Commissioning a new ship costs a bundle.
Ask Helena Park, CEO and founder of Fisherman’s Finest in Kirkland.
She has hired Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes to build a ship unlike one built in the United States in more than 30 years.
Ms. Park, as everyone calls her, came to the U.S. from South Korea as a high school exchange student in 1973. She began working in commercial fishing in 1982. Three and a half decades later, at age 60, she’s looking at an $80 million bill for the building of America’s Finest, which will replace both ships in her fleet.
Park’s goal is about more than catching fish. She does that already with the vessels she has, and though they are aging, they’re in fine shape.
“My vision is much larger than my company,” she said.
