Kevin Twohig’s career arguably could be viewed as a string of serendipitous events that ultimately led to his lauded 16-year tenure as CEO of the Spokane Public Facilities District.

Twohig stepped down from that post a little over seven years ago and has moved onto some diverse retirement interests. However, he remains immensely thankful for the career opportunities that came his way, often by happenstance, and for the years he spent as the PFD’s first top executive.

“I’ve had a very blessed life,” he says. “I am just very grateful, and I think I’ve been fortunate. The timing in my life has been not in my control at all but very beneficial in the things I’ve wanted to do. I can honestly say I never regretted a day going to work. I looked forward to it every single day.”

As for the public facilities district, which was created in 1989 and became a model for about two dozen other such districts that since then have been established throughout the state, he says, “We worked diligently with really smart people to set up the district for financial success, and that’s continued. It’s a phenomenal success story—one that many other communities are envious of.”

The district operates Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, the Spokane Convention Center, First Interstate Center for the Arts (formerly the INB Performing Arts Center and Spokane Opera House), The Podium Powered by STCU, and One Spokane Stadium. Collectively, those facilities have cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, renovate, and maintain, and they attract huge numbers of residents and visitors annually for everything from conventions and trade shows to Broadway productions, concerts, and sporting events of all types.

 A study released in 2017, months before Twohig retired, estimated the direct effects of the PFD the year before to be nearly $74 million. That spending translated to 1,100 total jobs in Spokane County, the study found.

“We’ve just built phenomenal buildings. We’ve changed the skyline of Spokane so dramatically,” Twohig says, adding, “We also developed a whole culture around taking care of guests and making event experiences worth what people were charging for tickets.”

He says, “We saw phenomenal escalation in ticket prices while I was with the district, and yet we found a way to deliver an experience that made people want to come and to enjoy our events. The whole mission of the district is to create those great guest experiences.”

Twohig seems uncomfortable taking much personal credit for the district’s success. Rather, among the things he’s most proud of, he says, is, “We hired some phenomenal people who have gone on to great careers. The current leadership of the district is internally generated, and we had the ability to go out and look for the best people we could find.”

He says he’s grateful for the many relationships he developed during his years with the district. However, he reserves perhaps his strongest praise for the business leader-dominated boards he served and for their insistence that the PFD be operated like a business.

“I think that’s the only way we were successful,” he says, suggesting that if more elected officials had been on the board, “we would have lost our way.”

Some former PFD board members, such as Larry Soehren and Mick McDowell, have told the Journal in previous interviews that they believe Twohig’s tendency to deflect praise didn’t do justice to the strong leadership skills and vision he brought to the PFD. Former Spokane entertainment overseer Mike Kobluk, who talked Twohig into coming to work at the city as his assistant director and event supervisor before the PFD had been formed and worked with him for many years, applauds the initiative and drive to excel that Twohig demonstrated, adding, “He was fabulous.”

Kobluk had gotten to know Twohig at Gonzaga University while Kobluk was serving as GU’s alumni director and Twohig was a student there who had founded an enterprise that provided sound equipment for events. Twohig, an avid musician since childhood, was a business major who also was involved in theater at the university. He and his wife, Barb, who he met at GU, formed and operated a company called Second Wind Productions that quickly began providing equipment for events over a broad geographical area.

Expo Origins

Kobluk left his job at GU when King Cole hired him to become director of performing and visual arts for the Expo ’74 World’s Fair here, and Kobluk convinced Twohig to join him in the fair’s entertainment department.

“Those were very long days,” Twohig says of his time working for Expo. “It was certainly the hardest 180 days I ever worked in my life. It was not uncommon for us to work 36 hours straight. It required that level of attention and that level of detail. It was great fun; don’t get me wrong. I was in my 20s and loving what I did.”

Twohig says his life revolved around professional attractions, which mostly occurred in the Opera House.

"We did a show every day in the Opera House by the time we were done," Twohig says, adding, “When I went to work for the city after the fair, I was basically doing the same thing.”

His responsibilities grew over time to include the convention center and, after the Spokane Arena was built, replacing the old Coliseum, he became its first general manager. “I gradually took on more responsibility. It was just kind of my nature,” he says.

Twohig says his career wouldn’t have unfolded the way it did without the working relationship he developed with Kobluk, calling him “one of the best human beings I’ve ever known.”

After his own retirement, Twohig and his wife built a new home in Medical Lake, where his wife’s family has had a longtime presence. They moved into the house in late 2023, and he has joined the planning commission there. He says he and his wife have become “snowbirds,” spending winter months in the Southwest. However, he also travels a lot for USA Volleyball-related matters as a member of that nonprofit organization’s national board and as a U.S. Air Force civic leadership program participant, dating back to his involvement here with Forward Fairchild.

Reflecting on the current vitality of the PFD, now under the leadership of his successor, Stephanie Curran, he says, “I feel a sense of pride. I also feel a sense of security in the future of the organization.”