Menu
Log in
Forgot password

Board of Directors

The Friends is governed by a volunteer Board, consisting of 4 to 13 members. The Board meets monthly and welcomes visitors to these meetings. 

Monthly Board Meeting minutes available upon request. Email us at info@friendsofwillaparefuge.org

These volunteers make up our current Board.

Pat Welle, President

Pat retired in 2019 from over twenty years in conservation in the Pacific Northwest. She spent many years working with farmers to reduce agriculture impacts to groundwater and restoring tributaries in the Columbia River estuary for salmon. Pat is also a photographer who recently completed two books on the Columbia River estuary and now resides on the shore of Willapa Bay. She is active in revegetation projects (including an acre of her property being planted to forest and pollinator meadow), and continually explores the bay and nearby coastal forests and wetlands, usually with camera in hand.




Michelle Clement, Vice President

Michelle’s love for nature began early on as she grew up in State Parks where her dad was a ranger. But her love of nature and animals began early and, by age seven, she knew she wanted to work with animals.  She started her career as a zookeeper, and eventually animal curator. Michelle then worked for over a decade in natural resource management, including oversight of education programming and large volunteer programs. Michelle continued her career as a director of an animal services agency involving a fair amount of wildlife work including trapping and relocating a cougar. Through it all, Michelle has maintained the philosophy that if you love nature, you need to protect it and inspire others to care. She moved to the Long Beach Peninsula in 2023 with her husband after spending many vacations here over the past two decades. When she moved here, the Friends of Willapa National Wildlife Refuge was the perfect place to land.



Karen Strege, Treasurer

Karen is a retired librarian having worked in communities in the Pacific Northwest and Montana. She spent many childhood vacations on the Long Beach Peninsula; after she retired she felt the pull of this unique place and decided, with her husband, to make the Peninsula her retirement home. She has served on the Board since 2019 and enjoys using her research and communication skills to help the Friends thrive and the Refuge to meet its goals.



Charity Kraynak, Secretary

Having grown up on the East Coast, Charity moved to the Peninsula in 2022, seeking a quieter life for their family.

They grew up learning to take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

They’re an avid nature photographer, bird watcher, kayaker, hiker, and beach bum. 


David Hoch, Director

Dave is a Friends member since 2006 when he and his wife Karen moved to the peninsula from Longview. They both joined the friends after being inspired by an animal skull presentation at the Ilwaco Saturday market. Both Dave and Karen have officially retired in 2020 from their day jobs. Dave has served on the board a few times over the years in different capacities and enjoys the camaraderie of the Friends group and is looking forward to another chapter in the ongoing story of Willapa National Wildlife Refuge.


Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software