Away from his profession life, Nick Bond is an avid snowboarder, mountain biker, rafter and soccer player.

He is Port Orchard’s new development director.

“I’ve snowboarded since I was nine,” Bond said. “Snowboarding is a few years older than I am.”

Before coming to Port Orchard, Bond was Eatonville’s town planner for eight years.

The 32-year-old Bond is a native of the St. Louis area where he graduated from Webster Grove High School. Bond said while growing up he wanted to be an architect, but lacked the artistic skills.

He decided to attend Western Washington University.

“I’ve never been to Washington in my life,” he said. “But I did intense research on colleges and I was big into mountain sports. Mount Baker broke the world record for snowfall in 1998 and I started school in 1999. The world record snowfall is what sold me on Washington.”

Besides the snowfall, Western Washington’s high graduation rate and plenty of programs also were appealing to him.

“I came out here because of the environment and get out of the flat part of the states,” he said.

While at Western Washington, Bond took a class on historical planning — a profession he didn’t know existed.

“It was everything I liked about architecture without artistic side of brain,” Bond said.

At Western, Bond studied planning and environmental policy and took geology classes. He graduated in 2004.

“I think with planning, the public works side handles more of the geotechnical things,” Bond said.

Before becoming a planner, Bond worked briefly as a realtor.

While working as Eatonville’s planner, he was able to obtain his master’s degree in 2012.

“When I was getting my master’s degree, I had more experience than anyone in the program,” said Bond, who was able to waive some classes and take other types of courses.

Bond said he went to Eatonville without any experience and the town just received some grants for downtown revitalization.

“I hit the ground running,” he said. “I made mistakes, but I learned from mistakes. I learn by doing, more so than from professors and books.”

He said his time in Eatonville was valuable and he learned from his experience. Bond also was part of several large projects including salmon recovery — which was feature on the front page in the New York Times.

Afterward, PBS filmed a two-part documentary in Eatonville for a series about saving the oceans.

Earlier this year, Bond was looking at working part-time as planner because of the city’s budget shortfall.

“I think I outgrew Eatonville and wanted something a little bigger,” he said. “When you’re in the same place too long, it can become mundane. This was a chance to go to a beautiful community. It was the right time, the right job, the right decision.”

Bond said being younger doesn’t effect his performance and abilities.

“It has never really bothered me,” he said. “I don’t analyze things to death. I make a decision and get it done. It’s a combination of youthfulness and energy with a leadership and decision-making style that is result-oriented.”

He said he feels his abilities and others in the department compliment each other.

“They’re very capable and I have a lot faith in the people around me,” he said. “I hope my attitude and approach to management will improve morale and make the office work better.”

Because Bond is young and active, he said he is notorious for coming to work with different injuries.

“I’m 32 and I won’t give up soccer,” said the development director, who plays goalkeeper. “It’s a rough sport on an aging body. I always have broken fingers.”