Board

Exploring and appreciating the forests, shores and wildlife of Bainbridge Island since 1983, Sally is grateful to be involved in this community that shares values of wellness for the land and people.  Having raised a daughter here and as a dentist on the Island, she has been active in various organizations and activities that support Island health and well-being.  Sally has also served with communications, international programs, and continuing education for the American Dental Association and has volunteered internationally in oral health education in developing countries through the FDI World Dental Federation.

Growing up on the East Coast, Jenny earned two degrees from Duke University – a B.S. in zoology in 1991 and a law degree in 1994. After working as a lawyer in Anchorage and in Washington, D.C., Jenny and her husband John, a Bainbridge Island native, moved here in 1997. She quickly fell in love with Washington State and its varied terrain and wildlife. For four years she worked in Government Relations at the Seattle office of The Nature Conservancy, pursuing public partnerships in conservation and helping to protect natural areas at the state and federal level. After having a family, she became an active volunteer on Bainbridge, including serving on the Vestry and leading annual campaigns at Grace Church, and becoming a founding member of Mom’s Morning Retreat, a support group for mothers. A proud parent of two teen boys, Jenny enjoys sea kayaking and walking on our local trails.

A Bainbridge Island resident, Mark is passionate about his community and continuing its legacy of preservation and environmental stewardship. Mark is currently a Senior Project Manager at Heartland LLC, a Seattle based real estate advisory and investment firm. Through his work at Heartland, Mark engages in a broad range of real estate services including asset management, brokerage, strategic planning, and financial analysis. Prior to joining Heartland, Mark worked as a consultant for a Seattle-based economic development consulting firm where he led the firm’s urban planning practice. He also served as a land-use planner in the resort community of Sun Valley, ID where he solidified his deep appreciation for the value of public open space and outdoor recreation. Mark attended the University of Puget Sound where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and earned a Certificate in Commercial Real Estate from the University of Washington. Mark, a Portland native, lives on Bainbridge Island with his wife and two sons. They spend their time exploring the Island’s many parks, beaches, and forests and enjoy the incredible access to biking, hiking and fishing that living on the Island affords.

Mark and Patti landed on Bainbridge Island in 2015 after years of toiling away in corporate careers, Mark in finance and Patti in communications. They were drawn to the island as the antidote for city living. One of the very first events they attended was the Annual Land Trust Pot Luck and they felt immediately at home. The intersection of wild space preservation and community involvement just resonated. Since then their involvement with the Land Trust has deepened. Mark brought his background in planning, forecasting and capital management to the Finance Committee in 2018. He is honored to join the Board in 2020. The outdoors has always been an essential part of Mark’s life. You can usually find him walking the Island parks, hiking across the Olympics, paddling a kayak or holding a fly rod.

The son of a US Air Force officer, Ed was raised in London and Ankara, Turkey. He received a BA in English and masters in economics from Ohio State University, an MA in public policy and a law degree from the University of Chicago. Ed taught law in Singapore as a Henry Luce Scholar. He joined law firms in New York, and practiced there and in Hong Kong before becoming a partner with Perkins Coie in the Pacific Northwest for several years. Next came project finance work in Singapore, China, and Southeast Asia, followed by positions in private equity and banking from 2000-2014, with Lone Star Funds, Merrill Lynch, Shinsei Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon based in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Ed and his wife, Linda, moved to Bainbridge Island two years ago, where they enjoy hiking, cycling, kayaking, and sailing – when he takes time off from active involvement in Rotary, and of course, the Land Trust’s projects committee.

Nicole grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California and made her way to the Pacific Northwest for college after spending summers on Whidbey Island.  After a few years in Washington, Nicole knew this would be her home state due to its natural beauty and the people. After earning a degree from University of Puget Sound, Nicole pursued a career in non-profit management and fundraising. Her education includes The Fundraising School through IUPUI and a certificate in Non-Profit Management from UW Tacoma. Nicole has her Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from UW Tacoma. When not working to make her community a better place, Nicole can be found traveling, crabbing in the summer, skiing in the winter and exploring the world with her husband and three energetic boys.

Maradel grew up in the state of Washington and worked for two summers on forest service lookouts on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. This experience, combined with early camping and hiking activities with her family, created in Maradel a strong desire to protect the environment from corporate and industrial mismanagement and overuse. After five years in Michigan, Maradel returned to the Pacific Northwest and became active with the effort to protect Oregon’s coastal beaches for public use. She then enrolled in the UO Law School, at a time when women were just beginning to enter the law sector in significant numbers. Maradel’s primary career was as a Professor at the University of Oregon, where she taught courses in legal issues in planning and public administration, environmental law, and leadership skills.Upon retirement, Maradel returned to the Puget Sound area and settled on Bainbridge Island, where she was appointed to the city’s Planning Commission, on which she served for 11 years. She was the founder of Sustainable Bainbridge and is thrilled to bring her extensive experience in environmental issues to the Land Trust’s Board.

