Dollars & Sense: Woodinville Business Owner, Blogger Wants a Conversation on the Future

The “character” of Woodinville and where it’s headed is a subject Jeff Thomas is passionate about, not just because as a business owner he has a financial stake in the town’s future, but because he lives here, raised his children here.

Woodinville is home for Thomas and he wants to ensure it stays a happy one.

Thomas moved to Woodinville in 1986 with his wife, Kim, buying their first home here. Thomas grew up in Bellevue, and his wife was raised in Maltby, so the couple knew the area and were looking for a place to settle down and raise their children. A place in which they could invest their future.

Their kids came up through local schools, graduating from Woodinville High School. Thomas spent most of his career in advertising, working at Tonkin (which used to be in Woodinville), then at BDA, one of the largest branding/merchandising companies in the nation, headquartered in Woodinville. Eventually, he went out on his own as a consultant before deciding in 2008 to buy an existing business.

 “I said, 'Why don’t I take my own advice and go find a business that is underdeveloped and grow it?' which is what I was counseling other owners to do.”

Not wanting to stray too far from his expertise in advertising, branding and merchandising, Thomas ended buying Crossroads Sign & Graphics, in Bothell, which made mostly electric signs. Within a few months, he had rebranded the company to and moved it to Woodinville. By 2010, Thomas had doubled sales and added products, including channel letters, dimensional letters, neon and illuminated cabinets, as well as trade show displays, truck graphics, posters and banners.

“We can do outdoor signs, indoor signs, Internet signs, digital signs, any kind of sign for any kind of business,” Thomas says.

With both living in Woodinville and owning a business here, Thomas wants said he wants to see a future for Woodinville that is decided upon by people living and working here.

“What I find Woodinville is missing is a clear definition of what we are, and where we’re going,” he says. “And maybe, from a brand standpoint, why we’re different. And yeah, it’s easy to say wine, it’s easy to say music. It’s evolved over time.”

Thomas says that with his blog, he wants to start a dialogue. “The advantage of a news website is you can get a conversation started. My interest is, can we open up a dialogue and get the people who care the most to vocalize or to write [about] how they see the community, what they see the strengths are and where we’re going to be in 2020.”

Thomas is afraid that if the community itself doesn’t define Woodinville, others will ().

“I see what’s going on in Bothell and Redmond, and people are going to get blown away when Kirkland launches its final phase [of development] and they go up with those towers, and I don’t want Woodinville to become a way station.”

“That’s my concern,” he says. “Not that people from around the region won’t come here to sample wine and spirits, but there is more here than that.”

Thomas says that to him, Woodinville is the premiere place in the greater Seattle region to live, work or relax. “I think a lot of people don’t know about the agricultural business, No. 1. Two, you’ve got two or three, if not world-class, national-classed, companies based here,” he said. “There’s also an incubator element in Woodinville, where a lot of companies have started here and then outgrown it. That’s hard to find all of those elements in one town.”

“At the risk of sounding like a snob, nobody says, ‘Hey, Honey, let’s pack up the kids today and go to Renton or Bothell.’ Really, on the Eastside, no one thinks twice of saying, 'Let’s go to Woodinville for the day.’ We have some assets that we have not clearly defined and promoted in the best sense.”

To become a part of the conversation, check out Thomas’s first Dollars & Sense blog post here on Patch, Saturday at 6 a.m. 

If you're interested in blogging on Woodinville Patch, click here.