This is Us. Washington Sea Grant

Washington Sea Grant July, 2022

This is Us

click on any image to see that person’s bio

no particular JEff’s Partial Past in Pics and Parentheticals (in order of importance, time or geography :) Roots from: A guy named Steve (1970’s family friend researching Antarctic Mollusca); a girl named Arnold (rescued baby box turtle); and folks named Mom and Dad (extension, water, bird and conservation professionals)

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More roots from: An Illinois farm named RowleyAtor (years of loving stewarded and endless exploration of the 19th century farm’s life, land, waters and pioneer cemetery; wedged between Six-Mile and Panther Creeks, behind the bluffs of the Mighty Mississippi).

The singer (largest audience: 10,000 people)

The scientist (largest audience: 10,000 midges) 1

Lessons: 12 head of cattle could buy 2 out-of-state quarters at the UW in 1993. Northwest winter green takes some getting used to. Frozen salmon in airline overheads are dangerous. Mass transit is good.

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Who has an irrational fear of rings?

(Jeff’s one and only ring. Ever. [ever])

Wedding party below Mt. Adams (90% of attendees were invited). Honeymoon around the world (just for 2).

Married Twenty-one years (and 105,000 pictures, 1500 ferries, 80 chickens, 23 states, 12 countries, 8 quail, 3 dogs, 2 great boys, 2 fixer uppers, a snake, a tortoise, a lizard; gardening, foraging, paddling, playing, hiking; family, friends, trains, rocks, fish, games, movies, toys, travel, work, school) later…

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Aaron Barnett Personal Bio

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean for exercise.

One day, the old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.

Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing.

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the boy replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!” adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)

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(Before joining WSG, Aaron was the owner–operator of Proactive Environmental, which designed and supplied pumping systems to the marine and aerospace industries. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard as an underway watch officer and navigator responsible for search and rescue, maritime law and fisheries enforcement, and in various positions in the U.S. Merchant Marines. Aaron holds a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and a master’s degree in Marine Affairs from the University of Washington, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs.)

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Jackson Blalock - bio for WSG Annual Retreat 2022 I grew up in downtown Shelby, North Carolina - a small city of 20,000 in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, between Charlotte and Asheville. There, I’d spend as much time as possible creek-stomping and climbing through the brambliest thickets I could find. Creeks sometimes led to dammed reservoirs or other strange constructed impoundments. Who would have guessed that human alterations to streams and shorelines still occupy my days? Salamanders, crawdads, and bugs were my friends, perhaps as much as the gaggle of kids who I ran rampant with around the neighborhood, exploring abandoned buildings and forests.

While selling bugs on the street corner didn’t pay well, lawn-mowing jobs led to a cheap electric guitar from the Sears catalog, and would sometimes fund comic books at the nearby comics shop or cassettes (eventually CDs) at the record store around the corner. But lack of funds didn’t matter: the comic shop was a regular hangout for folks of all ages, where I was introduced to people who didn’t look or act like other adults in my life (yes, Stranger Things strikes a chord for me); the record store owner would always play recommended music for me and seemed genuinely interested to hear the fuzzy cassette recordings that I made in my 4th grade bedroom.

My dad would sit around and fingerpick guitar at all hours, but I didn’t like that “old person music” (I do now). In middle school I found friends to actually learn instruments with. We innocently formed the band “The Flaming Roaches.” My parents didn’t like the name, but were supportive of music. Bands came and went, leading me through relationships built around intense creative collaboration, open/honest communication, and critique without getting butthurt.

Sometimes my mom would take me and my sister Katy along on her landscape painting and sketching excursions. Countryside artist folks carried the inclusive vibe that I found at the comic and record stores (but not so much at school). I enjoyed those trips down dirt roads, through fields, and into forests, even though we never did see the local bigfoot, “Knobby1.” Years later, my critical-of-everything high school self would devalue my mom’s work, complaining that the rolling hills she painted “just represented deforestation for farmlands and genocide.” Later on I realized that she was also interested in the colors of sky, texture of clouds, reflections on water, and shadows hiding unknowns. Landscapes are complex and open to interpretation, and I get that now, finding beauty in the stories and struggles of almost any landscape. I’d like to have one of her paintings in my home one day.

This NC piedmont region was dominated by textile production throughout the 1900’s, and I grew up in time to see the decline of that industry. The mill that my dad worked at was one of the last to go under in the area. One of my first summer jobs was shredding files from a seemingly infinite cache of boxes at the mill, in the near-empty buildings that used to be full of people who knew each other like family. I still wonder if I’m complicit in something illicit after shredding those files, but doubt that anything exciting was going on. Overall, these early experiences led me to be much more cognizant of changes impacting communities, how people interpret and find joy in places (even if they may be down-and-out), and the importance of sharing those place-based experiences with people you care about - especially multiple generations.

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Knobby and a childhood love for Star Wars spinoff novels led to a lifelong interest in sci-fi and speculative fiction. I’m still trying to find + embrace the overlap between sci-fi and work, but I think climate change planning definitely relates.

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Through high school I worked construction jobs in the summer, so I decided to go to college and study architecture, following in my granddad’s footprints. College at Clemson University was a blur - a mix of all-nighter architecture studio work, long-running philosophical debate, and musical experimentation. I found a community of folks at the radio station, and went on my first tour playing with a band at DIY venues around the southeast - much more fun than small-town jock-dominated parties I played at in high school. I realized that I could keep going, beyond the Carolinas. I remember an ominous feeling, standing in the drizzle, smoking cigarettes on my apartment stoop (state law says that every kid in North Carolina must start smoking when they turn 10) while Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the news inside. Little did I know that I’d soon call that place home, and those college philosophical debates would get ground-truthed.

New Orleans was (is) another world from where I was and am now. I still remember times driving along Claiborne Avenue, seeing National Guard patrols under the elevated I-10, thinking “this is a war zone.”

To describe 2007-2015 would take a book series. I worked hard (lots of volunteer work, grassroots projects, and welding), played hard (so much music and cassette recordings to distribute across the underground scene), met amazing people from many different walks of life, learned healthy habits (bike everywhere, eat local foods, and no more smoking!), and both saw and experienced simultaneous joy and sorrow in ways that defy words.

There I met the love of my life, Ally, and after years of being good friends, we decided that there was more in store for us. Ally’s family is from British Columbia and Southern California, and I wanted more education while being closer to progressive policies and coastlines nearby mountains. We landed in Seattle so I could get a Masters in Landscape Architecture at UW. I got the title of “most non-departmental classes taken by any student”, which lead me to meet Nicole Faghin. I learned about Sea Grant’s Hershman Fellowship and found a career path where I could learn about peoples’ relationship to place and change while helping address systemic socio-ecological issues with those communities. And there was also a team of co-workers that I enjoy being around? No way! Ally and I got married in 2018, Stella Gerty was born at the start of covid, and then we moved to Pacific County.

Hitting those high notes with the Relax Family Band in New Orleans

Me, Ally, and baby Stella along the Nemah River, where Stella gets to grow up enjoying berries, spruce tips, salamanders, and bugs

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Ashli’s Personal Bio, As Told Through A Reflection About Southern Fishing As I sat next to a lake with my Dad last summer, I realized I had forgotten the natural sights and sounds of my home – the Mid-South. The pandemic split our cross-country family for nearly two years, and now, he lived in rural North Mississippi.

During the pastel sunset we heard crickets, watched the fireflies, and drank warm Yuenglings. But I quickly remembered why I didn’t like fishing. You wait, and you wait, and you wait some more – especially for catfish. Then if you’re lucky enough for them to bite, they are often just tiny, finned goblins that shock you.

My inherent impatience has never seen a good return on the time investment, all while in the southern heat.

Unfortunately, I was outnumbered. My brother-in-law and my father were determined to bring something home in the cooler. So, we sat in folding chairs with tackleboxes as ottomans and surrendered to the mosquitoes.

It was just like being a kid again. My Dad trying to get me to pick up a fishing pole as I felt trapped in the humid south with my family that didn’t really understand my own interests. I think it’s why as a teenager I started obsessively documenting what we did. It was a means to pass the time. My Dad had a digital camera that could record video and take photos – all on an incredible technology called the floppy disk.

When it came into my hands in the early aughts it was already obsolete, but I still loved it. My Dad would fish at the small lake near our Memphis apartment, and I would walk around, recording the sun coming through the pine trees. My Dad bought me my own camcorder for my sixteenth birthday to support my hobby … and get his own camera back. But if anything, he’s the culprit for why the nonstop documenting all began.

When I was even younger, I’d sit with him at the kitchen table as he read the newspaper. We’d keep a week’s worth of them in a stack above the cookbooks.

(It’s probably why I am a terrible cook.) He told me the way you take part in history is by reading the news and stories of other people. My fascination with journalism was born over a plate of scrambled eggs.

Ashli’s sister and husband, fishing with the family in Mississippi.

Ashli’s obsession with wilderness preparedness likely started with this her Dad’s super extra jacket layering.

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So, last summer when waiting for fish to bite, I had my Tascam DX-40 rolling – a recorder that captures rich audio. I went back to listen to it as I wrote this personal biography for the retreat.

“Timing is everything. To be here at the right time, because they migrate up and down the lake at feeding time,” he said.

“Oh, we got one,” I said, looking at my brother-inlaw’s fishing pole bend over the water.

“Did he really?” Dad said. “HE GOT IT. That’s a bass!

Keep your rod up. Keep the tip of your rod up.”

“Ashli, grab my phone,” my brother-in-law said. “This is probably one of the biggest things I’ve ever caught in my life.”

Ashli’s dad unhooks a catfish at the lake.

“Tip up!” Dad said. “He’s almost got it. He got it! Give him six.”

Then, another line tugged. My Dad reeled it in to find a small catfish whose whiskers tried to stun him. After all that waiting, my Dad just unhooked it and threw it back into the lake. But neither of us was disappointing.

Time is everything, and fishing gave us that time for sitting on a dock on a bay, watching the tides roll away, as my favorite Memphis musician Otis Redding sings. Through all those years disliking fishing, I finally understood that my Dad was trying to teach me to slow down and be present in the world around us.

It is a fundamental lesson that I didn’t even realize I already carry with me. It is what’s made me curious and driven to experience living in a new part of the country.

Seven years ago, I moved to Seattle to work at KIRO 7 News. I met my partner, who worked across the street at KOMO. We eventually got chaos corgi, Rey. Like so many, I became entranced by the Pacific Northwest wonderland – as The Gram calls it. I learned how to mountaineer and began trail running at high elevations.

That recreation brought a newfound appreciation for the environment, which bridged my storytelling obsession with mission-driven organizations in climate adaptation. But it all started with Dad, just trying to teach an impatient girl how to fish.

Ashli at the summit of Mount Defiance.

Ashli, her partner Tyler, and Rey.

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Russell Callender’s Personal Bio – or what happened to me along the way!

I was born in a condemned hospital Kemmerer, Wyoming. It was so bad apparently, that my mother had to use the freight elevator to get to the delivery room. My father was a geophysicist for Texaco and was working on a doodlebug crew (look that one up) across much of the western US. He met my mother, a Kansas farm girl, when he was living in a rooming house next door to her parents in Scott City, Kansas. Bill and Maxine moved around the western US following the doodlebug crew work and were trapped for a week in a Wyoming motel during a late October early snowstorm. I was born 9 months later.

I grew up in Houston Texas but left as soon as I could. t was flat, hot, and crisscrossed by an everexpanding network of freeways. Plus, the ocean (at Galveston at least, was brown). I was a failed Boy Scout (much to the dismay of my Eagle Scout father) but found my place in the Explorer Scouts. The Explorer Scouts were all about taking trips to go rock climbing, canoeing, and skiing. I fell in love with rock climbing at Enchanted Rock State Park on the beautiful pink granite. I quickly started pursuing climbing on my own with like-minded dirtbag friends. I ended up being obsessed with climbing and focused on it for over 30 years. Climbing took me all over the western US, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. It also taught me the importance of wilderness, wild places, outdoor skills, and led to a life-long passion for conservation.

I was also a “band nerd”. I started out playing cello in elementary school but carrying that beast a mile back and from school quickly cured me of that!

Then I decided to try learning the drums, so I only had to carry drumsticks back and forth to school! (Little did I know that would evolve into hauling drum sets home from gigs at 4:00 am!) I played in symphonic and marching bands, played in Houston’s “all city orchestra”, was a high school drum major, and ultimately toured Europe as a 20-year-old in an orchestra supporting an opera school. I had a ton of fun that summer…. I also played in rock bands since junior high (and still play in rock bands). I thought about going on the road as a musician or taking music as a college major but decided I needed to get a “real job”.

