We’re many things, and at our core we are an organization that uses powerful maritime experiences to educate, inspire people to adventure, and celebrate our maritime culture. We do it for our own love of boats, in service to our community and maritime industry, but mostly because regardless of the subject, the sea is the most powerful teacher we know.
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Chart Room & Pilothouse Simulator
431 Water Street, Port Townsend, WA 98368
Island Packet Yachts is building toward a nearly 50-year legacy. Founded by naval architect Bob Johnson in 1979 and growing
Hosted by the Three Tree Point Yacht Club, the Duwamish Head Race is the second of four events in the
After a couple-year hiatus, 48° North’s technology columnist is making a return, and we’re so excited to welcome Steve back.
Robin sailed into the 1996 Wooden Boat Festival as a deckhand aboard the local schooner Alcyone, having started with them in New Zealand a year earlier. She has ventured out doing seasonal work, sailing, teaching, and fishing but has called this place her home now for 30 years. She also loves a blue water crossing, securing the 4-8am watch and catching the sunrise. Her USCG Captain’s license and Able-Seaman documents have expired but she holds dear her many memories and adventures at sea!
In a “quest for adventure” after college graduation, Robin began work as an Instructor/ Captain for the Outward Bound Sea Program based in Anacortes, WA. The experience of living on a 26’ longboat for 65+ days a summer with students opened her eyes to the impact of experiential education, motivating her to obtain a Master’s in Teaching & Teaching credential.
Her career with us started at the Wooden Boat Foundation way back in 2000 as a Longboat Captain, Volunteer Coordinator and eventually Program Manager. After a 14-year break raising her three kids and commercial fishing, she returned in 2018 to be hired as Program Director.
When interviewing for her job, Robin pitched a partnership with Juvenile Services. Within her first summer in the role of Programs Director, she had launched that initiative; it has since become a feeder program for the Port Townsend Maritime Academy. This arc is illustrative of Robin’s focus on action, as well as her commitment to “broadening the impact of the organization to include young people who would not normally have access to opportunities in the maritime industry.”
In addition to directing Northwest Maritime’s sailing, school and boat shop programs, she is a board member at the Teaching with Small Boats Alliance. She loves longboats!
A native of nearby Sequim, Jesse’s maritime skill set was borne from years in leadership roles with traditional sailing ships and maritime educational programs including Port Townsend’s own schooner Adventuress, The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, and Hurricane Island Outward Bound school. After Covid, he returned home to join Northwest Maritime. The teamwork, shared intention, and versatility gained at sea were a key preparation for his current role.
Jesse’s formidable title of Race Boss means he heads up the machinations behind Northwest Maritime’s adventure races: Race to Alaska, SEVENTY48, and WA360, as well as the Salish 100, the longest small-boat cruise in North America. He finds it rewarding to build connections between racers, local partners, the Salish Sea community, and Northwest Maritime’s race programs. For Jesse, these flagship events “strip away the distractions that keep people from feeling fully alive,” offering a front-row seat to humans at their most human—and a chance to celebrate them.
Directing the second-largest Wooden Boat Festival in the world is “a lot like being the maestro,” says Barb Trailer. “My job is to find the balance between managing it and allowing it to unfold—so that all that energy turns into something magical.”
Her progression into the role was a natural one. Barb has always loved traveling, entertaining, and being on boats. She lived aboard for over ten years, constantly on the move, which laid the foundation for all that followed. Planning for extended offshore sailing, living outside the U.S.for a decade, while hosting guests—including catering weddings on far-off beaches—prepared her for just about anything. Years spent in remote places, sometimes requiring three dinghy rides, a drive across two islands, and a ferry trip just to do laundry, added to that education.
Barb lived on St John in the US Virgin Islands before joining a crew on a wooden boat heading to Alaska. The boat stopped in Port Townsend and Barb fell in love the minute she landed in Point Hudson. She knew immediately she wanted to end up here. The natural beauty, along with the proximity to abundant fresh food, sealed it.
