Cole told the Herald Business Journal he will be leaving the firm “within the next few months” to “continue to develop and lease commercial properties on my own.”

Over the past 27 years, Kirtley-Cole Associates has developed into one of the pre-eminent contractors in the Northwest, Cole said. “My departure will not limit their ability to continue to provide the high quality construction services customers … have enjoyed,” Cole said.

Cole said he plans to remain active in the business community in and around Snohomish County and will continue to provide commercial properties to house new and expanding businesses, activities evidenced most recently in the firm’s newly built Snohomish Business Park on Bickford Avenue, where about half of the properties are leased.

According to the company’s Web site — www.kirtley-cole.com — the business has about $40 million in annual revenues.

The business started by the two Everett High School graduates has built hundreds of projects that have changed the landscape of Snohomish County, including schools, grocery stores, single-family homes, condominiums, gas stations, senior housing developments, manufacturing facilities, churches, banks, office buildings, restaurants, warehouses, fire stations, hospitals and medical clinics.

Most of them were constructed with the design/build team approach that has become Kirtley-Cole’s trademark. Instead of a project owner working separately with a land developer, an architect, a contractor and others involved in the construction process, Kirtley-Cole Design/Build provides one focal point for everyone connected with a project, including government agencies, from the conception of a project to its completion.

Dennis Bishop, who recently opened the 1924 Bishop Office Building in the Snohomish Business Park, said people all over town referred him to Gordon Cole when Bishop wanted to move his software business for the cellular telephone industry from Canyon Park in Bothell to Snohomish.

“Kirtley-Cole planned and built my building, bringing it in on time and under budget,” Bishop said. He has his own offices in the building, plus space for professional businesses on the main floor and office/warehouse tenants on the lower level.

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