Meet more new staff at Conservation Northwest!

This past year has brought many new faces to our organization–read about others that have joined our ranks!

Bailey Kitka

Membership and Events Coordinator

Where are you from and how long have you lived in the Northwest?
All my life. Well, I guess depending on how you define the Northwest. I was born and raised in Southeast Alaska which shares the same temperate rainforest coasts as Washington and BC. I moved to Seattle in adulthood starting roughly 18 years ago.

Why Conservation Northwest? What about this organization appeals to you?
I’m all around non-profit nerd. I feel very strongly about mission-oriented work that focuses on community over profit. Here at CNW they have always been deeply mission focused. All of our efforts and fundraising go directly to championing conservation efforts here in Washington and nothing else. My first conversations with Mitch were deeply inspiring about being more connected not just to our environment, but to the will of our community and the ones who came before us. There is a deep sense of responsibility that comes with protecting our land and I am most fulfilled standing on the frontlines of that work.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
Lately it’s been almost exclusively regalia work – which includes beading, blanket making and Tlingit design. I make a lot of mix tapes for parties that never happen and often pretend to be a much wiser and seasoned detective than I am with the amount of true crime shows I watch.

Who is your environmental hero?
Water protectors, pipeline fighters, anybody who understands the obligation we share in our relationship with our lands. Oh is that you? You’re absolutely a hero of mine then.

Andrea Wolf-Buck

Communications Director

Where are you from and how long have you lived in the Northwest?
I was born in Seattle and raised here and in Darmstadt, Germany. I’ve lived in San Francisco, Utrecht, the Netherlands, Aarhus, Denmark, and Munich, Germany but Seattle will always be home.

Why Conservation Northwest? What about this organization appeals to you?
My career in journalism and communications has taken some exciting turns and environmental writing has always interested me. After years of doing media and public affairs for public safety and emergency response, I was ready for a change where I felt my work would make more of a meaningful impact. Using communications to help support our work protecting wildlife and wildlands is a dream job, and CNW’s priority to approach conservation pragmatically and collaboratively resonates strongly with me.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
I like to spend my time in, on, or near water. I love being in any type of floating vessel and harvesting all kinds of shellfish and seafood. I am an amateur mushroom and edible plant forager and enjoy coming up with new ways to cook the delicious things I harvest. I’m also an avid traveler, book reader, dog lover, and terrible gardener.

Who is your environmental hero?
I have many, but Marjory Stoneman Douglas is a great inspiration. She was an intrepid reporter, a women’s suffrage and civil rights advocate, and a conservationist whose work helped protect the Everglades from being destroyed by development. In a time when women reporters were generally relegated to writing about etiquette, recipes and society events, Douglas’ writing on ecological conservation became highly respected and influential.

Jennifer Moog

Finance Director

Where are you from and how long have you lived in the Northwest?
I was born in NY but left when I was a year old and spent my entire childhood until college in Bogota, Colombia so…you tell me where I’m from!

Why Conservation Northwest? What about this organization appeals to you?
I am inspired by how much CNW accomplishes with the resources it has. I think the organization is very strategic in its focus, looking for the bottlenecks that need to be addressed to make conservation happen – both in funding and in the relationships it nurtures.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
I enjoy playing chess, reading, and getting outside!

Who is your environmental hero?
Dennis McCaffrey – an old geezer I used to work with at The Nature Conservancy. He worked on a project around the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve in Peru, an area of 8k square miles, a leader in the concept of integrating conservation and development and also key to one of the first debt for nature swaps. He was slightly pugnacious although mostly just quietly got the important work done.

Matthew Danielson

Okanogan Forest Lead

Where are you from and how long have you lived in the Northwest?
I am from Omak, WA and I have lived in the Northwest my whole life.

Why Conservation Northwest? What about this organization appeals to you?
Bluntly: they get it! For real: This organization has made some incredible work happen throughout the Northwest, including in my home area of Okanogan County. I wanted to see what it’d be like to work for a team that tries to achieve the greatest outcomes possible for wildlife and habitat. The organization moves nimbly to support the work I want to accomplish in this region and the team is very respectful and helpful toward one another, so new ideas area easy to bring to light.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
I enjoy getting outside, usually in ways that give me enough time/space to observe wildlife, so birdwatching and hunting are high on my lists. I also enjoy listening to music A LOT and gardening with vegetables and native plants.

Who is your environmental hero?
My environmental superhero is Aldo Leopold – little cliché, but the sand county almanac does say enough quotable content it might as well be scripture for some folks!

Kurt Hellmann

Advocacy Associate

Where are you from and how long have you lived in the Northwest?
I grew up in the Minneapolis area and slowly progressed westward over the last decade. Once I landed in Washington I was enthralled by this state’s landscape and wildlife. I’ve been calling it home for the last 4 years.

Why Conservation Northwest? What about this organization appeals to you?
I started interning with Conservation Northwest in 2019 as part of the Community Wildlife Monitoring Program and felt inspired by the type of pragmatic and effective conservation work CNW embodied. And now, I get to see (and be part of!) organization efforts to reach across divides to find a middle and workable path forward on hard topics–something of a rarity these days!

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
Anytime outdoors is time well spent, I say. I tend to enjoy time in Washington’s amazing landscapes in the form of movement—running, biking, climbing or skiing—but can also enjoy slow walks to try to identify various bird and plant species.

Who is your environmental hero?
I have a whole list of heroes that is too long to articulate here. But I will mention that the largest influence on my life has been the unassuming writing of Michael Pollan. Through his many books I’ve learned about how to make environmentally conscious choices in my daily life and think more thoughtfully about my place within the natural world. His book Second Nature helped me outgrow the notion that nature is separated from humanity. He helped me realize that we’re all in this world together–critters, plants and humans alike. A simple, yet widely impactful thought.

To learn more about the people that work at Conservation Northwest, visit our staff webpage!