Life at sea has imparted a simple wisdom: not to make the little things big—or the big things little. Barb is proud of helping the Wooden Boat Festival stay true to its soul—its craft, culture, and community—while evolving to reflect the times we live in. She believes in keeping traditions alive while keeping the doors open to what’s next.
Kate Philbrick supports land-based activities at the Northwest Maritime campus, with a focus on the visitor experience and earned revenue to support programs. That doesn’t mean she’s not shaped by the sea, though. “Spending ten days offshore was an experience I’ll never forget,” she recounts. “I learned I can do things I never thought possible, from contributing during shifts at all hours of the day and night.. . to getting past five days of seasickness.” Kate hails from Oregon and spent time living in New England and the Rockies before being drawn to the community and outdoor opportunities in Port Townsend. Her path to her role began with a B.A. in Geosciences from Wellesley College and completion of the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program.
As Campus Director, Kate supports operation of the Swan Hotel, the Welcome Center, Venue Rentals, Registration, and the maritime library. Her suitedness for the job owes to a blend of past experience, including hospitality management work at a resort and time at a non-profit children’s museum. She is proud of her role in Northwest Maritime’s purchase of the Swan Hotel in 2022, which pulled it into the organization while maintaining its reputation as the #1 local hotel (per Tripadvisor), known for its excellent guest service and dedicated longtime staff.
Growing up surrounded by Minnesota’s lakes, Joe Cline developed a deep appreciation for backcountry canoe adventures, as well as a passion for sailing. Though much of his time afloat has been spent trimming sails on racing sailboats, he says, “Cruising the water-wilderness of the Pacific Northwest is the perfect combination of the things that made me fall in love with boats and the water in the first place.” Proud dad to two young kids, Joe’s day-to-day involves less sailing than it once did, but a whole lot more fun with playgrounds and pretend and puddle-jumping.
Joe’s degrees in music and economics offered an unconventional launchpad toward his current role, in which he heads 48° North—the free, regional sailing and boating magazine published by Northwest Maritime. He found his way to the Editor’s chair naturally, though, after running Seattle Sailing Club for five years and taking great pride in building community and bringing new folks into sailing. After more than a decade at the helm of 48° North, he remains as community-driven as ever.
Joe is especially proud of the work that brought 48° North into the Northwest Maritime ecosystem in 2018, following decades of independent publication. The integration broadened the publication’s horizons, while creating new mission impact and helping the big-tent of the non-profit get even bigger. According to Joe, Northwest Maritime has a knack for “assembling communities of individuals whose intelligence, passion, capability, spirit of fun, and creativity obliterate all expectations.”
Anika Colvin didn’t set out to become a graphic designer; she fell into it by accident and never looked back. While co–Art Directing a women’s surf magazine on California’s Central Coast with her husband, she had a quiet but immediate realization: this was the work that fit. “Graphic design demands organization and strategy while still being visually expressive. Instant love.” What began unexpectedly quickly became the creative language she chose to build her life around.
A Midwest lake kid at heart, Anika somehow found herself aboard more than fifty different small boats along the way. She doesn’t claim the title of sailor, but those experiences—equal parts thrilling and humbling—cultivated a deep respect for the ocean.
Anika has collaborated with nationally recognized brands including Martha Stewart Living, West Elm, Urban Outfitters, Michaels, and Lowe’s. She also has five different logo designs tattooed on the bodies of strangers. Off-screen, she’s cheering on her talented family, channeling her creative instincts into remodeling, or traveling on a good two lane highway.
Xoe Huffman White serves as Northwest Maritime’s Human Resources expert, a role she approaches with both humor and dedication. While she might make a small joke that her job is “to keep us out of court,” in reality, her focus is on supporting the staff, advising managers and leaders, and facilitating all the relationships among the lot. Xoe started in NWM’s accounting department nine years ago, having come from 20 years in retail and a stint at a public access television station. Having started her college career in technical theater, Xoe soon realized that it wasn’t the right path and eventually found college completion with a degree in Sociology. With all these twists, she was prepared to “roll with whatever life throws” at her and found herself in Human Resources. “HR is never boring,” she says, “but often very rewarding.”
