Bios

President: Sallie Maron
Sallie is a community volunteer with a special interest in land conservation and environmental issues. A former small business owner, she has been hiking the trails and picking blackberries on the Island since 1978.  She has also worked for many years to help build the local economy with innumerable meetings at our fine local bakeries.

Vice-President: Kat Gjovik
Kat has lived on Bainbridge Island for 27 years.   After more than 25 years in the business world, working in multiple disciplines, Kat transitioned to the study and practice of whole systems design, organizational development and community building.  For the past 10 years, she has focused her energies on community organizing and political activism.  Kat worked at the 23rd District Democratic Bainbridge Headquarters for the 2004 election, and worked collaboratively on the Bainbridge Island Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the City’s Adopt-A-Road Program, multiple events for peace, regional Earth Charter Community Summits, and Bainbridge Island Earth Day events.  She hosts the regular Bainbridge Island Conversation Café, and recently, served as staff for the Community Housing Coalition, which developed recommendations for solutions to the local affordable housing crisis.  She currently works with David Korten, author of the Great Turning:  From Empire to Earth Community, on outreach and communication for the national Great Turning Initiative.  Her passions include collaborative grassroots organizing for action, designing group experiences and bringing people together in meaningful conversation.

Secretary: Jon Quitslund
Jon grew up on Bainbridge; his father, born in Port Madison (the son of early settlers from Sweden) brought his family home to the Island in 1945. Graduating from Bainbridge High in 1957, Jon went off to college in Portland and then to graduate school on the East Coast.  He taught English literature and other subjects in the Humanities at the university level (Freshman writing to Ph. D.-level seminars) for a full career, 1964-2000, but he never entirely lost touch with his roots and extended family on Bainbridge.  Living in Washington, D. C. for all those years and spending many summers on the Island alerted him to the importance of a sense of place and proved that you may run, but you can’t hide from politics.  While getting settled in an active retirement here, he turned his hand to writing about community affairs, local politics, and environmental issues.  Much of his reading nowadays deals with efforts to achieve sustainable local economies, and he will be contributing information and reflections to the Sustainable Bainbridge website, hoping to prod others to find their own lines of inquiry and activism.

Treasurer: Els Heyne
Els is an entrepreneur and a free-lance small business financial consultant and bookkeeper. She is one of the founders of the bicycle shop "Classic Cycle" on Bainbridge Island. Els was raised in the Netherlands but moved to Bainbridge in 1984 and has never regretted that move. She recently graduated with an MBA in sustainability from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. She currently also serves on the board of the Community Housing Coalition and is the treasurer for One Call for All, which last year raised more than $800,000 for nonprofits in the Bainbridge and Kitsap community.

Maradel Gale
Maradel has had extensive experience with non-profit organizations. A retired University of Oregon professor, Maradel brings to her work 27 years of teaching and mentoring students in fields ranging from community and regional planning to law to cross-cultural communication. Maradel was a founder and the first President of the Oregon Environmental Council, and formed and directed the UO Micronesia and South Pacific Program, which placed graduate students in island communities to engage in skills transfer in conjunction with a project important to the requesting agency or organization. Upon retirement, Maradel moved to Bainbridge Island, where she has been active in the Winslow Tomorrow process and has been appointed to the City of Bainbridge Island Planning Commission. She is also active with the Bainbridge Island Historical Society and Museum.

Todd Johnson
Todd Johnson loves working with garbage and looking for ways to reduce it.  Waste is a resource out of place!  He is currently an Account Manager for CleanScapes, a sustainability-focused waste and recycling company in Seattle.  Prior to that, he worked as an Operations Manager for CDL Recycle, a construction and demolition material recovery facility.  He looked for new markets for C&D debris that always seemed to find a way onto the tipping floor.  In San Diego, Todd had been a Plant Foreman at a C&D recycle facility for EDCO Disposal and previously, an Operations Manager with Tayman Industries, another waste collection and recycling company.   In April 2009, Todd joined the Solid Waste Advisory Committee to the Seattle Public Utilities.  Todd has been living on Bainbridge Island since September 2008 with his wife and two Boston Terriers and loves the sense of place here.

