16 Facts About Paul Schell

The oldest of six children of Lutheran minister Ervin Schlachtenhaufen and nurse Gertrude Reiff Schlachtenhaufen, Paul Schell grew up in the small farm town of Pomeroy, Iowa, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa.

Paul Schell attended Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, where he played linebacker on the school football team.

Paul Schell worked as a short-order cook and a fireman.

In New York, Paul Schell took a position at the Dewey Ballantine law firm, where he specialized in corporate finance.

Paul Schell worked as a summer law clerk in Portland.

Paul Schell joined other urban activists with Allied Arts of Seattle in the 1971 campaign to save the Pike Place Market from a proposed redevelopment.

Paul Schell left legal practice for civic affairs in 1973, when Mayor Wes Uhlman appointed him as director of the Seattle Department of Community Development.

Paul Schell played a key role in establishing the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts.

In 1989, Paul Schell won election as Commissioner for the Port of Seattle.

Paul Schell supported the initiation of the Real Estate program and the Center for Environment, Education, and Design Studies.

Paul Schell succeeded in being elected to serve a four-year term as mayor commencing January 1,1998.

Paul Schell championed a $72 million effort that combined public and private dollars to renovate the Seattle Center Opera House and community centers, and initiated development of the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Mayor Paul Schell participated in the design charrette for the new Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Traffic Control Tower, commissioned in 2004.

Arguably, the WTO meeting and the Mardi Gras violence played a role in Paul Schell's coming in a distant third behind two other Democrats in the 2001 mayoral primary election, as did Boeing's relocation of its headquarters to Chicago.

Paul Schell led the effort to fund a record $200 million in new parks, rebuilt the aging Opera House, and in a stunning victory that future generations will celebrate, preserved the 90,000 acres of the pristine Cedar River watershed.

Paul Schell died at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington following heart surgery on July 27,2014, at the age of 76.