In my band nerd days as the drum major at Sharpstown High School

I met Karen at a small university in Nacogdoches, TX and we fell in love. Like me, Karen was a free spirit and really enjoyed camping and the outdoors. She studied to be a nurse which fit her loving and compassionate personality. We got married and moved around a bit as I chased graduate schools in Nacogdoches, Missoula, MT and ultimately at Texas A&M. I developed an interest in invertebrate paleontology and then paleoecology while working on my master’s degree. I was fascinated about understanding and reconstructing ancient ecosystems.

After a disappointing academic experience at the University of Montana (great climbing, bad advisor), I applied and got accepted at Texas A&M. It was soul crushing to leave the mountains of Montana, for the flatlands of Texas. Living in semi-rural Texas, I was able to find cycling as another passion.

I got engaged in a well-funded and productive group doing research on how benthic invertebrate assemblages die, decay, and become fossilized. I focused on recently discovered chemosynthetic animals on the Louisiana continental slope. These animals included giant clams and tubeworms that were very similar to the animals discovered 15 years earlier at hydrothermal vents but lived off oil and gas seepage. My research allowed me to combine my passion for adventure, exploration, conservation, and scientific curiosity out at sea, both on ships and in research submersibles. I made some comparisons to analogous fossil assemblages in Colorado – so I got to sneak in some climbing time too.

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Then reality hit and I had to get a job. My passion for learning was not matched by any wisdom in choosing a practical profession as paleoecology jobs were not in big demand. Who knew?!? With my conservation interests, I absolutely did not want to work for an oil company and my interdisciplinary degree made academia a tough proposition as they wanted “specialists” in single fields of study. I randomly applied to be a Knauss Sea Grant Fellow, and much to my surprise, I was accepted. I only had a murky understanding of this marine policy stuff as I considered myself a scientist! So, Karen and I moved to Washington DC. I ended up in a fellowship in the Oceanographer of the Navy’s office and then an entry level job at NOAA. My eyes were truly opened to the possibilities of mission and operationally focused science. Interdisciplinary science experience was an asset!

We had a daughter during my fellowship, and we thought that life was really blossoming for us. A fun job, an exciting city, and a beautiful new baby girl. Then when Lauren was about 18 months old, she started having major uncontrollable seizures. We almost lost her. We spent the next three years enduring painful doctor visits, multiple hospitalizations, and therapy trial and error. It was a very dark time. Lauren survived but suffered serious cognitive damage. Karen and I pulled together as a couple and began the long fight to advocate for Lauren’s health.

Fast forward. I stayed in NOAA for over 20 years and worked my way up from a low-level staff person to the lead of one of NOAA’s 5 major line Offices. I was able to play instrumental roles in major conservation successes in creating two major marine protected areas, one of which was the largest on the planet at the time. I was also able to restart the National Marine Sanctuary nomination process that had been terminated almost 20 years before. For a Knauss Fellow that went in knowing nothing about ocean policy, I think I had a pretty good run.

Early in my NOAA career, I was able to get in a lot of climbing all along the East Coast and across the western US and Canada. I even managed to get up some big multiday routes along the way. I was also able to get in a ton of SCUBA diving as a NOAA scientific diver. Getting paid to dive was a highlight of my life. I ended up doing some dream trips to dive in famous “sharky destinations” like Palau, the Galapagos, and Cocos Islands. Lots of dreams were coming true.

Sadly, though as I got “higher” in NOAA, I dedicated my entire life to work. I lost any semblance of work life balance and much of my fitness. My wakeup call was when I lost Karen to a long illness and then I had a life-threatening illness. I realized that I had supposedly “accomplished so much” but was now alone in a big city, in an empty house, and managing a disabled child. I desperately needed to get out of NOAA, get out of DC and regain my love and connection to wild places that I cared so deeply about. Seattle seemed right.

A big smile high up on El Capitan in Yosemite

I drove out to Seattle for the WSG job with Laura, a long-time friend to me and Karen. We took a long time to traverse the country, camping, hiking, swimming, talking, laughing, and just having fun along the way. Along the way, our relationship changed from friendship to love. We are now engaged to be married.

When we got to Seattle, I found an amazing “adult family home” for Lauren that is literally filled with love. She has friends and peers for the first time in her life! Laura and I are getting out and hiking, biking, and exploring the beauty of the PNW. I feel like I have restarted my life, my daughter is happy, and I now have an amazing partner to share life with. Life is pretty darn good right now.

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Meg

Other than brief stints in New York state (for college) and the Bay Area (before grad school), I’ve always lived within a mile or so of Puget Sound. I spent my formative years rolling over rocks at low tide and carting the unfortunate denizens home in peanut butter jars. A few days after graduating from Woodmont Elementary, my parents sold everything that wouldn’t fit into a storage shed and moved our family of four (plus 13 airedales) into an 18-foot trailer on Vashon Island, to start building the house that they live in to this day (and which is still not finished). I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The interminable house construction project gave my younger brother and me plenty of unsupervised time to roam around the island’s bucolic fields, forests and beaches. I dreamed of provisioning our family with home-grown food, but gardening on our wooded lot was out of the question, and my parents were too busy to build me the chicken coop I yearned for (my ‘raccoon hostel’ idea didn’t get much traction either), so I became a forager. Armed with copies of ‘Edible Incredible’ and ‘Stalking the Wild Asparagus’, I gathered and tasted pretty much everything that wasn’t obviously toxic or too slimy, including (once) moon snails. My mom gamely prepared the giant dogfish that got stuck in our crab trap, soaking the still-pulsing filets overnight in lemon juice to make them palatable, and accepted buckets of horse clams that I regularly hauled up from the beach. A kind neighbor with an orchard (and chickens!) taught me to press apple cider and put up stone fruit. Though I only truly lived on the island for six years before ‘home’ became ‘home for the summer’ and then ‘my parents’ place’, Vashon is where I’m from. The scent of cherry blossoms always transports me to the rough gravel road (now paved) from our mailbox to the house. The trill of a Swainson’s thrush makes my mouth water for the sweet orange salmon berries that dangled over the beach. I prefer to visit the island this way–vicariously, through sensory flashbacks to my teenage self. Vashon has changed, or I’ve changed, and it no longer feels like home. But it remains central to my sense of place, and why for me, Puget Sound stewardship doesn’t stop at the shoreline.

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Andrea Chateaubriand.

I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina by a Brazilian dad and Italian mom. I am the third born and was the baby of the family for a good 24 years. I rather enjoyed that status but alas all good things must come to an end and I had to give it up to my baby brother (by the same father) Victor, who shares a birth year and place (Rio de Janeiro) with my own son. Caio. I love them both.

We left Argentina and headed to Berkley so my father could get his PHD in Philosophy. Two 23 year old adults towing along three very young children and none of the five spoke English yet.

Not sure if you are all up on South American history but can you imagine leaving Argentina, super conservative, military days and landing in the 60’s in Berkely? My mother’s mind was blown and she never came back from that. Hippies, mind explorations, women’s lib, Vietnam protests, she was on it and loved it. Dad was more grounded a deep thinker, physically present but always on a different plane. I grew up in that atmosphere, listening to Janis Joplin, Jimmi Hendrix, Stones., watching Charlie Chaplin, and The Marx Brothers movies. Road trips we all sang song to Tom Lehers’ New Math album.

When my parents split, we became an East coast West coast family then and North America South America. I opted for South America with my dad. We took off to Brazil with his Danish girlfriend Siri (go ahead, ask her anything) and now wife of 40 plus years.

What a difference a country makes. Brazil was transitioning from a dictatorship to a democracy it was hot, it was tropical, it was amazing. It opened a much bigger and better world for me. Rio de Janeiro became my home. It felt right. It was beautiful, people seemed to find joy in the simple things or maybe it was just the weather. If one was feeling down the remedy was to go take a dip in the ocean and clear the negative vibes. Nothing could be more soothing to my soul. Now I walk in the rain.

Ipanema/Leblon beach

Day before the wedding with our niece

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After finishing high school, I started working, I taught English, managed a restaurant /bar for a year when the British owners were deported and at 19 started working for a stringer (journalist) for the Miami herald. That quickly segued into working full time for a group of foreign correspondents as their assistant then went exclusively to work with the Newsweek correspondents, Wall street Journal and then Chicago Tribune. That’s what I did from19821999. I loved it.

Got married, had a wonderful child (now 34), got divorced, life goes one. Meanwhile my siblings and mother continued to live in the USA. I had a life, career, friends, home and was happy but Brazil was exhausting, you just never knew what the heck was going to happen. In ‘97 my mom decided to sponsor us for a green card and the rest is history.

Landing in a new country is rough no matter what. It was a lonely beginning but little by little we started creating a new world for us. The first apartment I rented, I excitedly knocked on all my neighbors door to introduce myself and invite them over for a drink. They all looked at me like I was crazy. I think they were all crazy. After about 8 months of living in this building, I said hello to a someone in the building and they said hello back with a smile! I ended up marrying him and we will celebrate 21 years of marriage this summer. Life is crazy. It seems no matter how much you plan it just happens differently.

I now live happily in north Seattle with hubby and two crazy dogs that own my heart. I started making artisan soaps when it felt like the world was ending (2016 elections) and it has given me much joy to create something beautiful. I put a lot my energy into my garden. It’s a pollinator’s paradise. If it were an ocean plot, it would be filled with every wonderful sea creature imaginable, turquoise water and soft sand. I want to save them all.

Cooper. My constant companion, WFH office mate and walking buddy

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Sam Cheplick’s Personal Bio My name is David Samuel Cheplick, “Sam” for short. Using my middle name is essentially a process of elimination as I share the same name as my late grandfather, and the same first name as my dad. Speaking of my family, I have two older sisters, both of which are 18 months apart. Sort of specific timing right, it was planned out that way as my sisters and I were born via In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Here’s where things get interesting, we could technically be considered triplets (and I use technically based on your definition here), as we were from the same batch of eggs and fertilized at the same time. This was the first time this was ever done, here’s a news clipping:

That news clips brings me to my next point, I grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia and spent my childhood/teenage years in the same house that expanded from a ranch to a twostory house as years passed. I had a quintessentially amazing childhood, with both my mom and dad supporting passions and hobbies such as Legos, baseball and swimming to name a few. We would travel to upstate New York to see my dad’s parents, and the upper peninsula of Michigan to spend time with my mom’s family. Life took a significant turn in 2010 when my mom’s mental health significantly declined and suffered from substance abuse. She passed away the following year in an accident, and my family has spent more time learning how to heal, and how to help others.

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I started college later that year in 2011, and to this day I thank my dad for telling me that even with all the trauma of losing mom, the support you will gain from those who you’ll meet at school will help you heal. It has, as I have made lifelong friends while playing lacrosse at my college. Since then, I have been fortunate enough to meet my partner, Roshni, in 2016, and my world really opened so to speak, as she grew up in Mauritius and India, and I was able to work abroad in the Seychelles while Roshni was living there. Seeing this part of the world and working in coastal and ocean ecosystems has reinforced my passion of working in marine science and continues to teach me that you can work anywhere with the right attitude and tools available to you.

I’ve developed passions for all things water, mainly surfing, freediving and scuba (take that, gravity!) to name a few, but love to mix up these aquatic endeavors with the land-loving activities of rock-climbing, mountain biking and ski-touring (I take that back, gravity). One of my dreams is to take an old wooden boat hull and give it a new life by building it back into a seaworthy vessel for all things adventuring, particularly in the Pacific Northwest which I hope to call home for a bit. I also hope to do some thru-hiking in the foreseeable future (Pacific Crest Trail, Appalachian Trail), so I hope to see some of you reading this on the trails!

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Katy Curtis I was born in Corvallis and raised in Bend, Oregon starting at the age of 5. We had seven acres and I spent a lot of time outside exploring and getting lost “in the back 40”. My best friend in elementary school lived about a mile away and we’d challenge ourselves to get to each other’s houses without roads.

My best friend my freshman year in high school tried to commit suicide and changed schools.

Another close friend gave birth to a little girl that same year. I was growing up fast. It was a very lonely and dark time for me. I turned to sports.

I was an athlete. I learned to ski at six. Soccer and basketball came next. Most of high school was focused on track and field. I loved everything from the 100 relay to pole-vault. We had the fastest woman in state on our team which made all of us perform better. I trained for heptathlons and enjoyed every part of it.

I graduated high school at 16 and snowboarded during the day and took night classes at the community college while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Once I landed on going to Seattle University one of my friends invited me to live with her in Skagway, Alaska for the summer. Hands down this was one of the best decisions of my life. We experienced everything from catching salmon with our bare hands (yes, probably frowned upon) to hiking and mountain biking after work every day to kayaking the Yukon River to seeing the Aurora Borealis while camping under the stars.

