This past summer, I traveled nearly 3,000 miles from Aberdeen to Washington, D.C., to testify in front of the House Natural Resources Committee in support of the “Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.” Re-introduced this year by Senator Patty Murray and Representative Derek Kilmer, the legislation would protect more than 126,500 acres of Olympic National Forest as wilderness and 19 rivers and their major tributaries, a total of 464 river miles, as Wild and Scenic Rivers.

With the legislation having passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee recently, I could not be more thrilled.

Growing up in Pacific County in the 1950s and early 1960s, I knew my future career would be in the timber industry. The son and grandson of Pacific County loggers, hunters and fishermen, I couldn’t imagine working indoors. I was offered one of the (then) abundant and comparatively well-paid jobs in the timber industry after I finished studying forest engineering in college and afterward got my master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry. The forest industry work allowed me to continue to enjoy the forests and streams where I had hiked, camped, hunted and fished when I was a youngster.

One of my first jobs after my graduate work was with ITT Rayonier. I developed the company’s Northwest forest business plan and then managed Rayonier’s timberlands operations in Forks. After working in Forks, I accepted more responsible jobs, first in the South and then in the Northeast.

The jobs were challenging and financially-rewarding but my family and I missed the rest of our family and friends and the forests and mountains back home. So, in 1993, we returned to the Pacific Northwest with a much greater appreciation for the Olympic Peninsula’s remaining virgin forests and salmon streams. Those forests are not just a draw for tourists but also a draw for forest-lovers like me and my family. That renewed appreciation also prompted me to be an early advocate for new Wild Olympics legislation.

My own experience as both a CEO and an entrepreneur has led me to believe that our area’s natural treasures — which provide world-class outdoor recreation, clean water, and our area’s high quality of living — are our region’s new competitive advantages as we attempt to attract and retain the talented people that today’s more sophisticated, environmentally-friendly and less timber-dependent forest products companies require.

For example, I am currently helping a new company renovate an old paper mill and establish a new, 100% waste paper-based paper mill on the Olympic Peninsula. The company has already hired over 100 people in Port Angeles and they plan to start up in 2020. The manufacturing jobs multiplier effect should be an economic boon to the community. Wilderness and wild and scenic river protections help companies like this, and the products and services companies that they will also depend upon, attract and retain the distinctively-competent human resources that they require.

As a former timber industry executive, I also appreciate the fact that Representative Derek Kilmer and Senator Patty Murray’s final compromise proposal was scaled-back to ensure that it would not detrimentally impact our remaining jobs with our remaining, traditional forest products businesses.

Wild Olympics would protect and promote the same spectacular public lands and high quality of life that are also helping to drive growth and create local jobs in real estate, tech, health care, construction, and many other sectors of our economy today. Our ancient forests, salmon, rivers and stunning scenery are the North Olympic Peninsula’s new comparative economic advantage over other regions. In fact, every few years or so, the nonpartisan Headwaters Economics releases their new “West is Best” study. They consistently show what we are now seeing on the Olympic Peninsula. Protected public lands in the West create comparative economic advantages for rural communities.

This is likely why this Wild Olympics legislation has now been endorsed by nearly 550 local Olympic Peninsula and Hood Canal region businesses. And it is why I have been a stalwart supporter of the Wild Olympics Campaign from the start.

I want to thank Representative Kilmer and Senator Murray for their far-sightedness and leadership. I am confident that they will stand by their constituents and continue to move this bill through Congress until it becomes the law of the land.

Roy Nott, a former timber industry CEO, continues to work as a forest products industry consultant. He lives in Aberdeen.