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State leaders' trade trips more fashionable in 2009

• Published June 26, 2009

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Lt. Gov. Brad Owen is headed off Saturday for China on a private-paid trade trip that ends July 5. It's his eighth jaunt to China since taking office in 1996, aides say.

Secretary of State Sam Reed also went on a mission to China earlier this year, and he's laying plans for another to India in September, his eighth since 2001. That trip is not a certainty yet.

Gov. Chris Gregoire is sticking close to home, believing it is the wrong time to spend taxpayer money on a trip, aides said Friday.

"It is very important, especially in these lean economic times, to strengthen our international relationships and find new ways to stimulate trade," Owen, a Democrat in his fourth term, said in a news release that was posted to his travel blog today. “These missions help keep Washington state visible with our top trading partners.’’

Owen’s blog is called “Overseas With Lt. Gov. Brad Owen,” and his first entry talks about checking health alerts so he can avoid being quarantined like New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was in Shanghai after a fellow air passenger came down with swine flu earlier in the month.

Two sponsors that approached Owen for the trip are paying all costs for Owen and his chief of staff Juliette Schindler Kelly, according to Kelly. She plans to add items to Owen’s blog. The sponsors are Seattle Pacific Trading LLC, an imports firm, and American Life Inc., a real estate investment and development firm in Seattle.

Seattle businessman Ron Chow is coordinating the trip, and Chow organized Reed's trip a month ago to China, too, Reed spokesman David Ammons said.

Owen has made at least 17 official foreign trips. This trip runs through July 5 and will take him to "visit with school children and sign an agreement to promote business and friendship exchanges between his office and Hainan Province in Southern China," according to his announcement.

Owen meets in Beijing with Ambassador Ding Yuanhong then travels to Quingdao, a coastal city, to witness the signing of an economic agreement between a U.S. investment group and local investment agents, his announcement says. He also is going to the city of Haikou in Hainan Province, meeting the vice governor and to sign an agreement "to promote people-to–people contacts and economic and trade interflow."

Gregoire has made five trade trips overseas but none since going to Mexico in September 2007.

"There is nothing booked right now," Gregoire spokeswoman Laura Lockard said, adding that they've looked at invitations, including one to China, that Gregoire decided not to accept. "She is pretty emphatic right now it is not the right time to do a lot of traveling … overseas."

Gregoire did go on a trade trip earlier this month to Washington, D.C., with state Agriculture Department director Dan Newhouse to talk to Obama administration people about Washington’s exports. "A lot of folks thought that was just as successful as taking the same folks abroad," Lockard said.

Gregoire declined another invitation to the Paris Air Show. "It wasn’t possible to do that now and spend the money at this time," Lockard said.

Reed and Owen let foreign or private interests pay much of the costs of their travel, but the Governor's Office in several administrations has paid for trade-related costs. An Olympian story last year determined the taxpayer costs for Gregoire's trips, including other state officials' costs in the entourage, was about $352,450. Incomplete data for Owen's trips showed costs of about $22,791 for most of his trips; Reed's costs were $5,494.

A story based on this post likely will run in the Saturday morning print edition.