Summit Team:
Jennifer Williams
Born and raised in Tacoma and Vashon Island, I am the mother of two boys, Quinn and River, an organic farmer and an activist. I have spent my life in the mountains and waters of the Puget Sound. I saw the Asarco smelter implode and now test my soil for the lead and arsenic it left behind. As a child, I swam in Commencement Bay and now can’t eat any of the life that comes from the waters. Now, when I take my children to even the most remote places in our region, including Mt. Rainier, I have to think about the toxic residues in the water, air, and soil deposited from industrial operations, especially the burning of coal 100 miles away.
I am a graduate of the University of Puget Sound, have worked as an organic farmer on Vashon for ten years, and been involved in local renewable energy projects on the island. I co-founded the Solar Initiative, a project of Sustainable Vashon, organized the Solar Tour, and work daily as one of the owners of Artisan Electric, Inc. a renewable energy design and installation company.
I have never climbed mountains or camped on glaciers but I feel deeply compelled to draw attention to the degradation that comes from burning coal in our state.
Julie Thielges
Julie grew up in the Northwest and now lives on a small farm with her husband Greg and their two boys. Julie has been a farmer for the last 10 years and is currently a full time mom. When not playing with legos, Julie enjoys growing food, cooking, knitting, reading and playing at the beach.
Katie Wolny
Born and raised in the flat lands of Minnesota, I was inspired at a very young age to seek higher ground. I developed a love of the mountains hiking with my family in the mountains of Colorado, summiting my first 10,000 foot peak at age 9. I continued my exploration of the Rocky Mountains as a student at the University of Montana, where I earned a degree in Wildlife Biology and spent most of my free time roaming the vast wilderness. After graduating college, I lead crews for the Montana Conservation Corps, building trails and then the Washington Conservation Corps doing salmon habitat restoration. The more time I spent in nature the more I noticed the footprint of people, sometimes light and other times more destructive than imaginable. I decided to tread more lightly.
I now live on Vashon Island with my husband and two children and dwell in a beautiful little yurt, surrounded by the forest. As a family, we grow our own veggies and raise our own meat. I am a licensed massage practitioner and spend my days enjoying my children discovering the wonders of nature.
Genevieve Raymond
I traded in my career in environmental activism for the slow life on Vashon Island. I spend my days hanging out with my five-year old kids, Hazel and Sam, and my husband John, homeschooling, knitting, cooking, learning to grow food, and trying to figure out how to stay politically active and relevant as a mom of young kids.
I have an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA and have worked with Rainforest Action Network on their Beyond Oil campaign; The Ruckus Society, where I trained activists to hang banners from buildings and bridges; Urban Strategies Council providing research and data analysis to Oakland’s community-based organizations; and helped to found MOMS – Making Our Milk Safe, which advocates to reduce toxins in breast milk.
Duskin Drum
I am from the San Juan Islands of Washington State. The island I was born on and call home has no stores or public utilities. This subsistence situation necessitates attention to issues of small-scale sustainability on a daily basis. At home, I am a farmhand, gardener, and woodsman. I often leave my island fastness to adventure and travel the worlds as an itinerant artist and activist. My art is about human ecology.
I graduated from Evergreen State College where I studied theatre and international studies. My final project was a year-long independent study in China. I worked with Lijiang Studio organizing exhibitions, and curated Jianghu 5; a magical pilgramage to the mountains and back culminating in a local shamonic ritual reaffirming sacred connections to place. In the Himalayan foothills I saw the social-ecological connections dissolving swiftly into unsustainable market driven explotation and degradation. This despair provoked me to spend 5 years studying human ecology, industrialization and climate change. The words of radical women from the Arctic and Nigeria called me to take action. In West Virginia I saw mountains blown apart. The rampant destruction and blatant disregard for the health and survival of local communities galvanized my commitment to stopping the coal economy.
James Cottrell
James Cottrell has worked in Leadership, Team and Organizational Development in corporate, non-profit and academic sectors since 1990. He has a background in environmental education, experiential education and leadership training at the University of Michigan, the National Outdoor Leadership School, Outward Bound Professional, and locally with Teams & Leaders and Geoteaming. He received a BA from Sonoma State University, a Masters in Applied Behavioral Science from the Leadership Institute of Seattle at Bastyr University, and is a graduate of the NOLS Mountaineering Instructor Course. He is currently preparing to train as a volunteer EMT with Vashon Island Fire & Rescue throughout Fall 2010. James is married to Dr. Yve Susskind, and they and their two kitties, Pippi and Frieda, make their home on Vashon Island, WA.
Rodger Brown
Rodger Brown, an ex-Vashon Islander, enjoys any opportunity to climb or ski in the mountains and was very excited at the invitation to help out with this important action. Rodger has climbed many of the high peaks in the Cascades and elsewhere, including Mt. Rainier. When he’s not wandering in the mountains, Rodger keeps busy as owner/operator of Apical Tree Services in Seattle, and as proud dad of his six year old daughter, Haley.
Support:
Summer Tseng
John Sellers
I am the husband of Genevieve and the proud papa of 5 year old twins Hazel and Sam. I worked for Greenpeace from from 1990 – 96, where I had the privilege of experiencing the power and effectiveness of creative nonviolent actions in winning campaigns against naughty corporate greed. I am President of The Ruckus Society and a founding partner of Agit-Pop Communications.
When Hazel and Sam were born on the day of Bush’s reelection, Genevieve and I took it as a sign from the universe that it was time to step off of the crazy speed of politics activist treadmill, move to the country, and go deep. Now I stay connected to the political world from my office shack in the woods and try to spend as much time as possible attending my kids’ Pretty Cool Home School where I am learning volumes.
Nick Simmons
Albert Nejmeh
I’ve been in love with the outdoors and especially climbing for well over 30 years. I knew I wanted to learn how to climb way back when I was in high school in the concrete jungles of northern New Jersey, far from the mountains. I saw a cover of National Geographic with a climber topping out on Half Dome, and that was it. I’ve climbed big walls in Yosemite and various climbs all over North America and also in Europe and Asia. I love all kinds of climbing, alpine, rock, ice, you name it. I even built an indoor climbing wall in my house.
I was a professional sailor for almost 20 years, sailing tall ships all over the world and captaining such ships as the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and the Schooner Adventuress here in Puget Sound. I gave that up 10 years ago when I became a professional firefighter in Tacoma where I am on the technical rescue team responsible for responding to high angle rope rescue situations as well as confined space rescue, trench rescue, and structural collapse rescues.
I live on five acres on Marrowstone Island in a house that I have designed and built myself. I live off the land and completely off the grid producing all my own power with a combination of solar and wind. I catch and purify all my own potable water, grow much of my own food, process my own grey water and compost all of my waste including sewage in a method safe to the environment. I am a few short months from finishing the house down to the last bit of trim after a decade of work.
