LEADERSHIP
The Washington Opportunity Fund leadership team includes experienced conservationists who review loan proposals, make decisions and raise funds to do our work.
Peter Dunwiddie
Peter Dunwiddie is an affiliate professor in the Biology Department and in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. He has worked as a conservation biologist and restoration ecologist for more than 40 years with many organizations and state and federal agencies, focusing on recovery of rare species, conservation planning, fire ecology, and management of native habitats. Peter has published widely in diverse fields, including conservation biology, ecological restoration, invasive species, floristics, biogeography, dendrochronology, and paleoecology.
John and Patty Rose
John served on the Board of the Washington Chapter of the Nature Conservancy for 18 years and currently chairs the Board of Sustainable NW. He was the President of Seattle NW Securities, which financed public projects in the state of Washington. Patty comes to her interest in conservation as the daughter of a ranger naturalist and as grandmother to seven future nature lovers.
Curt Soper
Curt is an executive level leader focused on conserving natural resources and creating great green spaces . He has held leadership positions with The Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land, the State of Georgia, and the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust, where he utilized strong management, strategy development, fundraising and public relations skills to achieve a land and water conservation mission.
Tim Seifert
Tim Seifert served for 16 years (2002-2018) as Executive Director of the San Juan Preservation Trust, where he completed hundreds of land transactions in the San Juan Islands, including many that required private lending and bridge financing. Prior to his career in conservation, he worked for 15 years in the forest products and consulting industries.
Beth Stipe
Beth Stipe moved to Wenatchee in 2003 to join the Community Foundation of North Central Washington as the Executive Director. She has over 30 years of non-profit experience, serving on many volunteer boards and in foundation management positions. Prior to working at CFNCW, Beth was the Executive Director of a private family foundation.
Owen Wozniak
Owen Wozniak is Land Transactions Program Manager at the Land Trust Alliance, where he coordinates the Alliance’s land capital granting programs, including the four-year, $8m Pacific Northwest Resilient Landscapes Initiative. Prior to this, he spent eleven years as a project manager in The Trust for Public Land’s Northwest office. Originally from Alaska, Owen has lived in Portland, Oregon for the past two decades. He currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Intertwine Alliance, a coalition of public, private and nonprofit organizations working to promote investment in, and connect people to, nature in the metropolitan region. He is also author of several outdoor guidebooks, including Discovering Portland’s Parks, published in 2021 by Mountaineers Books.
