Board of Directors
President
Owen Wozniak
Longtime Portland resident Owen Wozniak (he/him) is a program manager at the Land Trust Alliance, where he supports nonprofit land trusts protecting climate-resilient natural places across the Pacific Northwest. He's a founding partner in The Intertwine Alliance, former board treasurer, and board president since spring 2021. Owen is the author of several hiking and biking guidebooks, including "Biking Portland," and loves to ski, bike and explore the Portland region’s parks and open spaces with his 9-year-old son.
Vice President
Eva Valadrian
Eva Valadrian (she/her) is a Pacific Northwest native who grew up in the old-growth forests along the Oregon Coast. For over a decade she has worked as a multicultural marketing and communications strategist in Portland. She co-founded Valadrian Creative and Consulting, a DEI consulting firm and media production house, where she works on actionable strategies for building partnerships across difference for private, non-profit and governmental agencies in the public lands sphere. Eva is a GIS Specialist focused on using spatial data to illuminate inequities in access to outdoor spaces, allowing the data to inform strategy development to create a more equitable, diverse and inclusive outdoor community. As the content and communications manager for Northwest Family Daycation, a community-based program that The Intertwine Alliance created in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, she enjoys creating fun and engaging ways for kids (and their parents!) to connect with the nature near them. Eva is a mother of four living in a mixed-race partnership, a traveler, a dancer, and a passionate naturalist.
Treasurer
Nicole Blizzard
A native Oregonian, Nicole Blizzard (she/her) is a Certified Public Accountant who currently serves as Financial Accounting Director at Moda Health. Nicole has an extensive accounting background, with experience in both public and private accounting, particularly in the healthcare industry. Nicole graduated with a bachelor’s degree from George Fox University, where she was an integral member of the women’s basketball team for four years, helping lead the team to a national championship matchup. Nicole’s experience in sports has helped shape her professional experience and leadership. Outside of her professional responsibilities, Nicole enjoys spending time outdoors, enjoying the many lakes, rivers, mountains and beaches that Oregon has to offer. She looks forward to combining her passion for the outdoors with her work for The Intertwine Alliance.
Sachi Arakawa
Sachi Arakawa (she/her) is a city planner with over 10 years of experience working on issues around nature in the city. She advocates for smart land use and planning that increases livability and minimizes negative human impacts on the environment. She specializes in tree management, policy and code work across the Portland region. Her background includes working as staff in the City of Portland's Urban Forestry department and as a consultant advising cities on tree codes and policies. Her work is rooted in environmental justice and intersectional environmentalism, emphasizing that achieving climate goals requires widespread and diverse community collaboration.
Sachi has lived in the Portland area for 25 years and is currently based in rural Washington County. After spending 15 years working in the service industry, she returned to school at age 30, starting with community college, and slowly broke into the environmental field through volunteer work and internships. The barriers and gatekeeping she faced early in her career continue to shape her approach to environmental management, stewardship and participation. Sachi is passionate about making environmental issues and planning relatable and accessible for all community members.
Jason Brown
Jason Brown (he/him) has been working at the Portland Parks Foundation since March 2023, where he manages their grant, award, and Friends & Allies Summit programming. Through the years prior to moving to Portland in 2022, he called New York City, Chicago and rural Connecticut home. He is getting to know and love our “city in the forest.”
Jason holds a Masters in Design and Urban Ecologies from Parsons School of Design, where his research and design work was focused on making cities more accessible to and responsible for marginalized populations and communities too often excluded from planning processes. For a decade before this, Jason practiced as a community artist and organizer, bringing free public arts projects to residents of Evanston, IL and developing unique community equity mapping workshops through his design studio, Geocommunetrics. Parks, nature and the wilderness have long been core to Jason's practice, and he knows they are essential places to find our selves and through which to ensure our collective future.
Brad Burke
Brad Burke (he/him) is a lifelong Oregon resident and co-owner of Ash Creek Forest Management, LLC, a B-Corp habitat restoration company. Prior to purchasing the business, Brad was the Lead Project Manager for Ash Creek, running hundreds of habitat restoration projects across the Pacific Northwest. He also works as a freelance film producer, predominantly on films that feature under-represented communities, like "The Last Day of Retrograde" (2022), a feature film dark comedy centered around queer identity, and "Sohayla Horani: Interested or Racist" (2020), a standup show about Sohayla Horani's experiences growing up Muslim in a post-9/11 US. Outside of work, Brad can be found brewing hard cider, making Big Leaf Maple syrup, or being slightly competitive in a board game.
Marlee Eckman
Marlee Eckman (they/them) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and moved to Oregon in 2015 to attend school at Pacific University, where they quickly fell in love with Oregon's natural areas. Marlee is currently the Volunteer Program Manager at Johnson Creek Watershed Council, where they manage the council's large community events and community partnerships. They are also serving on Oregon Environmental Council's Emerging Leaders Board, working to engage 21 to 35-year-old environmentalists in environmental protection via policy and advocacy. As an advocate for environmental and social justice, Marlee believes in building equitable futures through collaboration with the community. In their free time they enjoy spending as much time in the water as possible, eating good food with friends, and hanging out with their cats.
