About Rich
I have had three careers.
All of them were
about the same thing.
Showing up when you said you would, telling people the truth, and not leaving anybody behind in a stressful moment.
I was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and grew up around the mainland: New Westminster, Surrey, and up through Squamish and Whistler. At seventeen I joined the Canadian Armed Forces. Three years with the Canadian Scottish Infantry, four with the 5th Field Artillery, and I left seven years later as a Master Bombardier. At thirteen I had already been to Scotland once with the Canadian Scottish Cadets, which is probably why it is still the trip Kathy and I most want to take.
I started driving truck at nineteen. In Canada that meant Neptune Foods, Robyn's Trucking, Sysco Canada and long-haul work with Aggressive Trucking. From the middle of 2004 my routes were here: Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom and Island counties, and over the passes into eastern Washington. FSA, Sysco, FedEx Freight, Peninsula Freight. My last eight years behind the wheel were as a Heavy Duty driver for Snohomish County Solid Waste.
That is where the local knowledge on this website came from. Not a farm tour or a relocation packet. Two decades of turning a loaded truck around on roads that were not built for it, in every kind of weather this county produces, learning which driveways flood, which bridges are posted, which back roads actually connect and which ones just look like they do on a map.
Arlington, and the fire department
I moved to Arlington on December 28, 2003, and married Kathy about a month later. She is the CFO at Coast Construction Group here in town. I became a stepdad to her two sons, Brandon and Justin, and our daughter Mackenzie came along a few years after that. I became a United States citizen on September 30, 2009, which happened to be Mackenzie's first birthday. I am still proud of where I am from, and I have not lived anywhere else since.
For almost eight years I was a firefighter and EMT with the Arlington Fire Department. Nothing else I have done comes as close to real estate as that did, and I know how strange that sounds. But both jobs are the same shape: somebody calls you on the worst or the biggest day of their year, you arrive, and the first thing you owe them is a calm voice and an honest assessment of what is actually happening.
Why the change
When the driving career came to an end, Kathy's boss was the one who suggested real estate. I got my Washington broker license in August 2025 and joined Windermere Real Estate in Arlington.
I will not pretend to be a twenty-year agent. I have six closed sales and a handful of active listings, and every one of them is on the portfolio page with the real numbers attached. What I will claim is a working life spent doing exactly what this job asks for, and a county I know at street level.
Outside of work
I have played hockey since I was four. I captained and founded Cascade Hockey teams, and I coached with Everett Youth Hockey, the Washington Wild and Seattle Junior Hockey. I last played in December 2019. These days my favorite player to watch is my daughter.
Kathy and I want to get to Scotland, Ireland, England and Belgium together. That is the list. Schedule freedom to actually do it was one of the reasons this career appealed to me in the first place.
Where I work and what I know
Snohomish County,
at street level.
The map
All of Snohomish County, from Stanwood and Darrington down to Lynnwood and Mill Creek, with Arlington, Smokey Point, Lakewood, Arlington Heights and Sisco Heights as home ground. I also work Skagit County, and my license covers all of Washington State.
The kind of thing
Acreage and land, family homes in the $500,000 to $1,000,000 range, small multifamily, hobby farms, multi-generational and family compound setups, and manufactured homes on their own land.
Who I work with
First-time buyers, long-time owners deciding whether to sell, veterans and military families, and investors looking at distressed property. One of my closings was a couple buying their first home.
The easiest way to find out if we work well together
Ask me something hard.
What is my house actually worth. Should I fix the deck or drop the price. Is this the wrong year to sell. Is that well going to be a problem. You will get a real answer, and no follow-up campaign if the answer is not the one you wanted.
Master Bombardier
Firefighter and EMT
#25023275
New listings
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