Port commissioner. sailing instructor. Writer. Lecturer. Art gallery marketing manager.

Friday Harbor’s Barbara Marrett has worn many hats in three decades on San Juan Island. Add communications manager to the list.

Marrett was selected to replace Robin Jacobson as communications manager of the San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau. Jacobson is slated to step down from that post in June.

Visitors Bureau Executive Director Deborah Hopkins Buchanan announced Marrett’s hiring in a Tuesday, April 24, press release.

“Robin’s shoes will be difficult to fill,” Hopkins Buchanan said, “however, we are very fortunate to welcome Barbara to our marketing team.”

First elected in 2005, Marrett was re-elected to a second six-year term on the Friday Harbor Port Commission in 2011. The port commission’s appointee on the county Marine Resources Committee, Marrett ran unopposed in last year’s election.

Marrett became manager of Harbor Press, the former commercial printing business of the Friday Harbor Journal newspaper, after relocating to San Juan Island in 1978. She later formed Marrett and Associates, a printing brokerage and design firm, where she created advertising content and graphic designs for many local businesses.

A U.S. Coast Guard-certified skipper, Marrett is licensed to operate vessels of up to 100 tons and is on staff at Orange Coast College’s School of Sailing and Seamanship. She is also a contributing editor for Cruising World, an international sailing magazine, and designed and self-published a book, Mahina Tiare – Pacific Passages.

Currently, Marrett is marketing and sales manager of Arctic Raven Gallery in Friday Harbor.

According to Hopkins Buchanan, Marrett will be training for her position with the Visitors Bureau alongside of Jacobson in the upcoming weeks. Marrett and Jacobson will both be in attendance at the Bureau’s Spring Membership Luncheon at The Outlook Inn on Orcas Island, on May 9.

— Scott Rasmussen