After 21 years of service, Rocky Reach Discovery Center outreach director retires

WENATCHEE — Bob Bauer calls it “the Disneyland of North Central Washington.” It is a wonder of engineering, of concrete and steel harnessing the Columbia River, and it’s the reason the air conditioning is working in your house as you read this.

Rocky Reach Dam is more than just a workhorse for electricity in the region. It’s become a rite of passage for locals and a place for visitors to come see the awesome wonder of what’s possible with the right combination of brainpower, persistence, and a desire to serve the community.

Bauer himself will tell you that the Columbia has been serving the people that live along it since there were people in the area: As a primary food source with fishing, as a method of transport and travel, as a place to recreate and relax and now, as the source of our hydroelectric power, as the reason that this region enjoys the lowest energy prices in the nation.

If that sounds a little like he’s preaching the gospel of the river, it could be because he has a little practice at that. Bauer is also the minister at Cashmere Baptist Church, a small, family-oriented community church of the sort that still holds potlucks.

At Rocky Reach Dam, however, the psalms are all about the river, the engineering, and the mighty power of the earth to produce the fuel of our daily lives. Fire and brimstone don’t survive long submerged in the icy waters of the Columbia River.

But Bob Bauer definitely has a congregation here. The other employees love him and visiting kids call him Spongebob; he may not live in a pineapple under the sea, but so much of the tour occurs below water level that kids are bound to make the comparison, not that it’s the only one: “They got Bob the Builder, Big Bob, Little Bob, Tall Bob, Short Bob, Nice Bob, Mean Bob, Happy Bob, Sad Bob, Bobbing For Apples, Bobby Pin,” he says, “but they always go ‘Spongebob’ at Safeway. I go there and there’s an 18-year-old and they say ‘I remember you from the fourth grade!’ and that’s cool.”

At three letters in the acronym for it, the Chelan County Public Utility District (PUD) seems like it offers three reasons for Bauer to love his job. Asked which one it is for him — does he most enjoy serving the Public, is it the engineering of the Utility, or is it the beauty and charm of the District — he answers with all of the grace he’s had during the tour.

“It’s the thematic reality that the PUD is not a business in the community, it’s a partner with the community. And in partnering with the community, we are literally owned by our rate payers. They live in districts. They elect commissioners to let us know what they want,” he says. “So you find yourself in an organization in the community that’s not a business trying to make money, has no profit motive, and so you do things that have so much meaning in people’s lives. You turn on a light bulb, that’s cool — but as you’re turning light bulbs on, you’re not emitting CO2 [carbon dioxide] and poisoning the atmosphere. You’re harnessing the energy of the river. But you’re [also] spending millions of dollars to respect and honor the river, by moving fish.”

Bauer isn’t quite done evangelizing yet. “And then you’re building parks that people can play in, and you’re working on an Apple Capital Loop Trail that people can ride their bikes on and push their babies in strollers. And then you branch off into things like fiber, and then you’ve got water/wastewater… It’s such a community place.”

So what is it about his job that’s been so special? It’s an easy answer for Bauer. “I work in one department that is one part of that puzzle of the organization, and that’s the Discovery Center. There’s no better place to work, and here’s the reason: This Discovery Center, in my mind, is the window to the soul of the PUD. You don’t come here because you can’t afford to pay your bill, it’s not a bad interaction; you come here because you want to enjoy it. This place brings in 65 to 75 thousand unique visitors a year, 5,000 of which are ‘organic’ — they just show up. The others are school field trips, summer science camps, Salmon Festival, you go down that list, it becomes a meeting place for the community.”

One thing he said, though, speaks volumes about why he’s been so dedicated for more than two decades to fostering the educational and benevolent sensibility of the PUD and the Discovery Center specifically:

“Imagine 1,600 fourth-graders out here building their own dams, little lightbulbs turning on in their heads. The most important lightbulbs of all.”

Bob Bauer has been making converts to the gospel of the Columbia River twice as long as those fourth-graders have been alive, and he’s just as excited today as he was the day he started this job.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media