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Published on: 5/17/2005
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Ellis, John W. (b. 1928)
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John Ellis, former head of Bellevue-based Puget Sound Power and Light (now Puget Sound Energy), is best known for leading the effort to keep the Mariners in Seattle and build the team a new baseball stadium.He also played pivotal roles in converting the Bellevue Boys Club to a Boys and Girls Club, a precedent later adopted nationwide; establishing the Seattle-King County Economic Development Council, and creating a city park in downtown Bellevue.Known as a soft touch when it comes to serving on boards, commissions, and councils, Ellis at one time was involved with 16 separate organizations - none of which had anything to do with his primary job as the chief executive of a private power company.The Seattle-King County Association of Realtors named John Ellis as its First Citizen of 1987.
Ellis often credits his community leadership to the influence of his older brother, James R. Ellis.
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"Both of us were influenced by our parents," John Ellis says, "but if I had an example, it was my brother Jim" (Ellis interview).
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John W. Ellis was born in Seattle on September 14, 1928, the third son of Floyd and Hazel Ellis.
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John Ellis graduated from Franklin in 1946.He went on to the University of Washington, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1950 and graduating from the School of Law in 1953.
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"He is a Dave Grusin-like keyboard man, great at jazz and show tunes," says Seattle vocalist Patti Payne, who has performed with Ellis.
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After graduating from law school, Ellis joined the Seattle office of Holman, Mickelwait, Marion, Prince & Black (today, Perkins Coie - the largest law firm in the Northwest).He soon became the general counsel for what was then Puget Sound Power and Light Company, one of the firm's major clients.In 1970, he left the firm to become vice president of Puget Power.He was named president and CEO in 1976 and became chairman of the board in 1987.
Ellis held leadership positions in a number of national and regional utility organizations during his tenure with Puget Power.At various times he was chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, the national trade group for private utilities; the Electric Power Research Institute, the industry's research arm; and the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee, the planning body for Northwest electric utilities.He also participated in negotiations leading to the 1964 Columbia River Treaty with Canada, clearing the way for hydroelectric dams on the upper Columbia River.
Ellis also was deeply involved with Puget Power's unsuccessful effort to build a nuclear power plant in the 1970s and 1980s, a failure he still regrets."We were the fastest growing utility in the U.S. and we had to build a new generation of facilities," he says."We tried to build a new nuclear plant.We never got it built.The loss of that generating plant -- originally in Skagit, then at Hanford -- it had to be written off.It was heartbreaking" (Ellis interview).
Ellis retired from Puget Power in 1992.The company later merged with the Washington Energy Company (a Seattle distributor of natural gas) to become Puget Sound Energy.In 2004, the company gave Ellis its Pioneer Award for community leadership.The award was commemorated by a gas-flame lamp installed in the park that Ellis helped create in downtown Bellevue.According to Puget Energy president and CEO Steve Reynolds, Ellis was "a good sport" about being honored with natural gas, after all his years as head of an electric company.
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In January 1992, Ellis helped organize the Baseball Club of Seattle, with the goal of buying the Seattle Mariners from an out-of-town owner who had threatened to move the team to Tampa, Florida.Ellis used his business and civic connections to bring together a group of 15 investors from the Nintendo Company, Microsoft, and McCaw Cellular.When the sale was completed, that July, Ellis was named chairman and CEO of the Mariners.Although he himself owned less than 1 percent of the team, he became the public spokesman for the owners.He also served as the owners' representative at meetings with Major League Baseball.
Ellis says that his seven-year association with the Mariners, from 1992 until the end of the 1999 season, provided some of the brightest days of his life, as well as some of the darkest.In the early days, people would stop him on the street and thank him for "saving" the Mariners.But he soon became a focal point for hostility, after declaring that the team would not be economically viable in Seattle unless the concrete Kingdome was replaced with a retractable-roof baseball stadium.
On September 19, 1995, King County voters narrowly rejected a measure to finance the proposed stadium with a county sales tax.Ellis held a press conference to announce that the team was on the market.Although critics claimed that the press conference was merely a negotiating ploy, Ellis insists the threat was real."The darkest point was when we lost the election to build the stadium by one tenth of one percent," he says.
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When several council members continued to express concern about cost overruns, Ellis held another press conference and again threatened to sell the team."I hope I never had to go through anything remotely similar to that day -- the Mother of All Blackness," he said later.
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On behalf of the owners, Ellis pledged that the Mariners would pay all cost overruns without releasing high-profile players, gouging ticket holders, or seeking a bailout from taxpayers.
In May 1998, Ellis and Safeco both denied rumors about an agreement to sell naming rights to the stadium to Seattle-based Safeco Corporation.One month later, the Mariners announced that Safeco had bought the naming rights for $40 million.When it was completed in 1999, Safeco Field was the most expensive baseball stadium in the country, with a price tag of $517 million.
On June 22, 1999 -- three weeks before the Mariners played their first game in their new home -- Ellis and fellow owner Howard Lincoln, chairman of Nintendo of America, filed a claim against the public agency in charge of building the stadium, saying it was legally obligated to pay for nearly $100 million in cost overruns.
As the team's spokesman, Ellis took the heat for this move.One newspaper columnist called him "a mean-spirited bully" (McGrath, The News Tribune).Another said his "unapologetically confrontational style, coupled with his insincere emotional manipulations, cooked his credibility in this town" (Thiel, Seattle Post-Intelligencer).Yet another described Ellis and Lincoln as "shameless front men for the despicable frauds who own the Mariners" (The Spokesman-Review).
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When the season ended that year, Ellis retired as chairman and CEO of the Mariners.He was able to enjoy one more bright moment as a result of his association with the team, however.In 2001, Seattle hosted Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, the result of secret negotiations between Ellis and baseball commissioner Bud Selig in 1995.
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After leaving the Mariners, Ellis returned to Perkins Coie as senior counsel in the firm's Bellevue office.He remained involved with Major League Baseball as a member of the powerful Executive Council, and as chairman of its Finance, Budget and Compensation Committee.
Although his public profile has been shaped largely by his involvement with the Mariners, Ellis has been equally passionate about education and recreation.He has served as chairman of the board of regents for both Washington State University and Seattle University.He also led the effort to acquire and develop what is now the Bellevue Downtown Park, carved from property once owned by the school district.The city had the money to buy the property from the school district but not to develop it.Ellis used his considerable powers of persuasion to raise the private funds needed for the park, now a two-block oasis right in the middle of Bellevue.
Ellis and his wife, Doris, have raised four children: sons Thomas R., John R., and James F. Ellis; and daughter, Barbara Ellis Hopper.
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