My first ‘real’ job was working at a plant nursery. There are times I miss the simplicity and meditative qualities of working with plants. One of my favorite jobs was working at a North Face outlet where we got 50% off. I definitely went into my 20s with more North Face gear than anyone else I knew. 🙂 I remember ‘advocating for myself’ at North Face and asking for a raise. My manager proposed a raise of 10 cents an hour and I gladly accepted… at the time I was so proud of myself.

I met my husband, Paul, playing softball. I was awful at the sport (oddly, I can throw javelin and shot-put but not a softball). Our first practice I lulled my team to sleep while they very patiently waited for me to hit the ball. I don’t think I ever did. Paul was easily the best player on the team

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and for sure (in my opinion) the cutest. Recognizing I wasn’t going to be able to just breeze my way through this sport I went to the batting cage with my roommate to learn how to hit the ball before our first game. But I kept that a secret. Everyone was so nervous for me when I went up to bat. It was like when you are watching someone embarrass themselves in the movies. It’s possible people covered their eyes… but I wouldn’t know because I was watching the pitcher. Sure enough, with the most elaborate swing you can imagine I was able to hit the ball! Without fail, I have no idea how I did it (or continue to do it) but that ball went straight down into the ground. Also known as a bunt. It shocked everyone, just enough to allow me to speed onto 1st base. Huge wave of relief from everyone who was at practice the week before! I don’t think it was the way I played softball, but something must have sparked an interest because Paul and I have been together pretty much ever since… 17 years, married for 13 of them.

Paul and I have spent the majority of our relationship remodeling houses. We both came from modest means and have felt this is our way to keep up. It’s helped us figure out how to eventually afford and stay living in a nice neighborhood in Seattle which feels otherwise unattainable. The novelty of remodeling has worn off on me though. If we ever move, I want it to be new construction... ideally somewhere sunny.

Before we had kids, we had Kuai, and she was ornery and amazing. We got her shortly after a trip to Thailand where we often had a dessert called Kuai bui chi or bananas in coconut milk. She was loved and we miss her. She joined us on many adventures in the snow, on the water and into the woods. The next addition to the family will be a French bulldog… possibly later this year.

We have two kids, and due to the pandemic, I feel like you’ve likely met them both at some point. Cassidy is 8 years old. She’s empathetic, imaginative and kind. She gets nervous when someone gets in trouble or in a show where someone is being naughty. Lily is 3.5 years old and… the opposite. Her favorite characters in movies are currently whoever is ‘the bad guy’. She is cute and clever and funny. Some might say she’s excellent at advocating for herself and setting boundaries. I thought I was a reasonably good parent until we had two kids. They get along surprisingly well for siblings and given their different approaches to life.

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Kevin Allen Decker I was born in Peoria, Illinois, but I have no memory or connection to that place. My family moved to Eagle, ID, a bedroom community of Boise, when I was still an infant. My extended family still lives in St. Louis and Oklahoma City. I am the youngest of three children and was the accidental (surprise) child.

I was raised Presbyterian, though not very well. My family typically only attended church on religious holidays. Religion and I never really seemed to work, and I now consider myself an atheist.

I have a ragweed oral allergy. This means I can’t eat things like watermelons, honeydew, cantaloupe, cucumber, avocado, tomatoes, squash, bananas, and for some reason, lettuce. If I eat these foods it basically causes my skin to tighten, crack, and bleed. It happens on both the outside and the inside of my body, so it can be pretty painful. I am generally a meat and potatoes type of person so being allergic to vegetables aligns with my food preferences anyway.

I have an unhealthy relationship with food. If it’s time to celebrate something, I celebrate it with food. If I’m feeling down or stressed, I comfort myself with food. I have an insatiable sweet tooth and not having something sweet every day will make me cranky. As a result, I have struggled with my weight for most of my life.

My early childhood was pretty enviable. My mom was a stay-at-home mother and my dad had a high-earning job that provided well for the family. I performed well academically, I played lots of sports (baseball, football, and soccer), and I had a strong friend group. I remember weekends at our vacation cabin in the mountains that included ATVs, snowmobiles, boating, floating the river that literally ran through our backyard, and snowboarding.

My later childhood looked completely different. My dad lost his high-earning job. In its place, he decided to start his own business. The business never succeeded. It never provided an income and quickly wiped out their savings. He worked extremely long hours and I rarely saw him. As a result my mom had to return to the workforce. Recognizing that she wasn’t able to move very far in her career without a college degree, she returned to school, attending classes in the evening.

I always had a roof over my head and food at home, but things were very tough financially for

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my family. During this time, my parents were extremely busy and I basically was responsible for raising myself.

From the 8th grade through highschool I struggled with depression and I started performing poorly academically. I was kicked out of all the honors courses I had worked so hard to be a part of. My freshman year of highschool I got pretty heavy into drugs and I had to work to support myself financially. My academic performance ebbed and flowed while I tried to find the right balance in my life. In my senior year, taking economics was required. I loved it! From that point, I knew I wanted to be an economist.

I graduated in 2007 with a BBA in Business Economics and into the Great Recession. Unable to find meaningful work, I decided to go back to school. In 2009, I enrolled in an online program in Environmental Policy and Management at the University of Maryland and I graduated with an MS in 2011. I was accepted into an NSF IGERT PhD program at the University of Idaho and in 2014 I received an MS in Applied Economics and in 2016 I received a PhD in Environmental Economics. In total, I attended college for 13 years and graduated with over $200K in student loans.

Megan and I will celebrate our 20-year wedding anniversary this July. We were married when I had just turned 20 and Megan was still 19. We talked about having kids for many years, but planned to do that once we were financially stable, which was taking longer than we hoped. In the meantime, Megan ended up with a blood clot in her leg that was caused by her birth control.

We were told she could get pregnant, but the pregnancy would be a high risk for both her and the child. Deciding that it was not worth the risk, I had a vasectomy. We are currently trying to adopt through an agency.

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A snapshot of NICOLE

FAGHIN

Presented in the format that reflects what I've done most of while at WSG...conduct workshops and give ppt presentations!

I grew up in Magnolia near the water

1 I am a knobby knee kid from Seattle who grew up on the shores of Puget Sound. That was my playground and where I learned to love the smell of seaweed and digging for clams and geoducks.

2 I learned to sail at an early age on Greenlake in little El Toros. But then I graduated to much bigger boats when I crewed on sailboats, including this one (Moonbeam) in the Mediterranean for two seasons. (That’s me up on the bow).

I lived in different places including a stint in Boston for graduate school, Anchorage and a few side trips to Israel, Greece, California and other places. But my heart was always in coming back to Seattle.

3 I went to Boston to get a law degree and ended up with a joint law and planning degree. Law was boring while planning was so exciting and fulfilling for me. I wrote my masters thesis about how to use mediation to resolve environmental and land use disputes. That’s served me well over the years! During law school I met the man of my dreams, an east coaster, and dragged him back to Seattle. After a five-year side trip to Alaska, we returned to Seattle where we live in Edmonds and raised two amazing children, now grownups.

4 As a family and individually I’ve spent my adult life in and around water. I love to kayak. And every summer we spend a week on an island in Canada. (However, it should be noted I also love to hike and ski and bike. I’m a true NW kid). I also love to play the violin (classical and other fun opportunities), I love to cook (and eat good food) and I love to read. Oh, and did I say I love to travel?

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1

Ok, here’s the work part…Prior to Washington Sea Grant I spent 25 years as a planning consultant working with ports and waterfront property owners where I helped with permitting and planning.

5 It was a challenge acting as a mediator between people wanting to build environmentally impacting projects and the regulators who were trying to protect the environment. But that taught be so much! One of my favorite projects was being part of the team that created the walkway along the Edmonds Waterfornt. I loved how my work was so multifacited. To be a good shoreline planner I needed to understand marine biology, economics, landscape architecture, engineering and planning. And all of the time when I was on the “other side” as a consultant, I wanted to be teaching and educating people about the shoreline.

6 So coming to Washington Sea Grant for the last 10 years of my career was ideal! I’ve had a blast running workshops and teaching people about all sorts of things related to coastal management from living shorelines to sea level rise and beyond. I could have done with a little less time driving up and down the I-5 corridor though. I think I burned through two cars over the 10 years at WSG!

7 Probably my best experience at WSG has been being part of the Coastal Resilience Team with Ian, Jackson, Paul and Bridget and our partners at CIG and Ecology. It was the one time that I really truly collaborated with other Sea Grant staff. And together we created some amazing work that makes me proud!

8 Now I’m ready to hand it off to the next generation to do more amazing work making our coastal communities better places to live.

Thanks Washington Sea Grant! It’s been fun.

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BIO -Sarah I grew up in Lakewood(south of Tacoma) sailing every summer and skiing in the winter. When I graduated from high school my parents moved to Bainbridge to a house my Dad inherited.

That same summer my sister was working on the Ozette Dig, which is an old Makah Whaling Village south of Neah Bay. I went to visit her and ended up staying for a month. I liked the work and people so much that the fall of my freshman year(UW) I went back to Ozette and worked until Christmas. It took me a few years to finish my degree as I kept taking time off to go work at the dig, and with this came spending a lot of time in Neah Bay which I did until 1980 when WSU lost their funding and had to shut it down.

(my cabin one winter at Ozette) During the late 70’s I met my husband (Mark) who was from Bainbridge and we got married in 1980. At the time, we didn’t have much money didn’t want to rent, so decided to buy a 35ft sailboat and lived on it off and on for 10 years. (mostly in Seattle)

Mark started fishing on a purse seiner in SE Alaska in ’80 and I started on the same boat in ’81 and stayed fishing until ’89. I started working for Sea Grant in ’82 and would take a leave of absence every summer from mid-June to mid September. My job was the cook/deckhand

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(piling the cork line.) We mostly fished out of Craig which meant fishing along the coast.(outside waters so it could get quite rough)

I also spent half a summer working on a troller out of Neah Bay and La Push. I made just enough money to go work on an archeological dig(a Viking site) in York, England for a couple of months.

During the winter of ’89 Mark was working on the Arctic Storm(one of the first Pollock boats in the Bering Sea)The company flew me to Dutch Harbor in mid- December to visit and I was only supposed to be on the boat for a couple of weeks, but we had 3 days of 100 knot winds which pushed their production back, so I ended up being on the boat for a month.

I have used these various experiences to help develop programs with Washington Sea Grant that support the commercial fishing industry, help Tribes and Fishermen market their catch, and developed other programs to assist fishermen and recreational boaters with maintaining and operating their boats.

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Tracey I am a fourth generation Japanese American, yonsei. Both of my parents' families were in the internment camps during WWII. They rarely talk about these experiences but I know that they have memories and stories deep inside of them, which may never be revealed to me. I do know that my dad and his family (owners of the Park Plaza Motel) were at Minidoka pictured below.

Early on, I learned how to fold a perfect sheet, not a Japanese paper crane, but a starched white bed sheet that had perfectly sharp edges. My parents and grandparents (George and Flo Fugami) owned the Park Plaza Motel on Aurora Ave in Seattle, pictured below. My entire family worked day and night at the motel and it was a flurry of hustle and bustle whether on the weekend or weekday. Work blended into life intimately for me since I was young. The manager’s quarters where I lived when I was young, was full of activity, a guest talking through their troubles, Mrs. Morishita, the maid, needs help with the broken wheel on the rickety laundry cart, and the continuous sound of Aurora Ave at my bedroom window. (Pictured below third from right)

While working at the Park Plaza Motel, my mom took a side job at Seattle Central Community College working as an assistant to the president on Capitol Hill. She was proud of her work there and I had many memories of visiting her office, and thought how cool it would be to work at the college. My mom’s best friend, Gordon Harkinson, taught art at the college. I remember him saying, “if you love it, (making art) you should do it, but it’s going to be hard work.” In my senior year of high school, I had asked him whether I should pursue art in college. The only work that I knew was my folded sheets and towels.

While in High School, I had many summers on my other grandparents (Sunji and Hisa Dogen) multi acre farm which is in Puyallup. They tended to their fields and their four children (my mother’s side). Lengthy green rows of newly sown corn and fragrant smelling sweet peas were an escape from the challenges of growing up. I helped on the farm, weeding, watering, and

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picking crops. During the day, I would be lost in my weeding, my thoughts drifting but there was no one around to tell me to do anything other than watch for small sprouts of corn. I learned to be close to the earth and to my family through those summer days that felt less like work and more about connection. (Sunji and Hisa and Me pictured below)

In addition to summers at my grandparents farm, I also had a terrific marine biology teacher in high school, Craig McGowan, who passed away just a few days before I’m writing this bio for WSG (June 2022). I remember him as smart, caring, and dynamic. No one could question his passion for marine sciences and his love of the environment. I found synthesis here in his telling of the wondrous and deep beauty that lies in marine sciences and my artistic inclinations.

