Meet Our Board

Mark came to love the outdoors as a boy back-packing and canoeing in the woods of his native New England. After earning an A.B. in English from Dartmouth College and an M.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts, Mark began a career in the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service. Mark’s career as a U.S. diplomat took him to tours of duty in the U.S. embassies in Guyana, Djibouti, and Sweden; to an assignment in Egypt and Israel as a peace-keeping observer; and around Norway as a lecturer on the Marshall Plan. Mark and his wife Sharon now share a 35-acre farm with their horses and Yellow Labrador. Mark also serves as president of Grace Lutheran Church and works as a real estate agent with Windermere Real Estate Port Townsend.

Rodger has 33 years of professional experience in natural resource, park, and outdoor recreation management. Most recently, he was National Director of Recreation for the Bureau of Land Management. Locally, Rogder serves on the Fort Worden State Park Advisory Committee. Nationally, he serves on the board of the Public Lands Interpretive Association and Chairs the Pacific NW Advisory Board of Wilderness Inquiry. Rodger and his wife Jill moved to Port Townsend in 2003.

Todd fell in love with the Olympic Peninsula while working on the West End cutting cedar and setting chokers in the late 70’s. Since 1991, Todd has worked as project manager and business development manager focused on energy and operational efficiency for large buildings. Todd served from 1999-2003 as a member of the Jefferson County Planning Commission, and remains involved in county planning as an independent citizen. Todd served for over six years as a member of the Board of the local Economic Development Council. In his spare time Todd volunteers on non-profit building projects in the area and has been a ropes course team leader and commercial/volunteer river guide for special needs groups. He lives on the edge of Fort Worden State Park with his wife Rebekah and their two daughters Molly and Abigail.

Jane is a retired attorney who worked for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC, Chicago and Seattle. At the EPA she focused on enforcement cases, policy work and grants law. Jane has volunteered for Centrum, the Jefferson County Historical Society, Habitat for Humanity and the Port Townsend Film Festival. She served on Skookum’s Board of Directors briefly. She brings legal skills, clarity of thought process and clear written and oral expression to the Board of Directors. For all of those attributes we are grateful!

Ginny is a retired attorney who practiced in the areas of estate planning, trusts and probate. She also served as a trust officer for a major bank in the Midwest. She has volunteered for Legal Aid, Leader Dogs, Northwest Wyoming Resource Council, Friends of the Desert Mountains, Water Watchers and the Buffalo Bill Museum Development Comittee in Cody, Wyoming. She was a board member at Paint Creek Center For the Arts in Michigan and Director of the Smoki Museum of American Indian Arts and Crafts in Arizona. She believes strongly in curbing sprawl and preserving open space, wilderness and small farms for the benefit of present and future generations.

Don is a '66 UCLA graduate, a Navy Vietnam veteran in helicopter combat rescue, and he retired from a 33-year career as a financial consultant with a major Wall Street firm. Currently, he is a Red Cross disaster volunteer (locally and for Hurricane Katrina), is involved with the PT/Bay St. Louis Sister City Project, Habitat for Humanity, and is a Rotary volunteer in Guatamala. Don and his wife Celeste (a Sequim native) moved to Port Townsend from Olympia.

An experienced non-profit director, Owen Fairbank worked with wetland restoration in Oregon, honing his awareness of issues of protecting native plants and controlling invasive plants in sensitive habitat. Owen and his wife, Sarah, an avid Master Gardener, live in Port Townsend. Owen is currently chair of the Land Conservation Committee.

Kathryn was a public school German teacher from 1967-77. In 1977 she left teaching and was hired by IBM as a Systems Engineer where she worked until 1993. In 1993 she left IBM to join a small consulting company, Meetingworks, which develops software used for collaboration and decision making. In facilitated sessions, they help clients with strategic planning, problem solving, brainstorming, and many other group processes. Her clients have included many in the public sector (e.g., City of Kirkland, City of Puyallup, National Defense University, National Park Service) as well as many private companies (e.g., CareOregon, Disney, Microsoft, Mercer Consulting, etc.). We are thrilled to have Kathryn’s enthusiasm and facilitation expertise on our Board of Directors.

An active community member, Suzanne has been a volunteer for community organizations wherever she has lived. She has worked as a realtor and school teacher in the past. Since 1991 she has worked at Seacraft Classics, Inc., a firm started by she and her husband, Howard. Suzanne resides in Irondale with Howard, on property that has been in the Learned family for over 100 years. The property overlooks Chimacum Creek. They have two grown children (a son, Andrew, and a daughter, Synthia). She now enjoys being with her friends, hiking, boating, films, reading, and her new passion is gardening.

Joanne began her career as a librarian who worked in a variety of professional settings, including a university, a government-funded education consortium, and a database firm in the private sector. She also worked as Senior Research Associate in a private firm engaged in educational research. During the 1980's, she spent several years in residential real estate. Since her retirement, she has devoted her time to co-initiating a web-based project to match patients with clinical trials (based at the University of California at San Francisco). More recently, she has involved herself in a variety of community organizations. She is a member of the Board of the Port Townsend Public Library Foundation, and a citizen representative on the Solid Waste Advisory Committee for Jefferson County. Joanne and her husband, Len, live in Port Townsend.