Xoe moved to Port Townsend in 2012, right before a major snowstorm, and while she’s lived many places, this is where she now calls home. When not staff-wrangling, she spends time relaxing with her family and volunteering for the local Steampunk festival. Highlights of her job include witnessing the growth of our staff and navigating a major software transition to improve HR processes, including obtaining staff buy-in, as well as mastery of the Excel pivot table.
As Development Director, Brad leads and supports a team of fundraising professionals to connect supporters with Northwest Maritime’s mission, facilitating the generosity that makes our work possible. He brings decades of experience in nonprofit philanthropy, especially arts and culture, education, and human services.
Growing up in Kansas, Brad didn’t have many opportunities for transformative maritime experiences, but an affinity for the sea was part of what drew him to Seattle in the early 2000s. There he helped to raise funds for major institutions like the Seattle Art Museum, Pacific Science Center, and Seattle Opera. Now, he’s thrilled to be helping people of all ages connect with the wonders of the sea through Northwest Maritime. He’s even learning to sail.
Brad earned a B.A. from the University of Kansas, and he is a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP®) and Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE).
Shea Louthen is trusted with general financial governance at Northwest Maritime, performing the key function of “deciphering the financial means with the end of promoting maritime culture, while minimizing the administrative burden on co-workers that do the truly heavy-lifting work.” Shea earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, but went back to night school to study accounting after being offered a Comptroller position. “I figured, why not?” she explains. “I like sudoku puzzles.” Since then, she has earned an MBA, become a CPA, and completed her CNP (Certified Nonprofit Professional) designation.
Shea grew up in Texas, Delaware, California, Arizona, and Georgia; a vacation in the Olympic National Forest inspired her to live in the Pacific Northwest. When offered a job in Port Townsend decades later, she jumped at the chance to make the move. She remains motivated to seek “new experiences, new places, and new people,” and has proven that with a new keel boat certification. She values her “wonderful team” of colleagues and counts “opportunities to jump on a boat and sail the Sound” among the perks of working at Northwest Maritime.
What does the CEO of Northwest Maritime do? In his own words: “I help people and communities connect with the sea.” His self-described career path has been “totally accidental.” It began a post graduation vacation volunteering on a tallship and never looked back. A native of Bellingham, Jake has worked as a professional mariner on freighters to Alaska, petroleum barges on the Chesapeake, tallships, and taught on longboats for Outward Bound. He credits the sea for making him who he is today and the value of those experiences are why he has worked for multiple decades to help others experience them firsthand.
Jake remains inspired by time at sea. For him connecting with the natural world through sailing “It’s like my version of church! CEO since 2011, he still finds meaning in his role here for both the work and how we do it: “At Northwest Maritime we do big things, sometimes hard things, and we do it with laughter and camaraderie.”
Katie keeps Northwest Maritime’s operational engine running smoothly, while helping shape an organizational culture that values excellence, curiosity, and actual humans. Born & raised in Massachusetts (don’t ask her to slow down when she talks), Katie holds a degree in architecture from Princeton and a master’s in Public History and Cultural Heritage from Trinity College Dublin. Her academic work explored how cultural institutions make decisions about how to invest, what to preserve, what to change, and what to let quietly fall apart.
An accomplished mariner, Katie has long understood the world through the lens of the sea. She first went offshore at sixteen aboard the schooner Brilliant and has completed four Newport–Bermuda races and a transatlantic passage. Her USCG Captain’s license may be long expired, but the lessons of seamanship—teamwork, adaptability, and respect for forces much bigger than oneself—remain central to how she works and leads.
Before joining Northwest Maritime, Katie worked in planning and design for cultural buildings and spent many years as a management consultant, helping cultural organizations make smarter, more intentional decisions about capital projects and operations. When a job posting at Northwest Maritime appeared, it offered a rare chance to bring together her professional life, her love of the sea, and her belief that well-run organizations make room for both rigor and joy. She took it.
