User:Sdsds/sandbox/David Doud

David Doud's background[1]

Doud grew up in Bellingham, where his father, James Doud, was president of boat-maker Uniflite. The family moved to Medina in 1985, the same year David Doud entered the University of Washington.

The elder Doud is now a retired executive from the Matthew G. Norton Company, a local family investment and real-estate company. He sits on a number of local corporate boards including Bellevue-based First Mutual Bank.

David Doud has lived in the 48th Legislative District for four years, settling in Medina in 2000.

Doud rejected Whitfield's suggestion that his campaign was built on family connections. But he also touts his ties to the region as an advantage over Whitfield.

"I'm able to draw on a broad breadth of supporters and generations who have come before us for advice," he said.

Doud has spent years working on political matters outside the state. He graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a bachelor's degree in government and chemistry in 1990. After college he became a staffer in the Berlin State Parliament, the German equivalent of a state legislature. Those experiences are the core of a 1995 book Doud wrote about the future of Europe, "Berlin 2000: The Center of Europe."

He turned his attention to the private sector, working as a program manager overseeing computer-software-installation projects at Unisys, before earning a master's in business administration from an international business school in Glendale, Ariz.

Doud said his time abroad gives him a valuable international perspective on the state's most pressing issues.

His campaign revolves around making the area more business friendly with reduced regulations and lower taxes, and boosting educational performance to remain competitive with other countries.

"We need to address statewide reforms that are going to position our region to be competitive in the global economy, and we are really not having that debate like we need to," he said.

The state's unemployment-insurance system and workers' compensation are both too costly for corporations, Doud said. He also wants to shrink the main state business tax, which applies to a company's total revenues.

On the education front, Doud said he would like to see merit pay for teachers and accompanying performance evaluations testing how teachers are doing.

He also wants to address funding problems at public colleges and universities by giving them more freedom to set tuition at market rates comparable to other public and private schools.

His campaign has won the backing of a number of influential Eastside residents, including Bellevue Mayor Connie Marshall, Metropolitan King County Councilman Pete von Reichbauer, former 48th District Sen. Dan McDonald and Bellevue developer and property manager Bob Wallace.