Bus-side ads featuring a waterfront baker and a downtown arts venue owner began rolling through Everett starting July 28, as the Greater Everett Chamber of Commerce launches "Meet Everett," its first major marketing campaign since the organization relaunched 18 months ago.

The multimedia effort, which will run through October, pairs outdoor advertising with video profiles and social media content spotlighting local entrepreneurs.

Katherine Hillmann of South Fork Baking Co. and John Carswell of APEX Everett are the first two faces on the buses, according to 425 Business, which first reported the campaign.

"Meet Everett is about changing the way people see our city by introducing them to the people who are already building remarkable businesses, products and experiences here," Chamber President and CEO Wendy Poischbeg said in a statement.

"Everett has an incredible legacy of making, but that story is still being written in our manufacturing facilities, laboratories, restaurants, shops, and gathering places every day."

The campaign's website names six "makers" in all: Carswell, Hillmann, Parker Burke of Fluke, Savanna Thompson of Helion Energy, Sotirios Rebelos of Apollo Exos Records, and Sean Drought and Vince Rossetti of Tapped Public House. Three video stories are live; the site lists three more as coming soon.

The range is deliberate.

Helion employs roughly 500 workers in Everett and has raised $1.5 billion to build what it calls the world's first fusion power plant.

South Fork Baking Co. is a single storefront at 1410 Seiner Dr. on the Port of Everett's Waterfront Place, where Hillmann has baked since fall 2023 after founding the company in her Arlington kitchen in 2017.

Carswell spent $5 million buying and renovating the former Knights of Columbus hall at 1611 Everett Ave., which sat vacant for four years before he purchased it in April 2022 for $2.2 million.

APEX now houses 16 Eleven steakhouse, the El Sid cocktail bar, a concert venue called Kings Hall, and more than 1,000 pieces of graffiti art.

Why now

The Chamber itself is new. The Everett City Council spent $600,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to re-establish a local chamber after a 13-year gap; it officially launched January 1, 2025, with 77 members and a goal of reaching 400 by year's end.

In a July 9 Everett Post profile, Poischbeg said the campaign reflects momentum she's seeing citywide: "The amount of investment we're seeing in Everett, I haven't seen in years." She added that companies facing high costs in Seattle are giving Everett a second look.

The campaign's tagline positions the city as "thirty minutes north of Seattle, on a working waterfront at the edge of Puget Sound" where "people still build things."

No campaign budget has been disclosed. The Chamber has not said whether the effort is funded by membership dues, city grants, or other sources.