Somehow the two were related, but never knew how, or why. Sitting in his classes transported me, the bullying and racism, and homophobia that surrounded my high school years was softened, because this world that he created in the classroom was safe from all of that hardship, at least for a little while. I never got to tell him how his classes in jellyfish and plankton partially saved my life back then but his hopefulness and passion lives in me today.

(Artwork by me present day)

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Carrie Garrison-Laney In the early 20th century, Midwestern Irish and European Italians set their sights on Florida as a new homeland. Fast forward 50 years, and I was born to a medical student and a sociology major after 4 long months of marriage in Gainesville (Go Gators!). My family moved to Miami Beach to live near (with) grandparents. I grew up in the Miami sun going swimming, snorkeling, and laying on the beach with my pale kinsfolk, 75% of whom subsequently developed skin cancer.

Things I loved as a kid (Figure 1): Marine biology summer camp, my set of The Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau books, horses, ice cream, climbing trees, swimming, sleepaway camp in North Carolina, hanging out with my grandma, reading fiction and cookbooks, and being as silly as possible.

Figure 1. Totally groovy in 1973.

Figure 2. Totally rad in 1984.

Figure 3. Timeline, places lived, colleges attended, major life milestones, and interests over time.

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In high school (Figure 2), a career aptitude test recommended that I should become an oceanographer, but I thought being an artist sounded cooler. That choice led to a winding educational path that included seven colleges and four majors before I figured out that I loved geology (Figure 3). In 1989, after haven taken two geology classes, I was in the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco. That rocked my world (see what I did there?), and I declared a major in geology shortly after that and went on to study earthquakes and tsunamis for 32 years and counting.

The best parts of my life have been my going to a 70s hippie elementary school, eating every Sunday night at my family’s Italian restaurant while growing up, riding horses and scheming ways to get one (never happened), going snorkeling in the Florida Keys as a kid–even after watching Jaws movies, visiting lots of national parks and learning about the geology, enjoying a prolonged adolescence in San Francisco that lasted until I was 27, marrying my husband Jim (Figure 4), living briefly in Blacksburg, VA where we bought our first house and had our first baby, moving to Seattle to work on a Ph.D. with my geo-idol as my advisor (Brian Atwater), finishing my Ph.D. after taking a seven-year break, raising my funny and smart daughters (Figure 5), enjoying my wonderful friends, laughing, getting up to wacky antics, and loving my many pets.

Figure 4. Getting hitched in Kona in 1997.

Figure 5. My best work: Julia and Eva in 2014.

Things I love now: spending time with my family, going on walks with my dogs, taking naps, thinking up home improvement projects that sometimes get executed, reading, researching, drinking coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon, teaching myself how to do things, blankets, watching Nordic Noir series, traveling, cooking and baking, discovering delicious wines, puttering around the house, snowy days that shut down Seattle, doing 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles, going on tangents, advanced Sudoku puzzles, trying to beat Jim at Wordle, and listening to audiobooks every day.

Special skills of mine: growing things, staying calm in a crisis, eyeballing the perfect sized container for leftovers, coming up with solutions to other peoples’ problems, knowing where every single thing is in my house (especially the scissors), coming up with silly analogies for teaching, removing splinters, cutting hair, and relaxing.

In the future I hope to retire and have a huge vegetable garden, travel the world, and never use an alarm clock again.

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Emily I just passed a milestone where I’ve now lived more years away from the state I grew up in, Maryland, than I lived there1. I always thought of the place I grew up as the most neutral, unremarkable “un-place” anyone could be, but in writing this short personal bio, I keep going back to my un-place origins as somehow meaningful2, so maybe it’s worth a few reflections.

As a suburb of Maryland between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.3, and part of the I-95 corridor, I always felt like there was very little “sense of place” where I grew up. Maybe that’s often true of suburbs, but I think this is even more true in suburban Maryland, because it’s densely populated with folks who work directly or indirectly for the federal government, or national or international organizations or institutions4. The local culture is subsumed by the business of the nation; local news programs feature mostly national news. Most parents, including my own, worked for this apparatus of state/world so everyone was thinking about somewhere else most of the time. It took me a while to realize that this was not the case everywhere, and is part of the reason I’m happy here in Seattle. Other places like New York City still manage to have both a local and a global identityˆ. Suburban Maryland … not so much.

The town I spent most of my growing up years in, called Columbia, was a planned city5. Most people hear that and imagine as some weird hippie commune or gated utopia or Levittown, all of which might be partly true in6. The city grew out of the 60’s as part of the New Town Movement, when James Rouse, a real estate developer7, brought together academics to brainstorm components of a city that operated at the scale of humans, and one they could build from scratch. Without going into excruciating and unsolicited historicizing, the group did try to create a physical structure for a city that would work for the people who lived there, bringing together and supporting diverse individuals in building a collective community that transcended the divisions around which cities often self-assemble, race8, religion, income level. Was it a just endeavor? A successful one? Ask me more someday if I haven’t bored you to tears already. Suffice to say that even though this really impacted a lot of how I think about community, I’m still not moving back east any time soon.

There are a lot of other ways Maryland, my Maryland9, shaped me, and one that’s hard to miss is crabs. I’m not really sure what my deal was with crabs, and I guess that’s kind of still true. I never crabbed. Sure, we went to the beach every summer10, but we lived in the suburbs and the only connection we had to the bay was cultural. And for those who haven’t eaten blue crab, it’s actually somewhat painful. Blue crabs are steamed covered with Old Bay11, and picking them always earns you battle scars–cuts and scrapes along your cuticles. That doesn’t sound all that bad, but the Old Bay gets in those cuts and dangit if that doesn’t straight up torture you for days. Notwithstanding all this, I sure had a crab feast12 for every single one of my birthdays, and I still really love Old Bay13.

I have been lucky, in family, to benefit from two parents who value health, education, security, and growth for their kids above all. They also modeled hard work, loyalty, and mutual support. I think my dad helped launch my interest in the natural world. I was told that as a kid, I had a fair amount of physical energy14 and, I suspect to preserve my mother’s sanity, my dad used to take me for long walks in the woods after dinner to let me run around. That ultimately transitioned to camping trips at nearby Catoctin Mountain National Park where he let me climb the exposed rock That makes me feel older than the other recent age milestone I passed, which I won’t enumerate, but will just let you make your own assumptions.

I am trying not to be too self conscious about what this says about me.

3 Or just “D.C.” if you want to sound like a local.

4 If you’re wondering if this footnote thing is going to be a “thing,” yes. Yes, it is. No, I haven’t read Infinite Jest, but don’t worry, I do not consider myself any pretender of David Foster Wallace though I’ve enjoyed the short pieces I’ve read of his – including Consider the Lobster, but neither do I think it’s fair that he should have the exclusive rights to the use of extensive footnotes.

5 Check out this link for more Columbia nerdery: https://www.columbiaassociation.org/explore-columbia/history/ 6 Except the gates, it’s actually very difficult to get permission to build a fence in Columbia, and you do need permission from your village’s Residential Advisory Committee. It’s a whole thing.

7 His other claim to fame is inventing the indoor shopping mall. You’re welcome.

8 Note that redlining was still alive and well at this time in some American cities.

9 Google it. One of the better state anthems, but I might be biased.

10 Ironically, usually in Delaware (also ironic: it turns out I didn’t actually know how to spell Delaware just then) 11 This is often confused with, but totally different from, Old Spice.

12 Ironically, usually from the Gulf of Mexico by the time I was eating them.

13 I love Utz potato chips which some may know from: A. being featured heavily in product placement on The Wire and, B. having a flavor referred to as “crab” which, thank goodness, is just Old Bay flavored. FWIW this is not my favorite Utz. 1 2

At age 5 I was not so much kicked out of ballet, as the teacher suggested my parents find an activity better suited to my energy and attention level. They opted for gymnastics which worked for a few years, but then I realized I could go even faster if I was riding a horse…

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formations (bouldering) unassisted by ropes and unhindered by any sense that he didn’t think I could handle whatever I got myself into, or was worried I might fall. In nature, I’m often happiest on my own. My mom gave me the gift of seeing that a woman could have a rich and fulfilling intellectual life outside the home, finding a life that valued all of the contributions she had to give.

It took me longer to feel like I was lucky in my two older brothers. Notwithstanding the time they suspended me, hog tied by my wrists and ankles, from a tree with bungee cords, or the time they tried to convince me to climb into the 1940’s era chest freezer as a hilarious “joke,15” in retrospect, they were, and continue to be, pretty tolerant with me and generous with their attention. I have their taste in music, which I’m pretty proud of, and during the pandemic we finally started telling each other, “Love you” when we hang up the phone.

My chosen family includes a number of others, including my best friend Janna, my partner Dave, and the dogs I’ve been so dang lucky to share time with. Janna and I have been best friends with since The Great 6th Grade Social Reshuffle. She is the Type B that balances my Type A, having made me late for school on uncountable mornings, and also teaching me how to be a better friend and human by her example. My dogs Jay and now Penny have taught me how to give and receive grace, and move through the world with patience and acceptance (sometimes). I honestly don’t think I could live without close and working relationships with animals, and maybe someday there’ll be a horse in the mix 16. Dave gets me out for many adventures, and makes sure I remember to eat, sometimes those things go together in our foraging expeditions. This year we finally got our first morels and we definitely won’t tell you where.

Photos: Grason.ChimneyRock: Emily aged…13? Scrambling up Chimney rock at Catoctin Mt NP, Thurmont, MD. Grason.Jay: Emily circa 2004 with canine companion Jay. Grason.FieldAsst: Jay was my field assistant, helping me with … collection on my first excursion to the Olympic Coast.

Grason.CrabFeast: Birthday festivities ca 1999 including blue crabs and Utz chips.

Grason.Maine: Marine snail enthusiasm started in college, evidently. All sorts of crazy things you get hooked on in college.

Grason.OceanCity: Emily (right) at the shore in Maryland.

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“Don’t worry, I promise we won’t lock it!” they said…

I still ask for a pony every year for Christmas. Fingers crossed for 2022!

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Eileen Mary Podegracz Herman (soon-to-be) Putman I spent my formative years in southern California trying to out-prank my older cousins Michael and David. My first truly inspired practical joke occurred the Thanksgiving when I was 6 years old. We were double cousins – 2 sisters married 2 brothers – and there were 9 kids eating out in the patio that day. I had very carefully Scotch taped the bottom of the benches to the patio floor so that when Michael and David tried to sit down, they would be powerless to slide those benches. It took me years to realize that the problem was not a bad roll of Scotch tape.

Easter 1962

Fast forward to high school where most of my time was spent on my tan, drill team or the boys. Well, really only one boy: Brian Putman. We met in math class back when they seated students in alphabetical order. I was a sophomore. He was a senior and probably the most handsome boy in the entire world. We were an item for much of the next 5 years, eventually parting ways, and that is how I ended up in Seattle. I came here to visit my older sister, got a job, enrolled in the UW, and began Grad Night 1972 with Brian Putman my new life.

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I graduated from the UW with a BS in geology only to discover it is a discipline I am ill-suited for. I landed a job at the UW in surgery administration and in the fullness of time, met and married Chris Herman. We had 2 great kids, Michelle and Louie, whom I homeschooled through high school. I absolutely loved being a mom and doing all the things families do. We were married for 26 years before he succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2016.

As life often does, it circled back for me. To my utter amazement, Brian Putman reached out to wish me a Happy Birthday last year. To make a long story short, we are getting married later this summer!

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Jenna Keeton’s personal bio, 2022 I was born in Lake Forest Park in the early 90s to a family of J’s. My parents, Jay and Joanne, named my older brother of 5 years, Jeff. They wanted to name me Lauren but feared I would feel left out of the “J” club J. I suppose to prevent future teenage angst they named me Jenna, nicknamed “Jenna Lou”.

I was raised by two teachers: my mom taught 6th grade math at Eckstein Middle School (the same school she went to) for 42 years and my dad was a Professor of Sociology at a few local community colleges. My dad always encouraged me to ditch gender-norms, empowering me to do anything that a boy could do, and my mom was my biggest cheerleader (these are both still true). As a kid, every Sunday night we had family meetings around the kitchen table.

For *years*, my only contribution was one sentence: “I want a dog”.

Our annual family vacation was a road trip to Black Butte Ranch in Central Oregon.