Karen Foster
Karen Foster (she/her), founder of KF Curates, is an Experience Curator, Community Connector, and Diversity Equity Inclusion Facilitator. She creates strategies and events that bring people together, to create meaningful transcultural experiences to influence systemic change. Karen believes in creating spaces that inspire, educate and empower others to take bold action and create change within themselves, their communities, and corporate spaces.
Heather King
Heather King (she/her) is the executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper. Before that, she was executive director of the Columbia Slough Watershed Council for three years. She is passionate about creating safe and open natural spaces for everyone, not just those who can afford them or have the privilege to use them safely without thought; preserving the outdoors; and creating sustainable environmental policies, especially for Oregon's waterways. She also serves as a board member for the Urban Flood Safety and Water Quality District. Heather has more than 20 years of nonprofit experience, including fundraising, strategic planning, and top-tier leadership roles. She also has over 15 years of experience in the corporate world, working in key accounts and business development roles. Heather holds an MBA in Nonprofit Leadership, Management, and Policy from Brandeis University and an MEd in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Gavin Mahaley
Gavin Mahaley (he/him) has more than 30 years of professional experience in branding, production, strategic engagement, and visual language direction—ranging from local projects to national and international campaigns. He began his career in public relations and worked with clients in retail, the sciences, the food industry, insurance, healthcare, and government before founding The Oxalis Group with Rex Burkholder.
Gavin is also the Communications and Development Director for the Salmonberry Trail Foundation, where he supports the development of Oregon’s next big adventure—an 82-mile legacy trail connecting communities from the Willamette Valley to the Oregon Coast. He serves on the Steering Committee for the Oregon Trails Coalition, contributing his expertise to projects that inspire exploration, connection and environmental stewardship.
Georgena Moran
Georgena Moran (she/her) is an ICC-certified Accessibility Specialist with over 20 years of experience, and an outdoor enthusiast. She is well versed in ADA and ABA Accessibility Standards, applying them to facilities and parks, and specializing in hiking trail assessments. Georgena is the founder and Project Manager of Access Recreation (AR) and the co-owner of Access for All, LLC, consulting, training and advocating for the rights and empowerment of people with disabilities. As a person living with a mobility disability, she led the effort to bring more recreational opportunities to people of all abilities in the Portland region through the AR projects Guidelines for Providing Trail Information to People with Disabilities for trail managers and AccessTrails for information on trails for users of all abilities.
Council of Public Advisors
Dr. Erin Abernethy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Dr. Erin Foster Abernethy (she/her) works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Ecological Service's division as the Portland Area Urban Conservation Coordinator. After over a decade in academia (which included researching dam impacts on rivers in the southern U.S. and the Grand Canyon), Erin has joined the USFWS to expand its focus on urban conservation work and partnerships with historically excluded communities. Erin enjoys recreating on whitewater rivers, hunting and urban foraging.
Jon Blasher, Metro
Jonathan Blasher’s love of rugged Oregon landscapes has taken him from building shelters as a child growing up on the outskirts of Eugene to building a nonprofit dedicated to play — and now to being the director of Metro’s Parks and Nature Department. Jon (he/him) took the helm in August 2017 to guide Metro’s work to protect clean water, restore fish and wildlife habitat, and connect people with nature close to home. Jon spent most of his career prior to Metro with Playworks, a nonprofit organization that collaborates with schools to create safe, fun and inclusive opportunities for young people to play. After starting as an AmeriCorps program coordinator in California, he went on to launch the organization’s Pacific Northwest chapter in 2009. As executive director he expanded the chapter’s reach to 150 schools across Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with a focus on at-risk communities. Jon also serves on the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission.
Ross Hoover, Clark County Parks
Ross Hoover (he/him) has dedicated over 23 years to parks and community, including roles in park planning and development, recreation services management and as a department director, working in both the Seattle and Portland Metro areas. He is currently the Parks Manager at Clark County Parks, and prior to that served as the Parks & Recreation Director for the City of Tualatin. As a past member of the Oregon Recreation and Park Association Board of Directors, he led the development of Leadership Academy in partnership with Portland State University. Ross holds a degree in Environmental Studies from Western Washington University and is a graduate of the Senior Management Program at the University of Texas-LBJ School of Public Affairs. Ross enjoys hiking, backpacking and kayaking with his family.
Adena Long, Portland Parks & Recreation
A native New Yorker, Adena Long (she/her) began her NYC Parks career as a seasonal Urban Park Ranger in 1997. She steadily moved up the ranks, and in 2010 became the first woman, and youngest-ever, to serve as Parks Borough Commissioner for Staten Island. In 2018, she was recognized as manager of the year for New York City Parks. Adena has served as Deputy Commissioner for Urban Park Service and Public Programs since 2016. Adena assumed her role as Director of Portland Parks & Recreation in February 2019.
Doug Menke, Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District
Doug Menke (he/him) was appointed general manager of the Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District in November 2006. He has enjoyed almost 40 years of public service at THPRD since joining the district in 1984. Menke oversees delivery of high-quality park and recreation programs, services and facilities to more than 230,000 people in the greater Beaverton area. As GM, Menke manages a staff of park and recreation professionals supported by taxpayers and governed by a five-member Board of Directors.
Kia Selley, North Clackamas Parks & Recreation District
Photo and bio to come!