Ben Winkelman: From Grisdale roots to Mayor of Hometown Hoquiam

The closure of Camp Grisdale in 1985 had far-reaching effects on the timber industry, the economy of Grays Harbor County, and a second-grader who would become Mayor of Hoquiam.

Ben Winkelman, a 12-year member of the Hoquiam City Council, defeated incumbent one-term Mayor Jasmine Dickhoff in the 2019 general election.

Winkelman said his dad, Mario Winkelman, who emigrated from Holland, “liked the trees, woods, the environment,” and came to Camp Grisdale when he was in his late teens. Ben loved his childhood in the tight-knit logging community, about 30 miles up the Wynoochee Valley north of Montesano, where his parents and three siblings lived right up to the camp’s final days.

“To me, living in that environment, I don’t think I could have asked for better at that age,” he said. The communal TV set, the old crank phone, the feeling of being part of a community where everybody had your back, it was difficult to leave for all the remaining residents, including a 12-year-old Ben Winkelman.

“When we moved to Montesano I have to say I hated it. I thought it was too big,” he said. The traffic confounded him. He was taught to never cross the street if he could see a vehicle coming in either direction. As a result, it would take him an hour to walk a reasonably short distance to Beacon Elementary. So many cars.

One day he was fed up enough to hop on his bike and start pedaling up the Wynoochee Valley Road toward the home he missed. Mario had to come pick him up. Ben couldn’t stand the water in Montesano. Mario would get water from Anderson Creek to help his son transition.

It was a third grade teacher, Gerry Furnia, who eventually coaxed him out of his shell, Winkelman said.

“When I did that I got into everything I could,” he said. “I joined every club, played a lot of soccer, ran track, and had a paper route.” His Daily World route spawned another gig, mowing lawns, with a client list that grew to more than 20. He held office in the Montesano ASB.

“They all called me Mr. Montesano,” he said. “I became a real social person.”

He lived at home in Montesano after high school, working at the Brady Veterinary Hospital with aspirations of becoming a veterinarian. He met his wife, Jennifer Jump, while attending Grays Harbor College. He then went to Washington State University, with its premier veterinary school.

Then, one day, he had an inkling that isn’t terribly uncommon among young college students. What might be uncommon is where that inkling struck him.

“I was in the cattle insemination lab and it just hit me: I really don’t want to do this,” he said, not of the project he was working on at that moment, but his longtime career choice. “All this time and work at the vet clinic and I’m not going to do this?”

He switched his major to psychology, getting his bachelor’s degree. He worked, as a bouncer at a bar in Pullman, as a coordinator for a van program that got disabled students to class and as a rape crisis response counselor for the Whitman County Health Department.

Winkelman was in the process of buying a home and was sued on a simple contract to purchase that home. He had his prepaid legal service, called them for advice, and represented himself. And won. He took his LSATs and, while never part of his plan before, set out for law school. He interned for Omar Parker, Arlis Johnson and Omar’s son, Jon Parker, in Hoquiam during his three years in law school, and was hired on after. That’s where Winkelman remains, at the now Parker, Winkelman and Parker law firm.

Ben and his wife had always planned on returning to the area after school, but Ben admits at the time he said, “So long as it’s not Aberdeen or Hoquiam. It’s too big to get to know everybody.” He quickly found that was not the case in Hoquiam.

The Winkelman family still resided in the area. Jennifer was one of seven kids in the Jump family – her dad Roger was mayor of Hoquiam and also owned Casa Mia, and a lot of her family worked for, and still works for, the Hoquiam School District.

Ben Winkelman found the small town vibe he loved so much at Camp Grisdale alive and well years later in Hoquiam.

He got involved with the Hoquiam Development Association and stuck with them for 10-12 years, then with the Hoquiam Business Association that grew from it. He got on the board of Newrizons Credit Union. He said he believes the combination of his law school education and his long work history has given him a “well-rounded approach to most problems.”

Ben’s first attempt at the council, a few years before his eventual election, ended in a loss to Mike Lund. He ran again and has been on the Hoquiam City Council for 12 years.

It wasn’t long after he was elected, he was told he should run for mayor. Even with “a lot of people encouraging me to run, for a long time I said no.” He was spread thin with his job as an attorney, a growing family and equally growing business investments around the community.

This past year was different. He gathered his wife and his three daughters, ages 15, 13 and 8, and wanted to get the family’s input.

“I got three different opinions” from his kids, he said, but all agreed that it was a good idea, and all understood it came with added responsibility and pressure on all of them. He expects his children to contribute to the community, something they have done and will continue to do, he said.

Soccer is a major passion for Ben Winkelman. He’d watched his kids play and really wanted to coach, and when the opportunity arose he jumped at it. He coached hard. He recalls a night on a swampy practice field, holding flashlights so the team could see, wondering, “am I being too hard on them?”

That first season, the team went into the last game not having won a single game. In fact, they hadn’t scored a single goal. Before that final game, he wondered, are any of these girls coming back to play for me next season?

“We played a team that hadn’t won a game all season, and we got one goal,” he said. The team was ecstatic. They gave him a water cooler shower. “They all came back and joined up again the next season.”

They won a game that second season. The girls on that team responded, and other kids wanted to join the team. In December, assistant coach Winkelman helped lead the under 16 girls soccer team Crushers, which includes his two eldest daughters, to a Washington State Youth Soccer Recreation Cup finals victory.

He said what he’s learned from coaching can be applied to business and many other aspects of life.

“You don’t always get to pick your players, but you get to know your players, their strengths, weaknesses, if you do that you can help lead them to find success as a team.”

He’s going to apply that early in his first term as mayor.

“I literally want to get to see every single employee as soon as I can, get to know them a little on a personal level,” he said. He expects the meetings to be personal and informal. “The faster I get to know them all the better we’ll be as a team.”

He plans to be accessible too. Frequent informal meet-and-greets, where a person can sit down and chat with the mayor outside of the structure of a City Council meeting.

It’s likely he’ll hold some of these at the Jitter House, a frequent stop of his just a few blocks from his law offices on the banks of the Hoquiam River. There, on a wall as you enter the coffee shop, hangs a picture of a man in a hickory shirt, his face hidden by a tin hat as he looks at a baby cradled in his left arm.

That baby is Ben’s youngest brother, Bryce. The man in the photo is their father, Mario Winkelman, taken by a Seattle Times photographer, as part of a 1985 feature on the last days of Camp Grisdale.