During that week-long vacation, we crammed into 1 house with our extended family members (5 adults, 9 kids). We walked to coffee in the mornings, cooked large family meals at night, and during the day we went to the pool, rode ponies, hiked Black Butte, and fed stinky fish pellets to trout at the Metolius River fish hatchery. These annual family vacations still occur, though we’ve grown out of the ability to cram into 1 house (we now have 28 people). The memories I formed on these trips shaped some of my core values as an adult: family is fun, and fish are cool. I’m not sure yet where the ponies fit in.

Feeding fish at the Metolius fish hatchery and being stylish at Black Butte Ranch in 1994

Besides our annual pilgrimage to Central Oregon, our family didn’t do very many outdoor activities. We went to University Presbyterian Church on 15th Ave most Sundays until my brother became a talented soccer player. So, we traded church for soccer tournaments.

From ages 7-13, I was a professional soccer-tournament-watcher. I tried my hand (foot?) at soccer myself, assuming I would naturally perpetuate the family business, but I wasn’t very good. At all. In fact, I avoided the ball.

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Jenna My fascination with water as a child was obvious. My mom caught me -more times than I’d like to admit- mesmerized, letting water from the tap flow over my hands at the kitchen sink. She also caught me staring at the water swirling in the washing machine. I’m glad she didn’t think that was weird… or maybe she did but what can ya do?!

Enjoying bubbles in 1996

During my sophomore year of college, I blindly signed-up for a summer field course in the wilderness of Bristol Bay, Alaska to study salmon. We lived in cabins, some with electricity (an absolute shock to this city girl). Every day, we took a boat to a different creek and walked upstream as we counted salmon and dodged grizzly bears (more like scream-yelled, “HeEyY, bBeEaAeR!” every few seconds). I vividly remember touching my first fish ever, an Arctic Grayling, and seeing a bright red sockeye salmon for the first time. At first glance, I thought it was a stuffed animal. This summer experience was tremendously important to me.

Here I expanded my worldview and dreamed The beach at field camp in Bristol Bay, 2015 up a path forward that I had not seen before.

I became “outdoorsy” when I was 22 and during the rest of my 20s, I happily took advantage of field and travel opportunities around the West and Alaska. These experiences taught me patience, determination, and compassion. Plus, I learned if I’m well fed and well dressed, I can do most anything!

Other fun tidbits: -I love to cook and bake for family and friends. Right now, I’m testing my sauteed salmon and oatmeal cookie recipes, respectively -I watch Seattle Kraken hockey -I regularly “ranch-sat” 14 chickens, 6 horses, 3 dogs, 2 goats, 1 rooster and 1 cat in northern Utah

I finally got the dog I was waiting for, Coozie the border collie. She’s the best!

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From Mountains to Sea Samantha Larson My childhood? I’ll just leave you with a smattering of eccentric facts that come to mind: ● I once had eight pet rats at the same time. This was really only one episode in a whole series of me acquiring animals. Other episodes featured two turtles, two mice (which became twelve mice), and a one-eyed toad. My family also had more “normal” pets — like a dog, cats, a rabbit, and a bearded dragon. I loved all of them.

What’s less clear, is how they felt about me. ● In high school, I sometimes “lived” on the RMS Queen Mary, a For some reason, I was always covered in scratches retired British ocean liner. It spent its glory days traversing the North Atlantic, but the ship is now permanently docked in Long Beach, California, where I grew up. My mom moved back to her hometown of Brooklyn, New York the summer before my senior year (she and my dad had divorced when I was three). She did her best to keep it fun for me by occasionally booking a room on the Queen Mary when she came to visit. ● Well, this one is fairly widely known but I’ll still call it eccentric. In his middle age, my dad discovered a love of peak bagging. Combining this with a passion for globetrotting that he shares with my step-mom (who owns a travel company), we proceeded to climb the highest mountain on each continent together, finishing with Mount Everest when I was 18. I’m sometimes asked why me and not my siblings . . . I have an older brother and a younger brother and sister who are half-siblings. The only other Larson kid who has shown a real interest in mountain sports is Luke, who was only two when we climbed Everest. We’ll see what he does!

I recently uncovered a project I did in sixth grade in which I said I wanted to be either a writer or a marine biologist when I grew up. I have little memory of having these dreams as a kid but, looking back, I can follow the thread to see how that idea brought me where I am now.

In college, I felt better suited to classes in which I had to write papers rather than classes in which I had to do math and stuff. But I did a study abroad program on a tall ship that sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii, during which I fell in love with phytoplankton. When we crossed the equator, our professors hazed us . . . you know, put weevils in our cereal, dunked us into trash water, shaved our heads, that sort of thing. As part of this, famed tuna researcher Barbara Block told me to vow to spend as much of my life focused on the ocean as I did focusing on the mountains.

Ecologist Boris Worm had been nonplussed by all of the shenanigans that had occurred so far that day — but to this, he let out a gasp. “No! You can’t make her do that! That’s

After throwing my hair to King Neptune

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too far,” he exclaimed. After all, I was known for being a mountaineer. This was a serious commitment Barb was asking me to make!

In truth, I was happy to do it. Exhilarated, even. I took the oath and then threw my hair overboard to seal my deal with King Neptune.

What happened next? Over the next couple of years, I spent my free time in the mountains (particularly in Yosemite) and my coursework largely focused on the sea. In my senior year, however, I grew increasingly frustrated by how difficult I found it to grow phytoplankton in a basement lab for my thesis project. One day, I was licking whatever wounds I was currently feeling over said thesis while perusing the shelves of a bookstore. I found a copy of a National Geographic that was focused on the ocean. Flipping through it, I noticed an article was written by an environmental journalism professor on campus. This was a real lightbulb moment — a hint of a potential path that just felt right to me. I set up an appointment to meet with him and then continued down the path that eventually led me to write for Washington Sea Grant. I’m lucky to be here!

The mountains continue to play a huge role in my life.

These days, however, I typically spend more time clinging to steep rock faces than trudging up snowy slopes. I love the athleticism, grace, and mental focus that rock climbing pulls out of me.

At this point, I’ve been in Seattle for about eight years — I had a fairly brief stint in Washington, DC in between here and California. I had a good feeling about living in Seattle even before I moved. I was so lucky to grow up spending summers in the San Juan Islands, Climbing in Index, WA through which I established a real feeling of connection with this part of the world. My dad and I also did a couple of formative mountaineering courses on Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier when I was a teen. It’s been so enriching continuing to get to know this region better with each passing year.

I met my life partner, Matt, at the climbing gym six years ago, when he noticed that I didn’t have a chalk bag and offered to lend me his. Among the things we share is that split commitment to the mountains and sea . . . he grew up in a commercial fishing family, and he now works as a maritime lawyer at a seafood company.

After much pandemic-fueled wedding drama, we are finally going to get married this fall! We have a black lab named Haven. We sometimes joke that she is a velcro dog — but if we’re being honest, it’s us who are the velcro humans.

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Michelle Lepori-Bui’s Personal Bio ● My mother grew up in the mountains of Switzerland. My father grew on the beaches of

Vietnam. They both immigrated to Canada and met in a small city in Quebec. ●

I have an older sister who is my best friend. We were both born in Montreal, Canada.

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My sister and I when we were young in Montreal on the left, and more recently in California on the right.

We spent a lot of time outdoors when I was young, camping and traveling to visit family.

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My family on a camping trip in our extremely 90’s attire.

We moved to Newark, Delaware when I was 7.

English is my mother’s 4th language, and my father’s 3rd, so there were many languages at family events. This led to some amount of confusion, as you can imagine.

My family mixed our food and culture, resulting in us eating spaghetti with chopsticks and wrapping cheese and broccoli into rice paper rolls. We are vegetarians, but have our own version of traditional meals, including a vegetarian phở that is my favorite!

I attended the University of Delaware and studied Environmental Science.

After college, I spent a year teaching outdoor education in Marin County, California. My “nature” name was Dragonfly.

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●

● ●

My partner is a physical oceanographer and we met while living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He was studying circulation in Chesapeake Bay and I was studying water quality in agriculturally-dominated watersheds.

We moved to Santa Barbara, California in 2017. One of the first things we did was visit the Channel Islands during a superbloom. On that trip, we saw a superpod of dolphins on the ferry. It was a “super” place to live!

My partner and I on a trip to Sequoia National Park.

I started studying phytoplankton as a lab manager and graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara. During the pandemic, I walked to the beach almost every day, searching for shells and sea glass. You could say “Michelle searched for seashells on the seashore.”

I have moved around a lot in my life and have found that connecting with the natural environment and finding community with people is how you turn a place into a home.

We have recently made Seattle our home. My partner works as a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab and I joined Washington Sea Grant in March 2022.

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Kate For the record, I agonize over these types of assignments, because I really don’t like talking about myself. But here goes…

I was born in Durham, NC. Yes, that’s the south, but I don’t really identify as a southerner because I was born to northern transplants and was surrounded by other northern transplants. (Although I do love hushpuppies and fried okra, so maybe that qualifies me as a southerner even though I don’t, and never did, have the accent to match.)

Durham

I am an only child. (Yes – you can now do the Ocracoke requisite “oh, that explains a lot!” exclamation; although I like to think that I defy at least some of the only child stereotypes.)

Me, in one of the giant magnolia trees in Duke Gardens.

I grew up in a household of teachers and historians - my dad a high school history and economics teacher; and my mom a Latin American historian who paved her own non-traditional path as an academic at Duke. You wouldn’t know it… I couldn’t win a history trivia competition to save my life. (Admittedly, I might not be able to win any trivia competition to save my life, regardless of the topic.)

I lived in the same house from the time I was 6 months old until I left for college at age 17. My parents still live in that house (although they also have a condo here in Seattle so they can spend time with their grandchildren – a perk of being an only child).

My family vacationed at the beach often. I grew up swimming in the ocean (the real, gulf stream influenced, warm ocean… like over-80°-water-temperature warm ocean). That’s how Ocracoke Island became my favorite place on earth. That’s where I learned to drive (on the beach, when I was probably 14 years old). That’s where I got engaged to my wonderful husband. That’s (very near to) where I married my wonderful husband. That’s where I would love to be almost any day. It would really be great if we could cut out all of the middle of the country so that Seattle and Ocracoke were closer together.

I went to college in Maine (Colby) – more than 500 miles from Durham (my dad’s requirement) and somewhere with snow (my desire).

I studied abroad in Australia (School for International Training in Cairns) when I was in college and lived and worked in Australia for a year after college (School for Field Studies in the rainforest outside of Cairns).

AMAZING!

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I moved to Seattle in 2000 – it was Bumbershoot weekend. I moved in with a friend from college and her parents in her parent’s 2-bedroom condo on Mercer Island. They were very generous. Fortunately, we got jobs and moved out on our own after a few months.

I married my high school prom date (Will)… almost 14 years after prom. No, we were not together that whole time. Yes, we were friends that whole time. (Perhaps I owe apologies to the boyfriends in between…) In marrying my husband, I also acquired a sister and a brother (and eventually another sister and brother), which is a huge bonus, especially for an only child.

Ocracoke Island

We have two daughters who are the loves of my life – Kendall and Ada. Kendall was on cross-country skis from the time she could walk. I love learning more about them every day. And love that they are already much better than me at many things in life – unicycling, downhill skiing, snowboarding, gymnastics, piano… the list is long, and I love it. They are also kind and generous (most of the time; or at least some of the time; or at least they try to be…).

Kendall’s first time cross-country skiing

We’re often found adventuring when not working. And yes – we are some of those crazy people who bought a camping trailer (and a new truck) during Covid and drove across the country taking full advantage of remote work and school. It was an amazing adventure.

Remote school in Mammoth Campground in Yellowstone National Park – fall 2020

Camping at Deception Pass – May 2022

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Ian

Delaware Bay, 1981

Continental shelf sediment, 1999

Learning the Olympics - 1993

Perhaps the most defining feature of my early life was my dad’s career in the Navy, and throughout my childhood and into my college years my family was characterized by what felt, looking back on it, by near constant motion. We moved all over the United States, spending three, and sometimes two, years in a place. I was born outside Chicago, but was there only as an infant, and then we were on to Virginia, South Dakota (with the Navy!), Rhode Island, Marin County, CA, back to Virginia (a different part), then to Vancouver, WA (where I graduated high school), then to San Diego, CA. Many of my contemporaries, “Navy brats” we were called, didn’t do well with this sort of upbringing…but I was fortunate to have parents that made it seem adventurous, and I and my two sisters mostly thrived and look back fondly on the opportunities we were given.

Meeting my wife in NH, 1996

But It was a rootless life, in a way that I’ve only started to understand as I’ve grown older, and meet people that didn’t share that sort of childhood, and I’ve grown to crave rooting in place.

