Staff

Our conservation, development, and support staff represent nearly a century of experience working for you and Northwest forests and wildlife.

Paul Bannick, development director

206.675.9747 ext. 202
Paul Bannick heads up our Seattle office as well as our major gifts program. Before his recent positions obtaining major gifts for American Rivers and Islandwood, he worked for 15 years in the high tech field, helping grow Aldus into the top force in desktop publishing, then later working with Adobe and Microsoft. An accomplished naturalist and wildlife photographer, Paul has a passion for nature. He's just published The Owl and The Woodpecker, his first book, featuring all 41 species of owls and woodpeckers found in the US and Canada. Read more.

Jodi Broughton, business and membership director

360.671.9950, ext. 15
Jodi Broughton fell in love with the Northwest's wild places when her family moved here from Texas in 1979. After completing her environmental policy degree in 1997, she spent a few summers telling people about the beautiful alpine landscape around Mount Baker, then joined Conservation Northwest as newsletter editor. She enjoys most anything that takes her away from a computer: hiking, skiing, gardening, and cooking.

Barbara Christensen, social media coordinator/systems administrator

360.671.9950, ext 12
Barbara Christensen is also our resident bat-lover. Barbara has worked in the nonprofit world on both coasts for more than two decades, focusing on technology access, conservation, and development. She has an MS from the University of Washington and spends time gardening, reading voraciously, and dancing. She keeps all the IT and databases running; edits our blog, Scat!; and manages our Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn pages.

Mitch Friedman, executive director

360.671.9950, ext. 13
Mitch Friedman never held the same job for longer than a few months prior to founding Conservation Northwest. He has served as executive director since 1989. He has a degree in zoology from the University of Washington and is the father of two. His biography makes for good reading!

David Heflick, conservation associate

509.684.8287
David Heflick graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 1977 with a degree in education. Before becoming actively involved in the environmental movement in 2000, David was a self-employed musician. He is also the author of two books, the latest being a road cycling guidebook for eastern Washington. In his spare time he enjoys traveling, backpacking, bicycling, and wildlife photography. David lives in a log cabin on 20 wooded acres near the Canadian border. He is our mapping and forest resources guru.

Jay Kehne, Okanogan County outreach associate

509.470.1767
Jay Kehne joined Conservation Northwest after a 31-year career with the USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service where he put his wildlife biology and soils degrees to work providing conservation assistance to farmers, ranchers, and landowners in eastern Washington. He served for many years as resource conservation and development coordinator for Chelan, Douglas, and Okanogan counties. Jay lives in Omak with his wonderful wife Rita and two children on six acres overlooking the Okanogan River. He loves to ski, backpack, hike, hunt, raise a big garden, hobby farm, cook, and meet, talk, and share ideas with all kinds of folks.

Derrick Knowles, Columbia Highlands Campaign director

509.747.1663
Since graduating from Eastern Washington University with an MA in technical writing three years ago, Derrick Knowles worked for Kettle Range Conservation Group out of the Spokane office, organizing grassroots support for protecting northeastern Washington’s remaining wild areas and wildlife in the Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains. A life-long resident of the Spokane area, Derrick still enjoys the same outdoor activities he grew up with: hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, and river rafting. He has a deep, personal connection with the Inland Northwest’s unique landscapes and is excited to team up with Conservation Northwest to make wilderness protection for the wild home of caribou, grizzly bears, and lynx in northeastern Washington’s Colville National Forest a major issue for people throughout the Northwest.

Joel Litwin, web contractor

Joel Litwin came to us after years of working in marketing and sales for the Oceanic Society in San Francisco and Northern Lights Expeditions in Bellingham. He now works for Airporter Shuttle. A former mountain climber, Joel was attracted to the heavily glaciated North Cascades, though he now prefers less life-threatening pursuits. An accomplished professional percussionist, he has played with many groups, including the LA-based Latin band, Incendio.

Kit McGurn, outreach associate

206.675.9747, ext. 201

Kit McGurn is originally from Pueblo, Colorado. He went to college at PLU in Tacoma, majoring in economics and environmental studies. After an 8 month solo backpack trip in South America, Kit decided to turn his attention towards wildlands conservation, working for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition in the Idaho field office and as the Sierra Club’s Arctic Conservation Organizer. Kit’s primary focus is to help gain broader visibility for our campaigns and programs in the Puget Sound region.  

Jasmine Minbashian, special projects director

360.671.9950, ext. 29
Jasmine Minbashian has been working in the field of wildlife and forest conservation for over fifteen years, serving as past director of the Northwest Old-Growth Campaign and Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project.   She holds a masters degree in Polar Studies from Cambridge University, where she studied the impacts of a growing tourism trade on seabird colonies in the Antarctic Peninsula.    She has spent countless hours exploring the forests of the Pacific Northwest, surveying wildlife and field monitoring timber sales, and is currently leading Conservation Northwest's efforts to recover the gray wolf in Washington State.  In her spare time, Minbashian enjoys photography, horseback riding, and backcountry skiing. 

