He’s a former navy spy, author, historian, sailor and not too long ago a sought-after maker of hand-built ukuleles.
Brian Griffin is probably not rivaling Dos Equis’s “Most Attention-grabbing Man within the World,” however the 88-year-old Bellingham resident is a robust contender to be maybe probably the most fascinating man in Whatcom County. In 2009, the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce named him the recipient of their annual Man of the 12 months award.
Along with being an almost lifelong resident of his hometown, Griffin was accountable for creating a few of Bellingham’s hottest outside areas, equivalent to Boulevard Park, Fairhaven Village Inexperienced, and Depot Market Sq..
“It is a good place to reside,” he says of Bellingham. “It has modified from an industrial and working-class metropolis to a way more subtle metropolis the place there may be much more to take pleasure in.”
On street
Griffin was born in 1932 in outdated St. Joseph Hospital and attended kindergarten via ninth grade at Campus College, a trainer coaching college at what’s now Western Washington College.
An outdated financial institution commercial from Griffin, a former native insurance coverage dealer, sits in his basement subsequent to ukulele constructing provides. Picture credit score: Matt Benoit
In 1950 he graduated from Bellingham Excessive College, the place he served as president of its pupil physique, after which attended Whitman School in Walla Walla for the following 4 years. There he met his spouse Marya, with whom he has been married for nearly 65 years. Griffin graduated with a level in English literature and anticipated to be drafted into the military shortly after the top of the Korean Warfare.
Griffin selected to enlist and was despatched to Baltimore, Maryland for navy counterintelligence coaching after which despatched to a discipline workplace in Incheon, South Korea, the place he was stationed for the following 18 months. There Griffin was a particular agent from Counterintelligence Corp who labored with a staff of 5 informants to collect info on the South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee, the nation’s first president.
“Our rank has been categorized,” he says. “We wore little brass USs on our collars. Everybody thought we had been officers, however we actually weren’t. “
When he returned to the US in 1956, Griffin mentioned he was overwhelmed by the tradition shock of re-entering the on a regular basis prosperity of his homeland.
“I spotted how fortunate I used to be to be an American and to reside on this nation,” he says. “I nonetheless bear in mind going to the primary grocery retailer in America that I had seen in 18 months and noticed the … unbelievable vary of merchandise I may purchase.”
Look carefully and you’ll spot Brian Griffin, taking part in a ukulele in fact, in Lanny Little’s Fairhaven Village Inexperienced mural. Picture courtesy Brian Griffin
After the navy, Griffin joined his father’s insurance coverage company as a dealer and labored within the insurance coverage business for the following 35 years. He additionally helped discovered The Youngsters’s Firm, a youngsters’s toy retailer, and Knox Cellars Native Bee Pollinators.
Griffin additionally raised a household and raised two daughters together with his spouse. Each reside outdoors of Whatcom County however in western Washington. Griffin and his spouse even have six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Over the a long time, Griffin says, he noticed Bellingham remodel from a employee pulp mill right into a culturally various metropolis with loads of leisure alternatives. And through that point he discovered a method to personally make this metropolis a greater place.
Within the Nineteen Seventies, Griffin led efforts to construct the massive parking storage in downtown Bellingham on Industrial Road. As a previous president of the Downtown Growth Affiliation, Griffin additionally oversaw native downtown streets enchancment tasks, together with planting bushes alongside sidewalks.
He additionally labored with the Bellingham Rotary Membership to create Boulevard Park, which opened in 1980. Within the late Nineteen Nineties, Griffin spearheaded a fundraiser that resulted within the creation of Fairhaven Village Inexperienced, which was accomplished round 2003, together with Rick Wright and the Metropolis of Bellingham, to make use of 1,000,000 greenback improvement grant to construct the Depot alongside Market Sq. Construct Railroad Avenue.
Griffin says he is happy with each enchancment he is made, however he is particularly happy that Fairhaven Village Inexperienced and Depot Market Sq. have develop into group hangouts.
“That was actually our purpose at first – to create group,” he says. “They’re locations the place folks can come collectively and chill out.”
this and that
Griffin’s passions are evident within the basement of the South Hill home he shares together with his spouse, not removed from his birthplace.
Griffin says it takes about 50 hours to construct every ukulele, which is hand made in six weeks. Picture credit score: Matt Benoit
References to native historical past adorn the partitions of his ukulele-making workshop: a big image of JJ Donovan – whom Griffin calls a very powerful man in Bellingham’s historical past – overlooks the world during which he works day-after-day, not removed from an adjoining three steel plaques that time to a number of historic Bellingham Level out buildings.
His research within the basement accommodates a uncommon unique lithograph from the Fairhaven Lodge, and his workplace partitions are adorned with native decorations and footage of sails. There’s additionally a lamp with a base that resembles a large champagne bottle.
As a author, Griffin has written or co-written eight books, 5 of them on native historical past. He additionally narrates the favored Sundown Historical past Cruise hosted by the Whatcom Museum.
Griffin says his love of historical past might have began with the tales of his maternal grandfather, who died on the age of 100 when Griffin was in faculty. His grandfather got here to Seattle as the primary Washington Territory cigar maker in 1885 and survived the Nice Seattle Hearth of 1889.
“Letters From Fairhaven” was printed in 209 and is one in every of a number of books Griffin wrote and co-authored. Picture credit score: Stacee Sledge
“I’ve all the time been fascinated by how issues occur in a metropolis and why they occur, how cities are constructed and who constructed them,” says Griffin. “For me, historical past is a matter in fact.”
Griffin has sailed the water at residence and overseas for greater than 30 years. For 14 years he and his spouse, together with a number of different {couples}, owned a 70-foot European barge; They exchanged two-week cruises throughout the Mediterranean and lots of of Europe’s largest rivers yearly.
Within the late Nineteen Nineties, Griffin and a crew of greater than 5 different males sailed throughout the Atlantic on a 50-foot sailboat. Nearer to residence, Griffin loved driving and driving a private sailboat on Bellingham Bay.
It’s now ukuleles – these four-string, guitar-like devices generally related to Hawaii – that occupy a big a part of Griffin’s time. About 12 years in the past, Griffin grew to become concerned with ukuleles with no prior musical coaching and commenced taking part in and constructing them. He insists that he’s higher on the latter than the previous.
“It is small, it is sensible, it is useful,” he says of the instrument. “It is fairly straightforward to be taught to play. And it is a very socializing instrument. Massive teams of individuals not simply in Bellingham however in each group I do know come collectively to play the ukulele. It appears to be a pleasant instrument that brings folks collectively. “
A menagerie of devices hangs above the primary work desk of Brian Griffin’s ukulele workshop. Griffin has constructed greater than 150 customized ukuleles for patrons around the globe because it was based 12 years in the past. Picture credit score: Matt Benoit
Griffin Ukuleles has now constructed 158 ukuleles for patrons around the globe, together with Australia, England, Denmark, France and Spain. Every instrument lasts round 50 hours, unfold over six weeks, and prices round $ 1,400. An apprentice not too long ago got here to Griffin to assist with building they usually stay busy with greater than a dozen assignments to finish this yr.
Though Griffin will quickly be 89 years outdated, he would not appear concerned with slowing down. As somebody who has seen a lot change – each in Bellingham and in life – he’s all the time to see what comes subsequent.
“I’ve actually been blessed in life,” he says. “My life is full and I hope it is going to go on for a very long time.”