My parents, 1967 My parents, though, did have roots in place, and some childhood family vacations

VIPS: McHenry and Theo

were to visit my grandparents’ retirement home on Delaware Bay in a region, I’ve recently come to learn, where some of my ancestors lived for many centuries. For me what I learned there is more present – its where I first felt my attachment to the ocean, and to the shore, and to the astonishing creatures that we share those places with.

My dad, 1968

Working the Bering Sea, 2000

As I approached high school graduation in Vancouver, Washington, then, I started to look for places to study marine science, and gravitated to Huxley College in Bellingham for its small school feel and ready access to the inland sea. I didn’t know it at the time but I was also digging soil, and growing roots. I tried hard after graduating college to rip those roots up, finding work, more school, and “formative experiences” in Oregon, Vermont, California, New Hampshire (where I met my wife) and Alaska, as well as trying out my first international locales…but I always came back. In early 1998, after a massive snowstorm, I drove on to the Olympic Peninsula to interview for a job on Lake Crescent, and when hired I started the process of building a relationship to a place that I still call home.

Me and my wife in Port Angeles, 2001

I’m struck nearly every day that perhaps the most defining feature of my current life, my two sons, have such a different experience growing up in a (relatively) small town – knowing people, plants and animals, learning places. To them I think they find it a touch boring, but to me its exciting.

First job in the Olympics - 1998

Me and my sisters in 40 Delaware, 1984

Karen’s Road Trip (so far) Here are the major stops and a few notable side trips I’ve taken on the way to arriving where I am today. Through all of it weaves my love for the ocean, especially for beaches and the creatures that live on them. Finding my way to WSG felt a bit like coming home to a place where loving the ocean, learning about it and appreciating what it provides is the norm.

Major Stops 1 – Santa Monica/Westchester, CA (1966-1977) Born near the beach in Santa Monica, I spent my early years in Southern California and my earliest and best memories are of the beaches. Hot, white sand (with the occasional patch of sticky tar); waves that could ride you into the beach or tumble you like a washing machine; sand crabs and shore birds.

The ocean was the first thing I realized was huge and full of mysterious, wonderful things.

Other Highlights: Backyard peach tree (best peaches I’ve ever had) Front yard magnolia tree Flying kites off our roof La Brea Tar Pits and Sabre Toothed Cats

• • •

•

2 – Carmel Valley, CA (1977 – 1984) Moved from the city sprawl of LA to rural Carmel Valley. My parents opened a hardware store with my Aunt and Uncle.

We spent as much time on Carmel Beach or Monastery Beach or in the tide pools of Point Lobos as possible. Learned to SCUBA dive here and love the creatures I saw, especially rays, squid, nudibranchs and sea cucumbers.

Other Highlights: • • • •

Fourth of July on the Beach Getting to know the Carmel River An apricot orchard in my backyard Monterey Bay Aquarium opening in 1984

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3 – Lakewood, CA (1989 – 2014) Raised a lot of pets and our son (Dusty) in a small house in Lakewood. We spent a lot of time at zoos and museums.

I spent several summers doing triathlons and training at Seal Beach or as it was called locally, sting ray beach. Definitely learned the sting ray shuffle and the joys of ocean swimming.

Continued to play soccer as long as my knee would allow it.

Other Highlights: •

• •

Hot summer days in the pool (Dusty could swim about the same time he could walk) LA Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Santa Ana Zoo, Aquarium of the Pacific Orange tree in our backyard

4 – Edmonds, WA (2014 - ??)

Final stop so far. We moved up here for the healthcare and the job opportunities. Despite being born in California, I don’t like the sun, so I love grey days on Puget Sound. Also love the tide pools and how everyone goes out and sees what they can find on low tide days. Now I watch soccer more than I play, go OL Reign!

Other Highlights: • • • •

Ferries!

Bald eagles Giant Pacific Octopus (though I’ve never seen one in the wild) Learning about the Puget Sound and Washington Coast

Notable Side Trips: Claremont, CA (1984 – 1990) • • • •

Harvey Mudd College Masters of Engineering Varsity Soccer Goalie Married Ted

Big Island Hawaii • • •

Turtles Moray Eels Octopuses

New Orleans • • •

Food The Mississippi The swamps

Victoria, Canada • • • •

Tea & Croissants Books Architecture Art (some pictured here)

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Nicole I was born and raised in the suburbs of Tampa, Florida, just north of I-4 — where Florida begins transitioning from a retirement destination for East Coasters to swampland Dixie. I have one younger sister, Amanda, who is my best friend. I was much more excited about her arrival to this world than she was; a sentiment that persists to this day.

Like most kids who are from Florida, my parents are not. My mom, a retired MS and HS science teacher, grew up in Ohio. She is 1 of 6 kids from a German/IrishCatholic family. Her clan derives lots of satisfaction (OK, I’ll say it — TOO MUCH satisfaction!) from hard work and sacrifice. My dad, a math teacher, is from Panama.

I would describe my dad as a Black man with a Spanish accent and an Arabic last name. He also probably derives too much satisfaction from work; but is generally better at making work fun (see, for example, his post-retirement gig at a golf course.

He’s in it for the perks.). My parents both ended up at USF at the same time on tennis scholarships, and the rest is history (including their marriage!).

Me and Amanda’s best friend growing up was Arielle, our New Yorican neighbor who turned an obsession with crime dramas and thrillers into a forensics career with the City of Orlando. But, like the biracial girls described in a paper called “Brown-skinned white girls,” we never really put much thought into our own racial or ethnic identity until we were teenagers. The Latin Explosion in pop culture struck while I was in high school, and suddenly I was very aware of my brownness and Latinidad. I loved dance, so that became my entry point into a cultural background I felt largely unfamiliar with. I had never been to Panama; and I didn’t [yet] speak Spanish, though as part of the International Baccalaureate program, I had four years to learn.

Like many other kids from Florida, I left Florida as soon as I could. I went as far as my mom would let me go — Emory University in Atlanta, GA — buoyed by the expectation that my generous financial aid package would follow me when I studied abroad. I “matched” with a South Indian roommate, Supriya. At her insistence, I auditioned for a bhangra team, somehow made the team despite pointing my toes like a ballerina through the entire audition choreography, and quickly became an “honorary Desi.” I lost count of the number of times I had to explain my ethnicity!

I arrived at Emory wanting to study Anthropology, and I added Environmental Studies so that I could do a study abroad program in Baja California Sur, Mexico. A high school trip to Mexico shifted my attention to Anthropology; but, in many ways, my second immersive experience in Mexico was a return to my roots. For the first 16 years of my life, I wanted to be a marine mammalogist (I still don’t know how everyone kept a straight face after seeing my childhood drawings of manatees). The program in Puerto San Carlos, a fishing town along Magdalena Bay, got the wheels turning on how to apply an anthropological lens to marine conservation. For various reasons, I wanted a redo in Puerto San Carlos, so I applied for a Fulbright grant and was able to return for a year.

My next move was to southeastern Texas to teach high school science along the Rio Grande as part of Teach For America. I am a reluctant TFA alum — I have many criticisms of the program. But it did provide me with a stilluseful crash course in teaching and curriculum design. I still find myself wondering who got more out of my brief teaching stint - me or my students. Most of them lived in “colonias,” which are residential areas along the border that lack basic living necessities, such as potable water and sewer systems, electricity, paved roads, and safe and sanitary housing. Many of them were also undocumented. Though I had traveled and lived alone, my adulthood was more sheltered than most of their childhoods. Some of them were parents, others supported their parents, or raised their siblings.

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Small-town Texas quickly felt too small for my 20-something self, so I stuck with the original plan and went back to school. I agonized over going back to Emory or heading out to the West Coast. I ended up at UC-Davis. After my first year at UDC, I did some fieldwork in Tanzania with my advisor. But doing anthropological fieldwork with a translator somehow felt like “cheating,” so I ultimately returned to Puerto San Carlos for 2 years to do my dissertation research.

It was a good thing I chose UCD, since I met my husband in a global environmental history seminar! We started dating after that first summer of fieldwork, and we got married in 2016 right after 2 years of “amor de lejos” during field work. By the end of the first year of grad school, I had REALLY started questioning whether academia was the right place for me.

On the one hand, I was a Mellon fellow charged with “transforming the academy” through my presence, research, teaching, and mentoring; and that was what I had been committed to for a long time. On the other hand, for the first time in my life, my career ambitions were not the primary thing I cared about. I quietly started scoping our alternatives to the tenure-track, and while wrapping up my fieldwork in Baja I applied to an internship program with NOAA-Fisheries in Seattle. Cameron had family in Seattle, so it seemed like a nice way for us newlyweds to spend some time with them.

My internship with NOAA was the first time I truly did applied research; my dissertation was applied-adjacent, but I didn’t really have a way to connect it to public policy or solving people’s problems other than publishing some manuscripts and hoping they would get read by those in power. It felt very different doing research that was going to be directly used by people/institutions that had decision-making power. I felt less like I was extracting information from folks to further my own career or intellectual curiosity, and I liked that feeling. That internship led to a postdoc with NOAA right after graduation.

Just as the postdoc was really getting underway and right after Cameron and I relocated to Seattle, COVID-19 struck. The day of our baby shower – February 29 – was the day the first cases in Kirkland made the news. The next week, I went to the office for the last time in a LONG time, we made our final IKEA and grocery runs, and we hunkered down in our bubble. It was not what we imagined our first couple years as parents would be like! But in many ways, becoming parents during the pandemic has forced us to settle on a much more equitable division of labor than I think we would have landed on during the “before times.” And I loved not having to choose between working and being home with Tavi.

With a new baby and an even more urgent desire to move away from temporary postdocs, I jumped at the chance to work with WSG. I had a lot of fun helping Meg and Teri with the 2019/2020 seaweed farming workshop. And WSG’s mission and position also seemed like the best fit for my vision of life outside of but next door to the Ivory Tower.

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Hi! My name is Melissa Renee Poe. I’m the daughter of Sherrie Renee (born in Oakland), and I’m proud to share a middle name. I was by her side when she passed away 6 years ago, and my name is only one of many cherished gifts from her, including life itself. And I’m the daughter of Thomas Edward (also of the Bay Area, transplanted to Puget Sound in the mid-1980s); it’s an honor to carry his last name. My wife and I kept our own last names. I don’t think the issues around taking a spouse’s name is a big deal for Lesbians (what is a “maiden” anyways?). Poe is Irish, we believe. It’s said to mean “poverty-stricken as the result of a vow”, which isn’t too far from the situation of my family and ancestors. But thankfully, I’ve enjoyed better circumstances. My first name is after my great Aunt Inez (it’s confusing—her full name was Melissa Minerva Inez). I love my first name as it holds special meaning in the natural world (not that I’m unnatural, although some haters say I am).

Melissa means honeybee in Greek. And who doesn’t want to be associated with pollination and the magic of life? Mine is also the botanical name for the plant Melissa officianalis or lemon balm. And balm it is! It’s a medicinal plant in the mint family with a calming effect. Anyone who knows me, knows I love plants!

I was born in the East Bay of San Francisco. Conceived near Berkeley in the late 1960s; by birthright, I’m a freedom-fighter, a queer, feminist, and free-lovin’ hippie. Cliché, but I gave up drugs in 8th grade. I could write volumes about how I narrowly avoided the well-traveled path of addiction, teen pregnancy and prison that was taken by others in my family.

But this is a survivor’s story.

We’re not supposed to write about our professional journeys in this bio but let me just say that to a certain extent, school saved me. Three of my four older siblings didn’t even finish high school, and I am the first person in my family to graduate college. In this sense, my scholarship is part of my identity. Another saving grace: for about 7 years I dabbled with Christianity, from age 13 when I went stoned to my first youth group until age 20 when I shed the faith during a deep dive into liberation theology. With all the patriarchal and colonialist baggage of the white U.S. church, it has taken me a long time to embrace that part of my history. But if not for some good counselors at church and school, the opportunity to study abroad with transformative communities in Central America, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I asked my sister Melody how she tells our childhood story, and she said, “I had the best of two worlds: a mom who provided financially and a dad who provided love and affection.” Melody is my only “full” sibling, a truck driver and a recovered meth addict. Our parents divorced when I was 2 and they met new partners when I was 5. That gave me 4 parents and counting (Dad remarried to Mary) and then there were the honorary ones, like Aunt Linda and Uncle Doug who helped raise me. And more siblings; with the birth of my half-brother Eric, I was no longer the baby. I like to refer to my family less as a tree and more as an orchard to embrace the complexity of a blended family. Taking a cue from my sister, my childhood had many incredibly positive experiences and I’m grateful to my family for the foundations of who I am. Some qualities that I share with them: kindhearted, innovative and handy, tenacious, confident, and reliable.

