2025 KENNETH A. MALICH

Kenneth A. Malich entered the world in Tacoma on February 7, 1946, and came home to Gig Harbor a few days later. From that day forward, Gig Harbor remained the center of his life and the place where his roots grew deep.

In 1961, at age fifteen, Ken joined the family’s commercial fishing business. He worked alongside his father, uncle, and neighbors on their purse seiner. In those days, almost every Croatian family in Gig Harbor owned a boat. The fleet stretched from Alaska’s Bristol Bay to California’s Monterey Bay, and the fishing grounds tied the South Sound community together.

Ken graduated from Peninsula High School and enrolled at the University of Washington. The Army interrupted his studies in 1967, sending him to Germany and Vietnam until 1970. Returning home, he went back to fishing—first as crew, then as the owner of his own gillnetters from 1971 to 1982.

Those were hard years for small independent fishermen. The Boldt Decision upended the industry, forcing many fishermen out. Ken fought back as a board member of the Puget Sound Gillnetters Association, working to overturn the decision. He marched, protested, and spoke out for his fellow fishermen. Despite his efforts, economic pressures eventually pushed him out of the business.

His public fight for the fishing community caught the attention of voters, who elected him to the Gig Harbor City Council. “I learned to care deeply for the growth and preservation of our small community,” he says. The town’s population stood at 5,000 when he started and would grow to 13,000 in the decades ahead.

At the same time, Ken focused on his family. He welcomed his son, Matthew, in 1978. In 1982, he returned to the University of Washington to complete his degree in Mechanical Engineering while working swing shifts at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. His days started on a bicycle, continued with a ferry ride to Seattle, and ended in the classroom—an exhausting but unforgettable routine. He graduated in 1989 and shifted to day shifts at the shipyard, where he worked for more than 30 years.

That period also brought another major change: he met and married Barbara, thanks to an introduction by his sister, Theresa Malich Mueller. Living on opposite ends of the country didn’t matter—they built a marriage that has now lasted more than 35 years.

Ken returned to public service in 2007, serving three more terms on the Gig Harbor City Council until 2019. He pushed for new piers, parks, and estuary restorations, and he consistently argued for slowing and spreading out growth to protect the town’s character. Along the way, he served St. Nicholas Parish, the Gig Harbor Eagles, the Gig Harbor Yacht Club, and numerous boards and committees.

In recent years, Ken’s energy has gone into preserving Gig Harbor’s Croatian heritage. He serves on the boards of the Slavonian American Benevolent Society, the Harbor History Museum, and the Skansie Netshed Foundation, where he helps host annual heritage dinners that feature salmon, traditional music, and recognition of founding families. He also co-founded the Sister City Council, linking Gig Harbor to Milna on the island of Brač, Croatia—just across from the smaller town of Sumartin, where many Gig Harbor families trace their origins. The mayor of Milna will visit Gig Harbor at the end of September, 2025.

Ken has also stepped up to welcome Croatian dignitaries. In 2013, then–Prime Minister Zoran Milanović visited after hearing that Gig Harbor’s streets bore Croatian names. Ken offered to give him a tour. What began as a small plan turned into a major celebration, complete with speeches from the Prime Minister, the mayor, U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer, port commissioners, and community leaders. The Prime Minister left with a deeper understanding of why so many from the Dalmatian coast chose Gig Harbor.

During the pandemic, Ken helped organize the Slavonian American Benevolent
Society’s (SABS) 120th anniversary celebration at Joe Carr Park in Tacoma, near the Slav Hall. He gathered several old-time commercial fishermen to share their stories of the fishing industry at the event.

In September 2023, Ken welcomed Croatia’s Foreign Minister, Gordan Grlić Radman, leading a tour of the Harbor History Museum and the Skansie Netshed. That same year, he organized a groundbreaking event for SABS—bringing Renee Pea from the Croatian Consulate in Los Angeles to Tacoma to process Croatian citizenship applications locally. No one in Tacoma attempted such an event before. Ken arranged lodging, office space, meals, and transportation for the visiting staff. The result: a large group of new Croatian citizens were sworn in .

During their trips to Croatia, Ken and Barb met a cousin they had never known and explored Molat, his mother’s ancestral island. Language barriers didn’t stop him—he connected with a local young woman who spoke English and Croatian, met a priest who spoke only Croatian and Polish, and uncovered a surprise: his grandfather had been recorded under a different name in church records.  While visiting his grandfather’s birthplace of Premuda an island in the Zadar archipelago, with little time before the ferry departed, he ran to the beach, scooped a handful of soil, and carried it home as a keepsake.


From his early fishing days to his decades of civic leadership, from hosting prime ministers to tracing family roots, Ken Malich has worked to strengthen both his hometown and his heritage. His life shows the value of perseverance, service, and pride in one’s origins. Gig Harbor is richer because Ken never stopped giving back. CroatiaFest honors him for preserving and celebrating the Croatian spirit in the Pacific Northwest.