When Bob Davidson visited the Seattle Aquarium 22 years ago as newly appointed CEO, he brought his three college and high school-age sons along to tour the facility. Little had changed or been invested in the city-run Aquarium over the past decades, and it showed. Aging exhibits and informational signs did little to inspire or excite Davidson or his boys.

“Well Pops, you have your work cut out for you,” Davidson recalls one of his sons commenting.

Last fall, more than two decades after Davidson began to dream about what the Aquarium could become, it was his granddaughters who were on hand to explore and delight in the brand-new Ocean Pavilion. The dramatic new building features a massive shark and ray tank, a mangrove forest, stunning views of Elliott Bay, and a rooftop pavilion and Overlook Walk that connect the Seattle Waterfront to Pike Place Market for the first time in the city’s history.

Davidson watched his granddaughters run in circles around projected images of a coral sea, as if they were swimming with the tropical fish. Their joy, and the excitement surrounding the new Aquarium and Seattle Waterfront, will be what Davidson walks away from as he ends his 22-year Seattle Aquarium career. Davidson plans to retire next June from his long-held position as Aquarium CEO. He waited to step down from his post until he’d seen the completion of the $160 million Ocean Pavilion, which highlights sea life in the biodiverse Indo-Pacific Coral Triangle and educates guests on how we must work together to protect the world’s oceans.

Davidson’s Aquarium tenure is marked by significant expansion and improvement of the Aquarium’s buildings, the ongoing transformation of the Seattle waterfront, and the growing reputation of the Seattle Aquarium as a global leader in ocean conservation.

“I saw the opportunity,” Davidson says. “Where else in the world should there be a thriving aquarium than Seattle?”

During Davidson’s two-plus decades at the Aquarium, he helped negotiate management transfer of the Aquarium from the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation to the nonprofit Seattle Aquarium Society. The structural shift enabled the Aquarium to form a more powerful board and raise money to transform the facility. Now that the Ocean Pavilion construction is complete, the Aquarium will work to renovate two older Aquarium buildings on Piers 59 and 60.

Aside from the obvious physical changes to the Aquarium, the organization’s reputation and mission evolved significantly during Davidson’s time. Once overlooked by environmentalists, the Seattle Aquarium is now seen as a global leader in protecting the world’s oceans.

In addition to building the Aquarium into a conservation leader, Davidson will be remembered for his part in transforming the Seattle Waterfront. When Davidson joined the Aquarium in 2002, he became a key voice in the drive to take down the Viaduct and re-invent the Seattle Waterfront. Thanks to the 2001 Nisqually earthquake that damaged the Viaduct, discussion was already underway about whether to replace or get rid of the highway. Davidson recalled meeting someone for an outdoor lunch of fish and chips on one of his first days at the new job.

“I couldn’t hear anything that was being said to me because of the noise of the highway,” Davidson says. “Seattle walled itself off from the water.”

With the new Seattle Waterfront, the Aquarium should be positioned to capture a larger audience than ever before. The city has
Davidson to thank for both.