Dr. Chang Mook Sohn keeps a beautifully scripted Chinese poem on the wall behind his desk, in the office where he works as the executive director of Washington State’s Economic and Revenue Forecast Council.

It was copied by his father. I ask him what it’s about and what it means to him. He tells me it’s about an old man making a journey in a strange land. It says that the journey is long, and one shouldn’t be too disturbed by things that don’t matter.

It’s a philosophy that appears to have kept the unassuming Sohn well-grounded, despite his important position. As Washington’s chief economist, his predictions about the state’s economy directly affect billions of dollars in government spending, which in turn affects the services and tax rates of 6 million state residents.

Sohn’s modesty is striking, considering his achievements. Emigrating from Korea in 1969, he has worked his way to the top of state government. In a system that’s too often paralyzed by politics, officials from both parties and all branches of government regard Sohn’s word as gold.

Despite the top billing, he remains modest about his achievements, even as he is about to step into a world often known for its self-aggrandizement. After a career of being one of the most nonpartisan men in state government, the 63-year-old is planning on getting into politics. In 2008, he’ll be running for state treasurer.

 

Just the Facts

Sohn arrived in the United States in 1969 to get his Ph.D. in economics at the State University of New York in Albany. While growing up in Gwangju, social science and math had come easily to him, and he gravitated toward the public sector.

“Working in government, you can make people’s lives easier and better by crafting good public policy,” he says.

His plan was always to return to Korea. When he graduated in the mid-1970s, he received several good offers in Korea. But he felt the country’s politics had grown repressive. Sohn, by then married to his wife, Sukjoo, and with two small children, agonized over his decision to stay and take tax and revenue forecasting positions in New York and Illinois.

The lingering uncertainty drops out of his voice as he describes receiving a job offer in Oregon and moving to the Northwest. “It’s the best part of the country,” Sohn says. This seems like a wildly subjective claim coming from someone trained to analyze hard statistics. Then he begins listing off the region’s advantages, exhaustively — starting with the climate and detailing its skiing opportunities — and his thoroughness begins to make it feel like an empirical fact.

When the Sohns arrived in Oregon the early ‘80s, the economy wasn’t great. But thing were worse just across the border in Washington, where most state spending decisions were based on economic forecasts produced in politicians’ offices. The estimates they produced were more politically convenient than accurate. When the economy lost steam, revenue the state had expected based on overly optimistic forecasts simply didn’t materialize.