Derrill Fussell

Derrill Fussell has spent his life doing the kind of work where being precise matters, and being honest matters more.

Service at the highest levels

He has held the highest civilian security clearance available in the United States — a level of trust granted only to those whose judgment, discretion, and integrity have been tested at every stage of their career. He has served in the West Wing of the White House and at Pacific Naval Command Center, NIWC Pacific, working on the systems and decisions that protect the country.

An inventor and a builder

Derrill is a U.S. patent holder and the retired CEO of a technology company. He understands what it means to lead an organization, balance a budget, and answer to the people who depend on you. He knows what it means to deliver — on time, under pressure, with the truth of the work intact.

A storyteller for the next generation

Under the pen name Dr. Qooz, Derrill is a best-selling children’s book author whose work helps children understand kindness, curiosity, and the world around them. It is, in its own way, the same work as everything else he’s done: telling the truth, clearly, to people who deserve to hear it.

Why Coroner. Why now.

The Skagit County Coroner’s office is not a political office — it is a sacred one. When something terrible happens, it falls to the Coroner to stand between a family and the unknown. To find the truth of what happened, to deliver it with dignity, and to do so for every family equally, regardless of who they are or where they come from.

Neither candidate in this race comes to it with the lived experience of the office itself. The state of Washington provides the training and certification that qualifies a Coroner to do the work. What the voters provide is something the state cannot: the character of the person who will hold the office.

That is what I am asking Skagit County to consider. A career of demonstrated trust. A reputation for telling the truth even when it’s hard. A pattern of treating every person with dignity. And the discipline — from technology, from government, from a lifetime of careful work — to run a modern, transparent office that Skagit can be proud of.

A neighbor first

Derrill lives in Skagit County. His commitments are to its families, its first responders, its hospitals, and its tribal nations. The work of the Coroner is the work of standing for your neighbors on their hardest day. He is asking for the privilege of doing that work on behalf of every household in this county.