20 BRAND STORY PRODUCED BY THE OREGON BUSINESS MARKETING DEPARTMENT BY JON BELL Back in early July, Kent Craford was driving north out of Portland on I-5 when he caught a glimpse of something that, in a way, only reinforced the case for his latest business endeavor: a miles-long traffic jam. Over in the southbound direction, crews had closed a lane — mid day — so they could trim the cottonwood trees that line the highway. The resultant backup snarled traffic into a near standstill that stretched for miles between Woodland and Kalama. “I mean, it’s just ludicrous,” says Craford, CEO of SeaPort Airlines, a reborn commuter airline offering daily flights between Portland and Seattle. “Those poor people. Some of them were coming from Seattle to Portland for business or vice versa, and they just added an hour or two to their trip, totally unplanned and unpredictable.” Fast-forward a week or two, and Craford was kicked back in one of the nine cush seats of a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplane, soaring past the snowy peaks of St. Helens, Adams and Rainier. The plane had taken off from the Atlantic Aviation terminal at Portland International Airport promptly at 9:26 a.m. It touched down not at the bustling Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but at the library-quiet King County International Airport four miles south of downtown Seattle 41 minutes later. Craford, a former lobbyist and political campaign director, took a meeting or two, extended an interview over lunch nearby, then hopped on a southbound PC-12 and was back on the ground in Portland by 3:30 p.m. — with plenty of time to make it home for dinner. “These days, there’s no truly reliable option to get between Portland and Seattle. The train, I-5, SeaTac, all of it is highly unreliable,” Craford says. “We should be able to stand up a reliable, consistent, frequent and punctual transportation option Fly Away in a Day SeaPort Airlines gets daily Portland-toSeattle commuters home in time for dinner. PHOTOS BY JASON E. KAPLAN
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