Meet Our Board of Directors
From left to right: John Woolley, Peggy Bruton, Coleman Byrnes, Marcy Golde, Toby Thaler, Paul Kampmeier, Shelley Spalding, Connie Gallant. Not pictured: Jill Silver, Kevin Geraghty, Nancy Woolley, Fayette Krause

President John Woolley (Sequim) is a 37-year resident of the Sequim area and a retired teacher of politics, the environment, history, and the social sciences. John holds a B.A and M.A. in Transportation and International Business from the University of Washington and a Teaching Certificate in Geography from Western Washington State College, where he attended Huxley College. John is on the board of the Washington Trails Association and the Olympic Park Associates. He is particularly interested in promoting wilderness ethics and is Chair of OFCO's Olympic Wild Committee. John and his wife, Nancy, have been hiking on the Olympic Peninsula since the 1960s. He is OFCOs expert on "knowing the local dirt."

Vice president Connie Gallant (Quilcene) is president of RV Consumer Group, a nonprofit consumer advocate organization dedicated to researching the safety of recreational vehicles. Based on the Olympic Peninsula, Connie's professional experience includes administration and management, writing, editing, Web design, and photography. She has been active in local politics since moving to Quilcene in 1982, where she volunteered to teach martial arts to adults and children, and self-defense classes for women. Prior to moving to Washington state, she lived in San Diego, California, working in the Research/Development Department of a large corporation, and ultimately forming her own business as a fashion and nature photographer. With her husband, JD Gallant, Connie managed a lodging resort in the Sierra Nevada where she learned the importance of balancing nature with human habitat. She is an active member of a number of wildlife organizations.

As a member of the OFCO board, she serves as an activist on the Forest team. Connie is the recipient of the Washington Wilderness Coalition's co-founder Karen M. Fant Environmentalist Award. She is also the Chair of the Wild Olympics Campaign - a campaign proposing wilderness and park additions and wild and scenic river designations on the Olympic Peninsula for the protection of our watersheds.

Secretary Jill Silver (Port Townsend) is a Washington state native who lives and works on the Olympic Peninsula, where she's watched the landscape change over her lifetime. An environmental scientist with experience in riparian and aquatic habitat restoration, watershed assessment, and development of watershed-scale conservation programs, she holds a B.A.S. in Environmental Studies and Sciences from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. As executive director of the nonprofit 10,000 Years Institute, her focus is on the protection of rivers, wetlands, forests and nearshore environments. She serves as a board member of the Olympic Coast Alliance, the Forests and Fish Wetland Scientific Advisory Group, and the Jefferson County Noxious Weed Board.

Treasurer Nancy Woolley (Sequim) is a retired high school librarian and English teacher. She and her husband, John, have lived in the Sequim area for more than 30 years. An avid reader and hiker, Nancy has traveled extensively in the western states, van camping, day hiking and backpacking.

Coleman Byrnes (Port Angeles) is a semi-retired fish and wildlife biologist but is still working part time for Clallam County. He has a fisheries degree from the University of Washington (1967) and has worked for county, state, federal and tribal entities as well as for private consultants and educational institutions. He has worked with all species of Northwest salmonids in both fresh and saltwater environments. He has also worked with many other species of marine fish, marine mammals, marine birds, amphibians and terrestrial birds. At present he is involved in several government-sponsored committees dealing with salmon recovery and involved in numerous volunteer projects dealing with fish and wildlife. He and his wife were presented with a community service award for their environmental volunteer work in April 2010.

Peggy Bruton (Olympia) spent the first 50 years of her life in Washington, D.C., where she worked as an editorial consultant and was a long-time environmental activist. She moved to Olympia, Wash. in 1991 with her husband, David Edwards, after living for several years in southern Italy. She has also lived in Asia (Thailand) as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She is currently Forest Issues portfolio chair for the Washington State League of Women Voters. Peggy is OFCOs newsletter editor. She is also one of the most connected persons in Olympia and we go to her for guidance in building a stronger program in Olympia.

Kevin Geraghty (Seattle) has a master's degree in Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and a doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago. He works as a statistical and economic consultant in the field of energy conservation. He has been involved in public lands conservation advocacy in the Pacific Northwest for the last decade, and currently serves on the boards of several nonprofit conservation groups. Although an aficionado of natural landscapes in general, he is particularly passionate and knowledgeable about forests. Issues surrounding roads and timber sales on westside federal lands have absorbed most of his efforts in the last few years.