Bill Luria
Bill has over 25 years of experience managing community planning and development activities for both large and small-scale public and private capital projects.  He brings technical expertise in long-range master planning, environmental analysis, capital facilities planning, neighborhood planning, facility needs assessments, site and building condition evaluations, permit processing, interagency coordination, technical writing and public participation facilitation.  Bill has had direct experience working with public sector agencies, private entities and neighborhood groups in bringing projects through the planning, agency approval and community acceptance process in a timely manner.  Bill has served on the Bainbridge Island Planning Commission, as Parking Committee Chair, a member of the Winslow Tomorrow Citizens Congress and the Bainbridge Island School District Capital Facilities Planning Committee and Bainbridge Island Capital Facilities Planning Committee.

Lisa Macchio
Lisa has a bachelors degree in wildlife biology and a Masters Degree in Marine Resource Management from the School of Marine Affairs at University of Washington.  Using her education has served her well in her position at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the past 18 years where she works tirelessly on water issues.  She is also a divemaster and has been scuba diving for the EPA dive team for the last 14 years.  She has seen much of Puget Sound, including Bainbridge Island, from underwater; which fits with her passion for all things water related.  Her after work energy had been devoted to raising her daughter on Bainbridge Island, who has since amazed her mother by electing to attend the UW, of all places (where she is now a junior).  Lisa’s reserve energy is and has been devoted to Island community service. She was appointed by the mayor to serve as an Open Space Commissioner and has served on the Commission for the past 7 years, a Commission that has used public funds to acquire well over 250 acres on the Island as public open space.  Lisa also served on the City’s 2025 Growth Advisory Committee and on the Washington State Ferries Citizen Advisory Committee as a bicycling advocate/representative.  Lastly, Lisa launched the Coalition to Save Blakely Harbor, which was a grass roots effort which successfully activated the entire Island community to speak out and let the city know that the community wants continued protection of Blakely Harbor, one of the many “gems” of the Island.

Donna Mohr
Donna Larkin Mohr was born, raised, and educated in Southern California. When the opportunity presented itself, in 1972, to move further north, she was truly delighted and has always felt she belonged in the ever-green Pacific Northwest. As a child of a middle-class family, she did not want for much; but, when the holidays came around, she new it was not prudent to dream big because her parents provided gifts for several family members, including her two brothers. So, the beautiful green Schwinn bicycle she so longed for was, quite simply, not a possibility. However, thanks to a wonderfully generous grandmother, she got the green machine, which forever altered her life. She saw in that bicycle the ability to "fly" almost anywhere she wanted to go, with nothing but the expenditure of a little of her own energy. As the years passed, the green machine became her mental symbol for her love of the environment, mother-earth-Gaia-and all the magical flora and fauna surrounding her. -- A major segment of Donna's life was spent in the corporate world where her last position was as a Systems Development Director. She is a relative newcomer to Bainbridge, moving here from Montana in 1995. Donna is currently serving as President of the Interfaith Council of Bainbridge Island & North Kitsap.

Kate Ruffing
Kate comes from a long, proud linage of Midwest farming families which, from an early age, deeply rooted her in agriculture and food. She is now a 10-year veteran of the Food and Beverage Industry where she has worked in a variety of capacities including Operations, R&D and Marketing/Business Management.  She currently is a Category Manager at Starbucks Coffee Company were she leads the New Platforms/Innovation team for Food. 
Kate has combined her passions for the culinary arts and Sustainable Agriculture in the way she lives her life. Since moving to Bainbridge Island 2 years ago, Kate and her husband have transformed their home (called “Camp 4”) into a small hobby farm and art studio.  As a self-proclaimed, vertically-integrated, “foodie”, Kate continues to explore economical and environmental ways to shorten the path from farm to fork. Kate holds a B.S. degree in Agriculture and Life Sciences from University of Wisconsin – Madison and an M.B.A. from University of Chicago – Booth School of Business with an emphasis in Marketing (Consumer Behavior), Competitive Strategy and Economics and serves on the Bainbridge Island Public Arts Committee.