STAFF
Executive Director, Lisa Pelly has over two decades of experience working collaboratively on water and natural resource issues. She serves on the boards of Farming and the Environment, Washington Conservation Voters, Washington Environmental Council and also the Walla Walla Watershed Alliance. Lisa recently served eleven years on the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, a Governor appointed position representing hunting, fishing and conservation organizations to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department. Lisa attended both the University of San Diego, California and the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to serving as executive director, Lisa holds a seat on the Washington Rivers Conservancy board.
PROJECT MANAGER, Aaron Penvose has been working on natural resource issues throughout the Pacific Northwest for the last 10 years. Aaron has worked on watershed issues in the public and private sectors, with experience ranging from field work in wilderness areas to project management and consulting. Aaron has a B.S. degree in geology from the University of Montana, which he uses as a foundation in his fisheries and stream restoration work. He started his natural resource career with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, where he quickly realized that protecting fish and their habitat was what he wanted to do. He has been involved with the American Fisheries Society, Trout Unlimited, watershed education networks and kids fishing programs. In his spare time you can find him wandering the rivers looking for fish with his Springer Spaniel, Bliss.
PROJECT MANAGER, Lisa Hatley comes to us from Eastern Oregon where she had been working as the Watershed Coordinator for the John Day Watershed Council in Eastern Oregon where she grew up. Through encouraging teachers and a high school science program aimed at getting local youth interested in ecology Lisa majored in Fisheries Science at Oregon State University with a Bachelors of Science in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences. Lisa has worked for the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and US Fish and Wildlife Service. Lisa’s experiences range from leading canoe tours in the depth of the Louisiana swamps, research on coral reef fish in the Bahamas, raising abalone on the Oregon coast, conducting surveys for amphibians, aquatic invertebrates and fishes throughout southern Oregon and working with landowners throughout the John Day area of Eastern Oregon.
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Chair, Peter Dykstra is the Washington State Director of The Trust for Public Land, where he works to conserve open space for parks and trails to preserve farms and forests, and to protect and enhance rivers and their watersheds. Prior to joining TPL, he served as Managing Director of Washington Water Trust, working to restore and enhance instream flows in Washington’s rivers and streams. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Seattle University and in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. Peter received a J.D., cum laude, and a M.P.A. in Environmental Policy and Non profit Management from Indiana University in 1997. He obtained a B.A. in History and a Certificate in Environmental Studies from Indiana University in 1992.
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Vice-Chair, Kenan Block is a strategic media and communications consultant, working primarily with non-profits. Among his numerous clients is the Washington Forest Law Center. He spent 25 years as an award-winning journalist. Much of that time was in Washington, D.C. where he was senior congressional producer for the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour (now the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer). In 1996 he helped to launch MSNBC cable news network. His responsibilities included being chief Washington producer for the News with Brian Williams. He was also elected chairman of the Radio-Television Correspondents Association in 1996. Kenan is a 5th generation Seattleite. In addition to Washington Rivers Conservancy he also serves on the boards of Town Hall Seattle, the Seattle chapter of the American Jewish Committee, Conservation Northwest, Citizens for C-SPAN and is on the advisory board of Real Change.
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TREASURER, TOM MCDONALD is with Cascadia Law Group, representing clients on natural resource issues. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Water Law at the Seattle University School of Law in Seattle. Tom was formerly the Section Head for the Washington State Attorney General’s office in Olympia working on water and shoreline issues. He also served as the staff counsel for the Washington State Senate Agricultural Committee. He is one of the co-authors of the Water Law Treatise, An Introduction to Washington Water Law published by the Washington Attorney General’s office.
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DIRECTOR, ALICE SHORETT is founder and president of Triangle Associates, Inc., an environmental consulting firm that has provided mediation and facilitation services throughout the U.S. since 1979. Alice has more than 25 years of experience as a successful consensus-builder, whether as a mediator, a facilitator, or a strategic advisor. Her early work included the successful negotiation of the Snohomish River Basin Agreement in 1976, the first use of mediation to form environmental policy in the United States. Alice recently mediated a federal court case on salmon loss between a tribal government and an energy corporation. She led the Triangle Associates team’s facilitation of the negotiations of the Mid-Columbia Habitat Conservation Plan, the first multi-species anadromous salmonid habitat conservation plan in the U.S. She is currently providing strategic advice and mediation services to a local county to assist it to reach agreement with federal regulatory agencies on a habitat conservation plan for the county’s wastewater treatment facilities.
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DIRECTOR, JOHN THOREN is a Vice President and Relationship Manager with KeyBank’s AgriBusiness Group and is currently located in Wenatchee. He manages the delivery of financial services to a broad spectrum of small to large agricultural producers, processors, agri-business firms and commercial businesses in eastern Washington. During his more than 30-year career with KeyBank and its predecessors, he has held administrative, lending and management positions at branches in seven communities in eastern Washington and Seattle. He holds a Masters degree in Agricultural Economics from Washington State University and is a graduate of the Pacific Coast Banking School. John has served in a wide range of capacities with many local and regional groups and civic organizations. He is now a member of the Institute for Rural Innovation and Stewardship.
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