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My whole life I’ve lived on the West Coast. I’m sure I was on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in my first year, but my earliest memory was when I was age 4. Dad brought Melody and me abalone diving with our Grandpa Jess (our mom’s daddy). I wish I remembered the abalone part more than the cold night of winter camping. We grew up eating seafood of all kinds that my family harvested from the waters of Northern California, as well as elk and deer from their hunting trips. We spent our summers camping and fishing.

My grandfather Jess is Azorean and Madeiran, from hundreds of years of island subsistence living. His parents emigrated first to Hawaii, then the United States around the turn of the century. Yes, I was intentional about separating Hawaii from the US, as their arrival as indentured laborers on the sugar plantations took place around the time that the Hawaiian Kingdom was illegally occupied by the U.S. Theirs was a rough life. And while some family stayed in Hawaii, my line left for the canneries in Oakland, specifically to Jingletown neighborhood, so-called for the sounds associated with cannery workers shaking the coins in their pockets on pay day.

Mom’s other side were British Mormons who walked the Great Plains for their version of Zion. My dad’s family were poor tenant farmers from the South, until my grandpa Poe (now buried at Arlington Memorial) train-hopped and hobo’ed his way west.

This year my wife Lara and I are celebrating our 25th Anniversary! We’re also celebrating our 10-year anniversary. We love having 2 anniversaries. For the first 15 years we were “outlaws”—since Marriage Equality passed in WA, we’ve been legally married. How many of us get to say that the Governor, the County Executive, the Mayor and 500 other gay couples were at their wedding reception at the historic Paramount Theater? It’s kind of incredible to feel that one our own major milestone is connected to this important moment of social change, however precarious those legal victories feel now.

Other fun facts: I live in West Seattle and we have 2 cats and a lovely garden. I’m a devoted Aunt. My family is mostly here in the region. And I’m blessed with dear friends. I’ve lived in Washington for 34+ years (and California from birth to ~18). I also lived in Oaxaca Mexico for 1.5 years. Lara and I love to travel and I’ve been to the Nepal Himalayas, all throughout Central America and Mexico, and most of Southeast Asia. I was an ecotourism guide for about 7 years, and guided international treks as well as Northwest wilderness and kayaking expeditions. My first time to Neah Bay was in 1996, when I witnessed whaling songs, traditional basket weaving, and backpacked the coast from Ozette to Rialto, a 6-day journey that I repeated 4 more times. I love the water and learned to swim at age 6 months and spent as much time as I could in lakes, rivers, pools, and slip-n-slides. I used to play soccer, was kinda feisty, have been in many fist fights, and survived earthquakes. In 3rd grade, I won the Limbo on ice-skates and picked a 45 RPM record of Love Machine as my prize. I love to cook, and I’m good at it. I forage wild foods.

Growing up, we grew our own food and raised animals. My family calls me Lissa.

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Deborah’s Bio: My story starts in Idaho. My great grandpa, Tracey, was a Black cowboy, horse breaker and rodeo champion, my grandma, Birdie, was Black and Native American adopted from the Muskogee reservation in Oklahoma by a preacher’s family. They migrated across the west eventually settling in Idaho in 1919.

My grandma, herself named Idaho, was only two when her father was killed riding a bucking bronco in a Montana rodeo. His saddle cinch had been cut and the indecent was labeled “suspicious”. My grandparents met when grandpa was stationed in Pocatello, ID during World War II – originally from Virginia he had no interest in Tracey riding rodeo (1930) returning to the Jim Crow south after the war and stayed in Idaho, with Idaho, joining millions of other Black folks in the Great Migration My parents met during their doctoral program at Idaho State My parents’ wedding – I love that my mom wore red.

University, and I was born in Boise in 1979, my two younger sisters followed soon after. Our corner of Idaho is disproportionately diverse, and my parent’s interracial marriage did not make big waves, but my dad refused for many years to accompany my mom back to Virginia where she grew up. My many cousins and I were raised to be proud of our Blackness and Birdie at 100 and of the struggles of our elders and ancestors and also to appreciate inclusiveness and celebrate the diversity within our own family.

When I was 10 we moved from Pocatello to Olympia, WA so my dad could take a job as a Vice President at The Evergreen State College. My sisters and I attended great schools, my middle sister and I became avid soccer players and my youngest sister could access services and eventually a diagnosis in support of her autism. We all loved Washington and still do. Idaho will always be a home of sorts to all the Purces, we go John, baby Deborah, & Idaho back generations and have deep history there - my dad was the state’s first Black elected official, my grandparents were leaders of the state’s NAACP chapter and Human Rights Commission; Grandma Idaho, now 96, still lives there and our big extended family returns every Christmas and 4th of July. But it’s also the only place I have experienced overt interpersonal racism, so…it’s complicated, and these days only more so. High school was all about 90’s music (still the best), singing in the school choir, soccer (which I loved) and track (which I hated but was good at), until a knee injury derailed my senior sports seasons and I instead volunteered as a peer sex educator with Planned Parenthood and got a role as a shark girl in an all-city production of (objectively) the best musical of all time – West Side Story. I attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland where, like a good liberal arts student, I studied Biology and Spanish along with ceramics, Ghanaian dance, SCUBA diving, religion and step aerobics (for credit!?). College was mostly great. NOT great was watching most of my BIPOC friends leave after the first year because of cost and culture.

Early days in Idaho

Jack and Naomi – my other amazing and beloved activist grandparents

My beautiful sisters

Soccer!!

1995 4x100 State Champions

Grandma Naom toasting Obama’ election at 95 years old

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Shark girl in West Side Story - 1997

Baja California Sur, Mexico

Southeast Alaska

My 20’s were a season of working my butt off to explore and define the intersection of what at the time were my biggest passions – building a career I loved, living and working internationally, and solidifying my Spanish language skills. These pursuits included study abroad in Chile and the Dominican Republic, summers of field work in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks, graduate research on scallop aquaculture in Baja, Mexico, Fulbright funded research on MPA’s back in Chile, ship-based guiding in Alaska, and coral reef restoration back in the Dominican Republic. I’ve been fortunate to live, work, study and have family ties to some of the most wonderful places on earth, including of course the PNW!!

Crested Butte, Colorado

Monte Plata, Dominican Republic

“I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.” ~William Hazlitt

As it turns out my 30’s were all about starting a family of my own.

David and I met in 2008 while working on a small cruise ship in SE Alaska (as a deckhand and exploration guide respectively).

From there we briefly lived in Seattle while I completed my NOAA CZM Fellowship, then we spent a year in the Dominican Republic while David conducted public health research on a Fulbright Scholarship. We danced bachata, played endless rounds of dominoes, ate about a million mangos and made life-long friends (who are like family) and we visit as often as we can, most recently with our three young kids in tow!

David is now an ER doctor (forgive me if I gloss over his decade of medical education PTSD!) Our kids, Omari, Seya and Havana, are the best teachers I’ve ever had – and girl, the lessons can be brutal. It can be indescribably daunting to teach these wonderful mixed race, aspirationally bilingual, city kids to navigate today’s world, but now and for the next several years it’s my most important job.

In my 40’s and beyond I hope to learn to meditate, practice restorative justice, and sing + dance a LOT.

With David, New Mexico 2019

Omari (7)

Seya (4)

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy” ~Thich Nhat The Purce Murphys, Kona 2021 Hanh

Havana (1)

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Chile

Oröd, Sweden

Porter (8)

Robyn My mom and dad moved to Seattle for grad school at the UW in the late 1940s. I’m the first born and have a younger brother and sister. All of us, except my father, who passed away, still live in Seattle. You can’t get any better than the Pacific Northwest.

I am 3/4 Scottish and was born with the brightest red hair imaginable that led to constant teasing and name-calling — carrot top, better dead than red on the head, Pippi Longstockings, etc. which left me with pretty thick skin.

First decade • We were raised in the Maple Leaf area of Seattle and the summers Orcas Island.

• Built many of tree houses, swam a lot, gathered clams for a penny-apiece for parents.

• Our family skied in the winter and hiked in the summer.

• I was very jealous of my brother, who was on a soccer team (there were no soccer teams for me and my little sister girls in the olden times). Ballet wasn’t working for me.

• I knew I would be a designer around the age of seven.

Second decade • Moved full-time to Orcas • Rode horses • Discovered birds • Still jealous of my brother, who got to play soccer.

• I graduated from Friday Harbor High School • Freshman first quarter swam for the UW women’s swim team until a sign went up in the locker room seeking women to start a soccer team.

I quit the swim team and didn’t get in a pool again for 20 years.

Third decade • Thankfully, my hair started to fade.

• Playing soccer for the UW and then transitioned to a women’s team when I graduated.

• Lots of skiing, hiking, and climbing, and I climbed and worked in an orphanage in Nepal.

• Art director for Pacific Northwest Magazine Fourth decade • Still playing soccer • Met the right man at the wrong time • I did the best thing of my life and had a baby.

Nothing will ever top being a mother to Ian Salmon McKay*.

• Existing with the chaos of my child’s youth • Lots of skiing, hiking, gardening, birding

*Fun fact: Salmon is an old family name traced back to 1590, Arron Island, Scotland, where it used to be MacSalmon. It was common to use the name of one’s occupation then— they were fishermen. It’s my father’s middle name and grandmother’s surname.

Fifth decade • Trying to manage the chaos of my child’s youth • Still playing soccer • Lots of skiing, hiking, gardening, birding • Met the wrong man at the right time • I started working at WSG • Discovered raising a dog is more challenging than children Sixth decade • Trying to manage the chaos of my child’s youth • Still playing soccer • Lots of skiing, hiking, gardening, birding, triathlons • Met the wrong man at the right time • Took two trips to Nepal • I had two knee replacements because of playing soccer** Seventh decade • Missing the chaos of my child’s youth • Lots of skiing, hiking, gardening, birding • I finally met the right man at the right time!

• Definitely going to bed earlier, not leaving the house, not going to parties, and realizing my childhood punishments have become my adult goals.

penguins! Am I lucky or what!?

Favorite Movie: Local Hero Favorite Poem: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Favorite Poet: Gary Snyder Favorite music to work to: Tinariwen Favorite bands to sing to: Byrds, Mamas and Papas and the Beatles (I am a terrible singer) Favorite bird: Raven

**Playing soccer was the opiate of my life. It was like crack for me.

I played with the same 15 women for 40 years. We watched and helped each other raise kids, go through cancer treatments, divorces, deaths, and, unfortunately, two murders. The camaraderie and continuing friendships were and still are one of the best things in my life.

Favorite books: My Side of the Mountain, Stuart Little, The Little Prince, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, Rebecca, Crossing to Safety Favorite tree: Western Red Cedar Favorite color: Loden green Favorite Drink: Lagavulin Cake or Pie: Neither, Crisp

Alex Stote I was raised by a village. I lived in a third-floor apartment with my mom; below us lived my aunt and two cousins, and below them lived my grandparents. My 3 other aunts all lived with 15 minutes of us, and my dad was just down the street. Together, this village raised me.

We lived just about 20 minutes to the nearest beach. In the summers, my mom would waitress at an outdoor restaurant right on the beach and adjacent to a jetty.

Sometimes on summer days she would let me go to work with her, and I would spend full days tide pooling by all the rocks. That’s when my love for the ocean and marine life first began.

I come from a family of immigrants. On my mom’s side I’m a fourth generation Italian American, and my dad emigrated from England to marry my mom. Both of my parents worked hard to support me through sports and school growing up. They always encouraged me to pursue what I loved most in life.

I’m a first-generation student. Thanks to my parents, I really believed that if I worked hard enough, I could achieve anything. I went to a college just a few miles away from where I grew up, outside of Boston. I never really liked telling anyone where I went to college because of my accent. I built community in college through sports, work, and study. If I could summarize those four years in just a few words, I would choose: Fishes, soccer, boxing, El Café Gato Rojo, Guatemala, backpacking, thesis, Cuba, scuba diving, coral science, Spanish, government.

After graduating college, I went straight to Alaska to work on a commercial salmon fishing boat. I was totally hooked. I made enough money to travel the world (mostly South America) for a year on a shoestring budget, then headed straight back to Alaska to fish another season. Time spent in Alaska is what convinced me to return to graduate school in Seattle specifically. I was sure that I wanted to study fisheries science with a focus on the sockeye runs in Bristol Bay, so I applied to UW. Five years later, I’m still in Seattle. I love living in the Pacific Northwest. I’m convinced that the mountains, coastline, food and beer are the best anywhere in the lower 48.

My favorite thing to do in my spare time is to go backpacking with my dog and my husband. The worst thing about living here is that I’m so far away from family. My mom and my sister are my world, but lucky for me, they love it here just as much as I do, so they make it a point to visit.