Marcy Golde (Seattle) moved to Washington state in 1960 and started volunteering with the Washington Environmental Council (WEC) in 1979. She has focused on forestry, wildlife and water issues, especially as they relate to state and private forest lands, including several intensive forestry negotiations. She also directed a three-year program to implement the Timber, Fish and Wildlife agreement, which she helped negotiate. The WEC program had part-time staff in each of the seven DNR regions from 1988-1991, who monitored state and private timber sales and joined interdisciplinary field visits.

Marcy has continued to volunteer for WEC, trying to prevent the Board of Natural Resources from reducing fish and riparian protection and increasing the harvest level. That effort failed, but a successful lawsuit overturned that decision. WEC and the other plaintiffs, including OFCO, then worked on a negotiated settlement. She also has worked with the Washington Forest Law Center consulting with the Conservation Caucus on the Forest and Fish Agreement. Marcy also has served on the boards of Earth Ministry and the Northwest Fund for the Environment. In 1999 she joined the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Committee and completed her second and last term. In 2004 Marcy joined OFCO's board and our state forest issues committee.

Paul Kampmeier (Seattle) is an attorney with the Washington Forest Law Center in Seattle. Before joining WFLC, Paul spent three years in private practice representing citizen activists and nonprofit organizations in environmental, land use, public records and consumer protection litigation. Paul volunteers for a variety of environmental organizations and enjoys traveling abroad, reading, backpacking and spending time with his wife and two kids.

In Paul's own words: "I was born and raised in Ohio, did my undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, then hiked 300 miles or so on the Appalachian Trail before moving to Delaware to work for a few years. Work there wasn't suitable so I went to Montana to live near Flathead Lake for a summer to work at a camp and backpack. [After more than two years of travel in Asia, Central America and Mexico] I moved to Seattle to go to the University of Washington School of Law. During law school I volunteered with American Rivers and Washington Environmental Council (WEC). After law school I took a job with Smith & Lowney, a small firm in Seattle that represents nonprofits like OFCO in environmental enforcement and related activities. There I did a fair amount of Clean Water Act litigation on behalf of groups like Puget Soundkeeper Alliance (PSA), People for Puget Sound, Waste Action Project, Washington Toxics Coalition, etc. At that time I was also volunteering for WEC and PSA on their legal committees. At WFLC I focus on Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act litigation on behalf of nonprofits working to protect and preserve natural resources on state and private forestlands in Washington and Oregon."

Fayette Krause (Port Townsend) has been a full-time resident of Port Townsend for two years and a Seattle commuter to P.T. for two years before that. He worked as Land Steward for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Washington state for 30 years, beginning in 1979. He focused his TNC work on the Upper Skagit Basin, southwest Washington, DNR's Trust Land Transfer Program and, most recently, the expansion of DNR's Dabob Bay Natural Area Preserve. Fayette currently serves on the board of the North Cascades Conservation Council (N3C); he's N3C's representative on Seattle City Light's Land Acquisition and Management groups for Skagit Basin mitigation lands. He was also recently appointed the Conservation Chair Alternate of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. In 2010 he served as a member of the Puget Sound Rockfish Recovery Advisory Group to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Fayette has recently prepared an annotated list of bird species for a portion of Fort Worden State Park and is active in environmental issues there.

Shelley Spalding (Olympia) lives next to a salmon stream on the southern flank of the Olympics. Her undergraduate degree is in Economics, but she went to graduate school in the early 1990s and became a fish biologist. She has worked for Wild Salmon and Trout Alliance, Skokomish Tribe, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympic National Forest and, most recently, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). While working for USFWS, she focused on bull trout research and recovery, water temperature standards for salmonids, and the Washington Forest Practice Rules. She recently retired and is the Olympic Peninsula/S. Puget Sound Broadband leader for the Great Old Broads for Wilderness, works on comprehensive immigration reform, and enjoys her gardens, animals—dogs, cats and horses—and grandkids. She plans to hike the "Up and Over Trail" on the Dosewallips at least once every month of the year.

Toby Thaler (Seattle) received his law degree (J.D.) in 1978 at the University of Washington Law School. Since that time he has been a successful advocate for natural resource conservation. He has a wide range of experience in natural resources law, including work with three Native American Tribes on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula, Seattle City Light, Washington Environmental Council and Washington Forest Law Center. In addition to his membership in the Washington State Bar Association, he is also admitted to practice in U.S. District Courts and U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Toby has also offered his pro bono legal services to various environmental organizations, including the Washington Environmental Council. OFCO receives the benefits of his experience with his work on our state forest team.