Board Members

Katie Schielke – President

Katie is originally from Port Angeles and Olympia and moved to the Seattle area in 1997. She attended the UW where she received a BS in Human Centered Design and Engineering and a BA in Psychology. She spent her early years working in technology and then went on to business management consulting in financial services. She now spends her time as a community advocate, using her technology and business skills to benefit nonprofits and the City of Shoreline. She is passionate about getting kids and our community outside in nature, and spent the last four years as a member of the Shoreline Parks Board. She fell in love with Kruckeberg Garden years ago, and is looking forward to raising our community’s awareness of this special place. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking and playing in her large garden in Richmond Highlands.

John Hushagen – Vice President

John was raised on a small farm in southwest Washington state by transplanted Minnesota dairy farmers. Following a Lutheran upbringing, he graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 1973 with a degree in American history. After many years of vocational trial and error, he trained to be an arborist and received a master’s degree in Urban Horticulture from the UW.  In 1985, after grad school, he started a tree care company, Seattle Tree Preservation, Inc., which he sold in 2018. He now works part-time as a consulting arborist. He and his wife, Jan, have many trees and shrubs in their Innis Arden garden purchased at the KBG nursery.

Rissa Sanchez – Secretary

Rissa Sanchez is a transplanted Californian who resides in Shoreline. She is grateful to be able to find respite under the canopy of the conifers at the Kruckeberg Botanical Garden or on the shores of Puget Sound. Over the years, her gardening interests have shifted from intensive vegetable gardening to a more relaxed approach with native and xeriscape landscaping. With retirement as a Research Project Manager from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center around the corner, she is thrilled to have joined the KBGF board to help shape and support the future of this Shoreline refuge.

Christina Arcidy

Christina is originally from the Boston area and moved to the PWN over 20 years ago, with 10 of those years being here in Shoreline. Growing up, she enjoyed playing outside all four seasons of the year in both her mother’s vegetable garden and the woody wetlands near her parents’ home. She comes to Kruckeberg with a background in nonprofit management and youth recreation programming. Christina currently works for the City of Shoreline doing policy analysis and program management in the City Manager’s Office. She believes there is a place for everyone in Shoreline and is excited to bring new people of all backgrounds to the Kruckeberg Garden for contemplation, education, and inspiration. In her free time she enjoys tending her own small edible and ornamental gardens, adventuring with her school-age child, and knitting for her friends and family.

Pam Cope

Pam grew up in Idaho with formative years on a farm in the southwest corner of the state, surrounded by horses, cows, sheep, dogs and farm land. She went to college at Oregon State University, graduating in 1983 with a degree in Accounting. She moved to Seattle to work for Moss Adams, a regional CPA firm. She later worked for Alaska Sightseeing and various companies in the seafood industry with operations in Alaska.
Pam and her husband Paul love boating on the Puget Sound and San Juan islands in their vintage Tollycraft and are active members of the Tollycraft Yacht Club.
Pam and her family have lived in Lake Forest Park for the past 26 years. She is an avid gardener, and also enjoys quilting and traveling to dog shows with her Norwich Terriers, Huck and Trixie. She retired from the business world in 2019 and is looking forward to being a part of the Kruckeberg Botanical Garden family.

Rejean Idzerda

After growing up in Ohio, where Rejean helped her grandfather tend his vegetable garden, she meandered west, attended college in San Francisco, and grew her very own first tomatoes. Graduate school brought her to Seattle, where she earned a Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Washington, followed by a career in teaching and research in molecular endocrinology as a professor while raising two boys with her husband. She then turned her attention to her main passion—environmental protection, serving in several community organizations, and advocating for political and social action on the environment and climate change. When not out working for the environment, Rejean is out enjoying it. She’s a huge proponent of parks, gardens, and all open space, being so important for the stability and health of the ecosystem and all the plants and animals, including humans, that are part of that web.

Kate Schmiett

Kate grew up making forts in her mother’s backyard in California, and carefully observing the life history of the inchworms on the California poppies. In 2009 she moved to Shoreline, where she has enjoyed exploring the amazing ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. She comes to Kruckeberg with a background in environmental education and a love of informal learning experiences and has worked as an educator at the Seattle Aquarium, the Environmental Science Center at Seahurst Beach, Magnuson Nature Programs, and the Museum of History and Industry. Kate believes that everyone deserves hands-on experiences with the natural world and that Kruckeberg is an amazing community resource to help make that happen. In her spare time, Kate enjoys reading about interesting plant and animal adaptations, making art, and growing the indoor jungle that threatens to take over the home she shares with her husband, stepson, and goofy dog.

Lydia Tymon

Lydia originally is from New Jersey but has been a resident of Washington state since 1992. She graduated from the University of Washington with a B.S. in Botany in 1998 and master’s in forestry in 2009.  In 2014, she graduated from WSU with her PhD in plant pathology which focused on diseases occurring on potatoes. Between 2015 and 2021, she worked as a postdoc at the WSU-Mount Vernon and Puyallup stations, where several of her projects focused on bacterial and fungal diseases of pumpkins, potatoes, and small fruit, and insect pests infesting small fruit and peonies. Most recently, she is working as a Bio R&D Scientist at DroneSeed, a rapid reforestation company based in Seattle.