Erin Moore, publications director

360.671.9950, ext. 24
Newsletter editor Erin Moore has long worked in written and visual communications and environmental advocacy - for the last 10 years with Conservation Northwest. Her past work with nonprofits includes Nitrogen Fixing Tree Association, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and Great Old Broads for Wilderness. She holds a BA in scientific and technical communication and an MS in forest ecology, both from the University of Washington. In past lives, she has served as reporter, layout artist, and photographer for the Northwest Passage newspaper in Seattle; worked in the publishing field as a freelance editor; and managed a soils science lab, conducting fieldwork and publishing research into belowground forest ecology and nutrient dynamics in PNW forests. She is an avid mushroomer, backcountry skier, and dancer. Her job at Conservation Northwest is to help tell the myriad, science-based work of our campaigns for forests and wildlife by creating compelling stories that create urgency, understanding, hope, and action.

Pat Roberts, accountant

360.671.9950, ext. 19
Pat Roberts grew up surrounded by the scenic wildness of northeast Minnesota. Lured by a photo of Bellingham Bay and Mt. Baker featured on the catalog cover, she enrolled at Western Washington University in 1970. According to Pat, you can take the girl out of Minnesota, but you can't take Minnesota out of the girl, but that doesn't mean she misses swatting mosquitoes or enduring below zero temperatures! An accountant with 25 years experience, she served as fiscal manager for Big Brothers Big Sisters before coming to work for Conservation Northwest in February 2002. On free weekends you will find her relaxing at her Lake Samish home or out in the woods with her husband, Mike.

Joe Scott, international conservation director

360.671.9950, ext. 11
Joe Scott works to protect large animals, from grizzly bear to mountain caribou, and wildlife habitat, with a particular emphasis on British Columbia and transboundary issues, and a focus on collaborating with our Canadian neighbors to the north.

Julia Spencer, office manager (Bellingham) and membership associate

360.671.9950, ext. 10
Julia Spencer spent her early years on a 60-acre communal farm in Oregon. She moved to Sequim, WA, in 1985 with her family who taught her the most important things in life, partly through visits to the Olympic National Forest. She became a volunteer at Conservation Northwest upon moving to Bellingham in 2002, and earned a degree in environmental policy from Huxley College. She has worked at the state legislature and Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association. She is often seen around Bellingham on her old Schwinn bicycle. Live music, nature, food, and community are her passions, which is why she organizes the kitchen annually at the Subdued Stringband Jamboree and is learning to play the ukulele.

Asa Trapp, development associate (Seattle) and auction organizer

206.675.9747, ext. 207
Asa Trapp graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Political Science and joins Conservation Northwest after interning at the League of Conservation Voters. Asa is originally from Seattle and enjoys spending his free time backpacking, snowboarding, playing soccer, traveling, and enjoying Seattle's amazing parks. "I am extremely excited to be joining the staff of Conservation Northwest. The mission of the organization strongly coincides with my personal beliefs, and the people who make up the organization are all dedicated, capable, and fun-loving."

Jen Watkins, conservation associate/I-90 Wildlife Bridges Campaign coordinator

206.675.9747, ext. 203
Jen Watkins began working with Conservation Northwest in 2001 as part of the outreach team for The Cascades Conservation Partnership. She continues to work on connectivity issues in the Central Cascades with the I-90 Wildlife Bridges Coalition and with our national forests program on the Okanogan-Wenatchee and Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forests. Jen graduated from the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources and has a strong interest in community collaborations and wildlife connectivity.

Dave Werntz, science and conservation director

360.671.9950, ext. 14
Dave Werntz is a forest ecologist long involved in Pacific Northwest conservation efforts. Originally introduced to wilderness in the northern Great Lakes region, Dave quickly recognized the global importance of large wild landscapes and their remnant populations of lynx, grizzly, and wolf in Washington's Cascade Mountains. He is also an expert at calling spotted owls.

George Wooten, conservation associate

509.997.6010
George Wooten came to Twisp, Washington, to discover wild nature, only to find it being systematically dismantled by resource extraction. With a background in botany, computers and chemistry, George worked for 10 years with the Okanogan National Forest on grizzly bear habitat evaluation, research natural areas protection, and timber sale evaluations for wildlife habitat. After fighting in the 1994 fires, George left the agency to work as a consultant on a variety of projects including roadless mapping, wetlands delineation, surveys for legal challenges to unsound developments, K-12 teacher education, and wildfire behavior mapping. He also teaches local community college courses in computer applications and botany.

Abbey, hospitality coordinator

Abbey has been helping out in the Bellingham office since she was eight weeks old. The staff rely on Abbey for relaxation, fun, and her warm, affectionate greetings. Abbey especially enjoys Conservation Northwest field trips and hikes, and is an expert at tracking, wilderness exploration, edible grass identification, and sniffing for voles and other small rodents.

Lucy, office friend

Friendly Boston terrier Lucy spends a lot of her time inside the Seattle office and outside in the Cascades! She has more energy than all the rest of us put together, and reminds us regularly that directed action can be very fruitful.