Dan Gunkel, Orchardist
PUD President
420 Allison Way
Goldendale, WA 98620
541-980-1208
First elected: December 1990
Current term expires: December 2008

Running daily operations of medium-sized fruit orchard makes Dan Gunkel representative of irrigators in Klickitat County. As a business owner and customer of the PUD, it's in his best interest to see that the utility is run efficiently and that it continues to provide low-cost power.

Dan is serving his third term as PUD Commissioner of District 3. First elected in 1991, he sought the commissioner position because of a commitment to public service, but admits he also has an obvious interest in seeing the PUD provide quality service.

"Our irrigation system can run from April through October," Dan says of Gunkel Orchards, a third-generation family operation in Maryhill. "Klickitat County has a very diverse group of irrigators -- from small horsepower pump facilities on the west end to several large-scale irrigators on the east end. The importance of irrigation is significant because of potential areas of growth in added value products."

Dan uses Underwood Fruit & Warehouse in White Salmon and Mercer Ranches in Alderdale as examples of large-scale operations that not only grow fruit and vegetables but create extra job opportunities by keeping packing and shipping facilities on-site rather than sending raw product out of the county to be processed elsewhere.

"Growth has occurred on irrigated ranches that can produce high value cash crops," Dan says. "It's amazing what you can do with the desert and a little bit of water."

Gunkel Orchards continues to bring new acreage into production because of its ability to irrigate. A recently planted shoreline orchard west of Maryhill, near a land formation called Sugarloaf Hill, uses a 250-horsepower pump to draw water from the Columbia River into a ground-level drip irrigation system.

Dan runs the shipping and marketing end of the business; his brother, Ron, handles production. The Gunkels use nearly 150 acres to grow cherries, apricots, wine grapes and 28 varieties of peaches. In recent years, Gunkel Orchards has seen its economic pendulum swing from near disaster in 1996, when only 20 percent of its crop was marketable, to having the best harvest in 15 years in 1997.

During his tenure as a commissioner, Dan has supported the PUD's policy of not cross-subsidizing irrigators with revenues from other energy consumers. In the face of potential deregulation in the power industry, Dan says that by having each customer pay their own way, the PUD is more stable financially and less dependent on a handful of large consumers.