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Photo caption: My family on a recent visit to Whidbey Island for a morning of tide pooling.

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Maile Sullivan - Personal Bio I’m a sun-loving California girl, born and raised just north of the fog-belt that typically engulfs the beautiful city of San Francisco. Redwood giants, rolling golden summer hills with expansive shady oak trees, and toe-achingly cold waves along the coast are the backdrop to so many of my childhood memories of home.

Summers were filled with hot nights spent piled in shared beds with cousins, after days romping in walnut orchards and being sticky with juice from fresh peaches and pears from my paternal grandparents’ fruit ranch in the Sacramento Valley. These memories blend fuzzily in my mind with those of warm tropical breezes that cooled my over-sunned skin, the perpetual feeling of sand between my toes, and the fresh aroma of plumeria blossoms that made up the other blissful weeks of summer I spent each year with my maternal grandparents in the lush valleys of Manoa, on Oahu.

My mom was a teacher and taught at the school I attended from K-8th grade (I therefore vowed I would never become an educator….hmmm.) When most kids went home after school, I had free reign of the campus, which conveniently had playgrounds, a creek with crawdads and newts, and a nearby stable filled with horses. While my mom prepped her classroom, sat in faculty meetings or graded papers, I most often found myself down at the barn, mucking stalls, cleaning tack, and grooming the ponies, all of which fueled my equine-obsessed little-girl heart. As I got older, I took to horseback riding, and I would spend those after-school hours riding the fire roads and deer trails throughout the expansive hills and valleys behind the school. I still daydream about those afternoons - to think that at the age of 13, my most serious worry as an adolescent was running into a rattlesnake or hitting a patch of poison oak. Boy times have changed for kids today.

My grandfather was in a swimming accident off the coast of the Big Island when I was two years old.

Even as a seasoned and strong open ocean swimmer, an unusual undertow broke his neck, which caused him to become respirator dependent and a quadrapelegic for the rest of his life. This tragedy impacted my family in many challenging ways, but I attribute the foundation of my connection and passion for the ocean to this event, namely the time that it then allowed me to spend in the Hawaiian Islands visiting him and caring for him over his remaining 16 years. While my toes might object to the chilly waters at home in CA, I became a fish when we reached Honolulu. Countless hours of my life were spent swimming after Humuhumunukunukuapua'a and crashing in the waves, following the green Honu, or begging my uncle to take us out surfing or in the outrigger canoe. The Hawaiian ocean was my playground and my happy place, and yet I grew up with a constant reminder of its humbling power.

I have one brother, who is younger, but MUCH bigger than me (6’4!!!). His height is notable because my entire extended family calls him “B.J.” which stands for “Baby John”, since he was the youngest of the cousins. BJ would tell you that he is the favorite child, while I like to say that I am the better one. We agree to disagree on this :) He would also likely tell you that I am a classic big sister - bossy, nurturing, and used to getting my way. No comment.

After much of my life spent along the Pacific Ocean, I decided to give the Atlantic a try. I moved east to attend college in New England (where I learned all about lobstah, horseshoe crabs(!), Spartina alterniflora, and Busch Light), and then spent a few different stints studying and working on islands in the Caribbean. I tracked nesting sea turtles, researched SCUBA diver impacts on reef systems (ask me about my assignment out with the “Buff Divers Club”...and by that I don’t mean Aquaman), and lived on the side of a volcano in a little open-aired house powered by a rooftop windmill. Spoiler alert: we

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generated enough power to turn on one light in the house sometimes (but definitely not enough for the outhouse). On one of these islands, I worked for the Marine Park, and I ran the Snorkel Club for a group of precocious local students. They always sent me into the water first as “shark bait” each session before they jumped in. And because I lived to tell the tale, I can say that it was moments like this with kids that have brought me the most joy in my work.

My husband Mark and I met in graduate school at UW (at School of Marine Affairs), and quickly became friends after learning that we had worked in the same tiny building at Cal State Monterey Bay for several years prior, but had never met! We both ended up working at WSG as student assistants (I take full credit for getting him that job with Pete Granger) and even shared the downstairs office! Maybe WSG can take some credit for our near 11 years of marriage, though I am glad we don’t have to share an office anymore - he talks too much!

The hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done is becoming a mother. I have two children Heath (8) and Libby (5), who make me more proud, more angry, more joyful, more exhausted, and more passionate about making things better in the world than ever before in my life. As someone who has always preferred in life to keep the peace, calm the chaos, and be in control, parenthood has been a humbling experience. People always say “the days are long, but the years are short” and I am finally starting to see what they mean. The days are still excruciatingly long, but my tiny terrorists are quickly becoming their own people, and it really does seem to be flying by in the blink of an eye (a very tired eye!).

Writing a personal biography that is explicitly NOT my professional bio is hard, when my profession is so in line with the core of who I am and what I love. I think the work I do and the life I live has always been fueled by this deeply rooted connection with the natural world that began with my infant toes being dipped into the salt water, and my first fistfulls of dirt from the fertile land of fruit orchards.

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Bridget’s Biography I grew up on the SW side of Chicago as an inner-city kid. My dad served the people of Chicago’s South side as a Chicago police officer for 40 years. My mom was a nurse for over 40 years. Our neighborhood was filled with small brick homes that were all built side- by- side in the 1950s. The space between homes was so small that by younger brother and I used to hold ourselves up by putting one leg on each house and one arm on each house and see who could get higher. These small spaces were called ‘gang ways’. You could always tell a suburbanite from a city kid by asking the question ‘What’s a gangway?’ If they knew, they were ok.

Our neighborhood was rather insular. Generations of families lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same church, had the same teachers that taught their parents. Everyone did the same kind of jobsteachers, police, firefighters, nurses. Our neighborhood was diverse culturally but almost uniform economically and religiously.

Around 4th grade, I had an aunt that moved with my uncle and my two younger cousins to Qatar. They also bought a place in France to escape the heat during the hot middle-east summers. As a 10 yr old, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world! I dreamt of visiting them some day and exploring old French cities. From then on, I decided I would travel as much as I possibly could and meet people from all over the world.

And I did meet people from all over the world- without ever leaving Chicago. Luckily, I had an amazing resource on where to go to experience ‘different parts of the world’- my Dad. We left our little neighborhood, hopped on the ‘L’ and went to the Pakistani, Indian, Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Mexico, Vietnamese, Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods. Every country had their own neighborhood, own food stores, clothing stores and signs all in different languages. It was an amazing taste of the world but it made me want to travel even more.

In high school we were required to do 40 hours of volunteering per year. My high school biology teacher- whom I loved, suggested that I check out the Shedd Aquarium for my volunteer hours. So, I did. I will forever be thankful for her suggestion. As a volunteer at ‘the Shedd’ you were required to take 10- 4hr classes to learn about each exhibit and the animals in each exhibit. For a good portion of my sophomore year of high school, I remember traveling down to the Shedd on the ‘El’ on my own to attend these classes. The volunteers and the people teaching the classes were often retired, fisheries professors and enthusiasts (sound familiar?). I learned so much and had so much fun telling aquarium guests all about the animals, their habitat, having discussions about human impacts, and what behavior changes we could

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make to help. I spent every single Sunday in high school volunteering at the Shedd. I knew I wanted a ‘fishy career’- I just didn’t know what.

During my senior year of high school, the Shedd opened up a new exhibit called ‘Wild Reef’. It was a coral reef exhibit designed to take place in the Philippines. I was one of the first to be ‘trained’ on the new exhibit and consequently was always placed in this exhibit. I had practically every sign memorized by the end of that year. One portion of the exhibit talked about MPAs and working with local fisherfolk to better manage fisheries populations. I thought this sounded like the most brilliant idea! This seemed like something I wanted to study.

When it was time to apply for colleges, I was only allowed to go 6hrs from home. So I went to a college 6hrs from home in Minnesota. I spent my entire four college years hanging with people who went fishing, boating, camping- all these very ‘new to me’ activities. It was an adventure and I had fun! I studied fisheries biology but never forgot about the Philippine MPAs I had learned about back at the Shedd.

After graduation I ended up in a horrid fisheries research job at Iowa DNR counting fish scales.

I spent my free time researching grad programs and writing to random professors asking if people were ever paid to work with communities to create MPAs? A surprising number of professors from around the country actually wrote back! Long story short, I ended up at the UW doing my thesis on marine spatial planning working with local fishing communities in the Philippines.

It was during grad school that I met my husband through another SMA classmate. We decided to stay in WA and here we are two kids later. Our family goes camping, fishing, boating and their favorite food outing is going to China town in Vancouver, BC.

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I was born in Ca Mau, the southernmost province of Vietnam but our family moved to Da Lat, a highland city known for its moderate climate when I was one. My hometown still remains my fond memories with lots of flowers, vegetables, and especially tourists. I grew up with many siblings around and really enjoyed our childhood despite of tough conditions after Vietnam war.

I did not know much what had happened to my parents when the war ended. I only learned through stories of my parents and elderly neighbors. My mom used to be an elementary teacher and then a stay-at-home super mom when she had many of us. She suddenly became a brave bread-winner when my dad was arrested. My dad used to be a military officer during war time but everything turned upside down when North Vietnam (communists) government took over South Vietnam. My dad became a political prisoner along with many of his colleagues from Southern government. We grew up many years without my father around the house. A couple years later when family visits were allowed, my mom took me and my siblings to remote provinces to see dad. I heard people call those places “re-education camps”. In more than 6 years, my dad and other captives were moved to different camps to do hard labor and get training on doctrines of the new government. My dad told us later that those political speeches were unbearable after long days working at rice paddy fields or collecting firewood. However, we kids were very excited when my mom took us with her to visit dad. Before every trip, we had to prepare a lot of preserved food for dad and his close friends at the camps. I still remain emotional about those visits when our whole family reunited and enjoyed precious time together.

After my dad was released, he had a hard time adjusting to new lifestyle under communist regime. Previously being a respected officer of former government, he then came back home feeling defeated. I remember helping our parents do the chores around the house. After school, my siblings and I also helped my dad make handicraft products at home. My dad was pretty skillful and artistic in some way. Variety of wooden products made from home were delivered to stores and sold to tourists as souvenirs. Honestly, we kids sometimes did not like to help our dad after school at all. Like any other kids at our age, we loved to run around in our neighborhood, jumping ropes or hopscotching. My mom used to complain a lot about our dirty clothes full of mud and fruit stains. And of course, at the time, washing machine was something far-fetched and mom was once again a superwoman taking care of our clothes by hand. Years later when growing up a little more, my sister and I helped mom a lot with this burden though.

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Before the embargo on Vietnam was lifted, our family had made it to the US thanks to Humanitarian Organization Program sponsored by US government. Because my dad had worked for the US and South Vietnam government in the past, our family was granted visas to emigrate to other side of the earth. We were excited but worried at the same time because we did not know how to start from ground zero in a new country. However, to overcome barriers as new comers, we surely worked and studied really hard. Taking a walk down memory lane, I still wonder what made us get through this difficult time. It must be the hard work and family love bonding us together!

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MaryAnn Barron Wagner Long ago and many miles from Seattle, I became a Pacific Northwest outdoor person. Born and raised as a 5th generation Seattleite, I started out as a ballet dancer from age 4, with an ambition to perform Balanchine on the greatest stages in the US. That never waned, but the outdoors had a greater pull. How did this change come about?

My Uncle, Father, and Grandfather. They introduced me to the Methow Valley at a young age. Horseback riding, cross country skiing, downhill skiing and hiking ensued. My Uncle Jack Barron was the first to set aside large tracts of land in Eastern Washington for the sole purpose of creating a wildlife refuge. I caught his bug. We’d go hiking and identify birds and animals, camping and backpacking. And my grandfather even gave me my own horse (ok, it was more of a donkey). On one such trip, we found the abandoned Barron ghost town, founded by a mysterious Great-Uncle Alec, replete with a house of ill-repute, still standing.

Today, I continue to blend the arts and the outdoors.

Rowing with my crew on Lake Washington…

Dancing Eastern European choreographies

Tennis, swimming, kayaking and a pandemic-inspired exercise called “plunging” occur about weekly, the plunging involves jumping into the Puget Sound and running out as fast as you can. Usually at Golden Garden with dozens of other crazy characters in wet suits. Now I also surf when I am in warmer climes, although poorly. Still…at least I’m out there in the breakers.

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But the one steady feature in my life over all the years, is my family. And we are teaching our girls to get into and appreciate nature every chance we get. A few photos say it all. You can ask me about them!

But…I should say that I also love indoor activities, such as baking pies, eating oysters, having elegant meals with co-works, and… a nice cocktail now and then.

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