Dylan Reubenking / For The Nisqually Valley News
About 10 years ago, Wayne Fournier, Michael Cade and Aslan Meade had nothing but a napkin and a dream.
The trio met at the Sandstone Cafe & Quarry Bar in Tenino and discussed the future of the city over breakfast. Together, they concocted an idea on the back of a napkin that they hoped would reshape Tenino’s economic development.
A decade later, it all officially came to fruition.
Hundreds of community members flocked to the Stone City for the grand opening of the Tenino Agriculture Innovation Park Wednesday afternoon just over a mile from where the idea was born.
The day started at the Stone City Event Center with a number of speeches from stakeholders, including Fournier, the Tenino mayor-turned-Thurston County commissioner; Cade, executive director of the Thurston Economic Development Council (EDC); and Meade, the park project manager and director of strategic alliances of the Thurston EDC. Visitors then headed to the front yard of the campus to witness the unveiling of a stone sign created by Tenino Stone Carver Dan Miller.
Finally, groups enjoyed food from Simply Organic, a cafe and catering business located in the north building that opened in January. The south building, which will soon house Colvin Ranch Provisions and HotBabe HotSauce, is nearing completion, but visitors were able to take a tour of the progress of the building.
The Agriculture Innovation Park, located at 16404 Old Highway 99 SE, will also house Dragonwheel Investments Group, Gondola Ventures and the Thurston EDC Center of Business and Innovation. Tenino-based Diversified Coatings, led by Eric Blue and Ryan Haney, provided the painting for the buildings.
Cade opened up the grand opening by acknowledging the partnership between all of the involved parties to make the dream a reality. He added that the project is still in phase one and that more is to come.
“There’s a partnership that builds communities. We truly believe that economic development and community development is a team sport. We don’t do anything without partners,” he said. “We don’t do anything without the notion that we want to make better the environment that you all operate and live in.”
Tenino Mayor Dave Watterson, who was elected in 2023 and took office in early 2024, said the ability to have such a facility in a small community of 2,000 people is “incredible.” He described the Ag Park as an “incubator for bigger things in the future.”
“It’s been an amazing experience working with all of the people that have had a part in getting this done, like the federal government, the state, and the county,” he said. “There is one group that I want to call out that doesn’t get a lot of notoriety, and that’s our city staff. Behind the scenes, our police department, our public works department and our office staff all have been working very hard to make all this happen.”
Fournier, who served as mayor when the infamous Sandstone Cafe breakfast took place, read a prepared speech that highlighted the importance of cutting the ribbon not just on a building, “but on a future we’ve long imagined, planned for and fought to bring to life.” He admitted he “didn’t know the first thing” about economic development in the early days of his elected office tenure but he fought to build Tenino’s voice and give the city a seat at the county, state and federal tables.
“(It was) an idea born out of necessity, shaped by hope and grounded in the belief that in rural communities, we don’t wait for someone to come save us. We build our own future right here,” he said. “There was no road map given to me, no instruction manual. No one handed me a plan or shared vision. I had to fight to create one. I had to fight to get people to believe we even deserved a future here.”
Fournier said the prairies off of Old Highway 99 were previously set to be bulldozed for strip malls and rows of identical houses. But, as he described, the housing bubble burst and a Mazama pocket gopher poked its head out of a hole nearby, throwing the plan into question.
“With that disruption, I saw opportunity. I didn’t run for office to block progress. I ran because I believed in a different vision for progress, one that respected our identity, our land and our people,” Fournier said.
Stakeholders described the Ag Park as a long-term commitment to rural prosperity and food security, helping local businesses and farmers expedite their operations. Namely, Colvin Ranch intends to open a meat processing facility at the park in the future that will save the ranch from sending its animals to Moses Lake for meat processing.
Some of the state and federal champions of the Ag Park attended the grand opening event and spoke on stage, including Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama; U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania; and former Rep. J.T. Wilcox. Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, also received a shoutout from Fournier who told the story of how he chased down Braun in an elevator and quickly pitched him the idea and received a check for $600,000.
Gluesenkamp Perez, whose distant relative was the wife of Andrew Wilson, one of Tenino’s first stonecutters, praised Tenino and southwest Washington as a whole for its self-sufficiency and commitment to agriculture.
“It’s been so much fun to fight for this project and to talk about the reality of what it means to not have meat processing,” she said. “It’s truly a challenging time for farms. We are importing 40% of the fresh fruits and vegetables we consume in this nation. That should make everybody go weak in the knees. This is the root of national health and national strength.”
Meade was the final speaker in the lineup, and he became emotional as he thanked the partners and politicians who helped the project cross the finish line and have given it a strong foundation to build upon.
“If I only say one word, it’s gratitude. It takes so many people to get here, so I am grateful for all of you who showed up here today to celebrate,” he said.
