We were introduced to Al Parisi by Ed Beeson, who worked just down the hall from us in South Park. Al was a connector of people in the best sense of the word, and he introduced us to meet a guy named Jeff Wilson. Jeff had just purchased a retired Washington State ferry — a hulking, dilapidated pile of steel moored nowhere near where it needed to be.
We built the first iterations of logo, branding website, and the business cards — the whole identity — while Jeff was still pacing the deck, figuring out where the bar would go. We watched one expensive issue after another get solved through sheer will and vision. Less than two years later, the HiYu was operating. We were at the opening night party, Lake Union shimmering, a beautiful Seattle evening, surrounded by people who had bet on this thing from the beginning.
It was a challenging undertaking to market something that didn’t yet fully exist. A decommissioned municipal vessel, put out to pasture and in dire need of love and attention, doesn’t make for easy event promotion. We could have done it — the timing just wasn’t right.
Our plan was to start with social and a placeholder site that reflected where they were in the process, buying time, and telling the story in progress, until there was something real to show.
But we were there at the beginning — the gritty part, watching something improbable become real on what seemed like pure will and faith. The HiYu found its permanent life on Lake Union long after we all moved on.