A Living Corridor
Along the Canal

As the owner of a boutique IT consulting firm, Patti spent nearly two decades leading teams and developing custom solutions to complex challenges. Her work centered on bringing together the right mix of personalities, expertise and experience to solve difficult problems while working seamlessly with clients. Over the years those clients included Starbucks, Getty Images, the Washington State Departments of Natural Resources and Information Technology, the U.S. Forest Service, Mitsubishi, Stemilt Growers and Anderson Hay.

In 2009, Patti and her husband, Mike, founded Fremont Mischief Distillery along the shores of Seattle’s Ship Canal. During the 16 years they spent there, Patti came to know the Canal as far more than a waterway. It was a remarkable intersection of Seattle life, a living corridor shared by wildlife, the maritime industry, recreational users and the surrounding community. It was there that the vision for Passage to Puget Sound began to take shape.

The Ship Canal is both an important part of Seattle’s history and an asset to its future. Yet Patti came to recognize that, despite its beauty and significance, there are surprisingly few places along the Canal where people can comfortably stop, sit, linger and experience the waterway. Accessibility remains a challenge, while the heavily traveled Burke-Gilman Trail can create safety concerns for both pedestrians and cyclists.

Now fully retired, Patti is devoting much of her time and energy to improving the park along the Ship Canal. Her vision is a welcoming public space with inviting places to sit and enjoy the water, improved universal accessibility, greater safety for pedestrians and cyclists, and a sculpture garden that celebrates the wildlife, maritime heritage and community life that make the Canal so distinctive.

For the last 20 years, Patti and Mike have lived on craftsman-style houseboats designed and built by Mike and located at the head of the Canal. The park will help visitors experience the wildlife and parade of boats they enjoy daily.

Raised on the south shore of Long Island, New York, Mary returned after graduating from college with a B.A. degree to work in social services, taking charge of 60 foster care homes and advancing to legal, investigative and supervisory roles. After a brief time in Tacoma, Washington, she worked in commercial and personal insurance while continuing her post-graduate education. She went on to obtain an M.A. and taught high school for 25 years.

Volunteering for community benefit has always been part of Mary’s life. She has served as a dispatcher and Emergency Medical Technician for two volunteer ambulance corps, as a Board of Trustee for the New York and Florida public library systems, and as a police department volunteer.

She is a board trustee and volunteer for the Miniature Art Society and its annual international art show, where her work has included venue selection, organizing displays, judge selection and the jurying of more than 800 pieces of fine art. She also co-directed its art scholarship selection committee.

Mary is a trained domestic violence counselor, co-director of an art show in historic Ringwood State Park, co-founder and director of a confidential peer listening program, co-developer of an art and family heritage program for teenage participants, an ESL instructor, a co-organizer of community civic society events and fundraisers, and a Sunday School coordinator.

Don graduated from college with a B.A. in Economics and Business and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He served a tour of duty in Vietnam as a platoon leader, where he was awarded a Bronze Star.

He then began a 35-year career in financial services with the New York Stock Exchange, rising to Vice President and Managing Director of Regulatory Affairs. On retiring from the NYSE he founded Regulatory Affairs, a consulting firm advising broker-dealers and regulatory agencies in the United States and internationally.

Several years later Don turned to what he calls the next phase of his life’s body of work, and almost all of it has been volunteer. He co-directed an international juried art show for the Miniature Art Society, overseeing everything from the receipt of submissions and the jurying of 800 to 1,200 works through to the display, the tear-down and the safe return of every piece to the person who bought it.

He has also served as a financial industry dispute arbitrator for FINRA, president and Emergency Medical Technician of a volunteer ambulance corps, a condominium board president, a civic association board member, a police department volunteer, a municipal planning and code enforcement board member, and a volunteer at his local food pantry.