Steve was born and raised in western Oregon where his family was involved in farming, the forest products industry and politics. Moving to Bainbridge Island in 2017 with his wife, Linda, a writer and former Georgetown University professor, was a homecoming after 30 years working in Washington DC as a congressional staff person and a health care lobbyist. Prior to those years he was a newspaper, magazine and wire service reporter in New York, San Francisco and Portland. During college at Columbia University, Steve worked four summers as a US Forest Service firefighter in the Pacific Northwest. He has served on several non-profit agency boards, most recently the Washington DC Tennis and Education Foundation for 12 years, primarily on fundraising and capital projects.

Ben is the Founder and Principal of Seismic Philanthropy, which advises foundations and families on philanthropic strategy. For over a decade, he served as the CEO of IslandWood – an environmental education organization based on Bainbridge Island. Ben was formerly the CEO of Net Impact, cofounded Camp Galileo, and worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help turbocharge the giving of some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. Ben has taught graduate courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Management at the University of Washington. He began his career as a Teach For America corps member in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He has served on over a dozen boards including PCC Community Markets; KUOW; and the Japanese-American Exclusion Memorial. He and his wife Lisa do their best to keep up with their two boys, Jake and Eli.

Merle’s longstanding passion for nature and the environment as well as its soothing effects began in her early childhood meandering the forests and beaches in New Jersey. She relocated to Bainbridge Island 20 years ago because of the island’s natural splendor and efforts towards land preservation. Merle has spent her professional career as a school administrator, college psychology instructor, and a consultant emphasizing organizational structures and design. Her work within schools has emphasized the design and development of systems to effectively promote equity for all students, particularly those who have faced challenges and/or have been marginalized.  Both her Master’s Degree in Psychology from Rutgers University and her Doctoral work at Columbia University have supported her work. Merle enjoys hiking, bicycling, fly fishing, tennis (when her knees permit it!), the arts and simply enjoying the beautiful place we call home. She is passionate in her efforts to make a difference – for everyone!

In 2002, Asha parlayed her experience as a senior real estate paralegal in Minneapolis into a personally much more meaningful second career in the NW land trust community. She has served as land protection project manager and later as conservation director for the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy (formerly Inland NW Land Trust) in Spokane, WA, as a board member for the Bowen Island Conservancy in British Columbia, and from 2008-2013 as the executive director of the Bainbridge Island Land Trust.  After stepping down from that role, she has continued to be a committed and active Land Trust volunteer, serving on its Finance, Fundraising and Projects Committees ever since, and recently also becoming a volunteer lead steward for the Land Trust’s Carlson conservation easement. Asha and her business partner husband Larry Pluimer live on Bainbridge and run two businesses out of their island home, ably assisted by two rascally cats and the best dog ever.

Fred grew up in the woods of Des Moines, Iowa, and has loved the natural understory ever since. He is a pediatrician and radiologist with nationwide experience, and still does academic work with the Children’s Oncology Group in his retirement. Fred successfully eradicated invasive kudzu as a Friend of Overton Park in Memphis, Tennessee. In the Seattle area, he controlled invasive weeds within the Union Bay Natural Area, and he worked to establish an accessible boardwalk and trail as a Friend of Y esler Swamp. Having lived four years on Bainbridge Island with his wife Donna Rodger, he is now an active volunteer with the Grow II Community, IslandWood, Rotary, and the Bainbridge Island Medical Reserve Corps. He continues to slay invasive plants wherever he can find them.

Growing up in North Dakota, Susan learned to love the outdoors, especially summer vacations camping with family while her brothers chased her with snakes. She earned BA degrees in English and Communications, taught public speaking, and earned her MA in Theatre and Communications at Colorado State University. Susan formed a public relations group in the 1970s representing preventive medicine speakers. She then established and managed Stewart Seminars for 10 years. In the 1980s she and her husband created a private preserve on Fox Island which offers opportunities for wildlife observation and walking. In 1990 Susan and her husband Jeff created and funded The Institute for Functional Medicine, which now has over 100,000 members.

When Steve was nine, his family moved from California to Bainbridge Island, his mother’s hometown. Steve has vivid memories of venturing into the local woods with friends when public natural areas were rare. After receiving a BS in Environmental Science (Huxley College) at Western Washington University in 1991, Steve worked forestry jobs in Oregon and Washington. He then joined a Seattle consulting firm involved in lake and stream restoration projects and earned an MS in Fisheries Resources at the University ofldaho in 1998. Since then, he’s been a tribal biologist focused on salmon habitat protection and restoration and the ecological recovery of Puget Sound. Upon returning to Bainbridge Island in 2003, Steve and his wife Denise raised two children. Steve finds comfort knowing that his kids grew up exploring the forests, trails, and shorelines of Bainbridge Island, a gift he’s certain they’ll keep their entire lives.

Lori is a Southern California native who relocated to Bainbridge Island with her husband Steve in 2018 to be closer to family. Lori grew up camping, hiking, and fishing along the Pacific Coast, including trips to Western Canada and Alaska. Lori attended UCLA for both her undergraduate and graduate school programs in Political Science and Urban and Health Planning. Lori worked in a variety of leadership positions in healthcare strategic forecasting and business planning in her career, including 20 years at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles serving as Vice President, Strategic Planning and Business Development. She and Steve enjoy running, cooking, travel, and entertaining grandchildren. Lori also provides pro bono consulting services for non-profit organizations through the Seattle-based 501 Commons, and is Board President of Bainbridge Island’s only synagogue, Congregation Kol Shalom.