YES! Staff

Board of Directors

Staff

Interns

Contributing Editors

Staff

Rod Arakaki, Audience Development Director

Rod joined staff in the Fall of 1999, first as interim Associate Editor for the Winter issue of YES!, and then as Network Coordinator, helping to develop the State of the Possible retreat series. In 2002, he became Operations Manager, in 2007, Business Manager, and in 2009, Audience Development Director. Prior to joining PFN, he was a full-time parent to his daughter for three years and Senior Program Manager at NeoPath, a Redmond, Washington medical device development firm for seven years. He lives with his wife and their two children in a cohousing community on Bainbridge Island. He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Kevin Audleman, Application Programming Manager

Kevin joined the YES! staff in the early part of 2005. He is a computer specialist and has been brought aboard to upgrade the core data systems of the organization. He became interested in YES! after reading David Korten's book “When Corporations Rule The World.” To his surprise, he discovered that PFN was on his home town island of Bainbridge where he was currently living. He jumped on the opportunity to volunteer at the magazine, and it quickly turned into employment. He holds a Masters degree in computer science from Brown University.

Sharon Booth, Circulation Design Manager

Sharon enthusiastically joined the staff of the Positive Futures Network in the summer of 99, following a search for more meaningful livelihood. Her previous career experiences include assistant art director for a silkscreen company; camera and videotape operator and master control operator for commercial television stations; and environmental workshop coordinator. Away from work, she focuses on family and friends, maintaining a simple lifestyle, and spending as much time as possible outdoors. She attended Pomona College in Claremont, CA and has a BA in Art from Rice University in Houston, TX.

Kim Eckart, Associate Editor

Kim Eckart joined YES! in March 2009 after 16 years as a newspaper reporter and editor around the Pacific Northwest. As a reporter, she held several beats, including higher education, city and county government, and the forest-products industry. She spent the past six years as an editor at The Seattle Times, helping run a bureau in Snohomish County and, more recently, supervising coverage of K-12 and higher education. She has a B.A. in English from Grinnell College and lives with her husband and daughter in Lake Forest Park, from which she experiments with an assortment of public transit commutes.

Jing Fong, Education Outreach Manager

In May 2008, Jing joined YES! as its education outreach manager. She was drawn to the publication because of its mission to inform, inspire and empower people to work for positive change. Prior to joining YES! Jing was a senior public affairs consultant for a Northwest public relations firm and an education policy analyst with the Washington State Senate Democratic Caucus. She has freelanced as an editor, copywriter and consultant, and has done community and media outreach for various organizations and companies. Jing cherishes the three times she’s lived in the U.K. through her husband’s Fulbright Teacher Exchanges. Outside of work, Jing enjoys her two book groups, sweating at the gym, and traveling to nearby and faraway places with her family. Jing lives on Bainbridge Island with her husband Barry and her children, Isabelle and Keats. She has a BA in Political Science and a BA in Speech Communications from the University of Washington.

Susan Gleason, Media and Outreach Manager

Susan joined YES! in March of 2003. With nearly twenty years as a media activist, media-maker, trainer, and community organizer, she maintains an unyielding commitment to the importance of independent and community media. Susan was involved for several years with the Seattle Independent Media Center, served on the SCAN Community Television board (Seattle & King County public access), and is a founding and active director with the public interest group, Reclaim the Media. She was also a founding director of the Seattle-based Earth on the Air Radio Works and the Vashon Island community webcast (www.voiceofvashon.org). She DJ'd and produced for several years at WMPG (90.9 FM, Portland, Maine) and has produced independent features for KBCS (91.3 FM, Bellevue/Seattle) and IMC Radio. Susan has a BA in Communication and has held a variety of professional marketing positions in independent book publishing, new media development, and the nonprofit sector.

Brooke Jarvis, Web Editor

Brooke Jarvis first came to YES! as an editorial intern in 2007. She left Bainbridge for another island (Molokai, Hawai’i, where she spent a year developing recycling, composting, and waste prevention programs for the small community living in remote Kalaupapa National Historical Park), then returned to join the YES! staff in July, 2009. She comes from Tennessee, though she also identifies as a South Carolinian, and holds B.A.s in English and Spanish from the University of Richmond. Brooke has also worked as a trail builder, Spanish teacher, and freelance writer. 

Fran Korten, Executive Director

Fran Korten joined the Positive Futures Network in April 1998. She is delighted to be part of a team helping nourish people’s sense of what is possible at this time when we are pressing the limits of our planet’s resiliency and people’s tolerance for oppression in an interconnected world. Her passion is to use YES! to help people see the best of what we humans can become and to feel themselves to be agents of change in the unfolding drama of our time. Before joining YES! Magazine, Fran served as a grantmaker for 20 years in the Ford Foundation’s offices in Manila, Jakarta, and New York, where she supported community-based approaches to the sustainable use of land, trees, and water. She has a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Stanford University and taught at the national university of Ethiopia and at Harvard University. She lives with her husband, David Korten, on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where she bikes to work. She and David have two children and two grandchildren.

Jessica Lind-Diamond, Development Manager

Jessica Lind-Diamond came to Yes! in June 2007 as an executive intern, and joined the staff nine months later. She holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, in Human Rights and Hispanic Studies. While at Trinity, she brought local food into the dining halls, and worked to reduce food waste and energy consumption on campus. She studied for a year in Santiago, Chile, where she worked with a prison theater group, and traveled throughout South America. A proud Seattle native, Jessica loves music and being outdoors. She passionately supports local economies and independent media.

Adam MacKinnon, Online Audience Development Manager

Born and bred in Edinburgh, Scotland, Adam joined YES! in November 2006. His background is in arts administration, initially in cinema. While studying for his Politics & Modern History degree at Edinburgh University he ran the University Film Society, and worked for the Edinburgh Film Festival. On graduating he became director/programmer of City Screen cinema in York. His work for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival included being part of the team that puts together the program (the largest arts publication in the world), and most importantly led to Adam meeting his wife Kibby. Adam co-produced and stage managed two Seattle shows in the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe. One of the ways Adam tries to change the world is to teach classes in elimination communication: helping parents teach their infants to be diaper-free. After living in an egalitarian social justice commune, the Emma Goldman Finishing School in Seattle, Adam now lives in a cohousing community on Bainbridge Island with Kibby and their two sons Theo and Will. Leaving the boys behind each morning is the hardest part of Adam’s job.

Paula Murphy, Fulfillment Manager

Paula joined YES! Magazine in December 2007. Growing up land-locked in the mid-west, Paula always had a strong desire to get to know the wet half of our planet—which she satisfied by studying oceanography and marine biology, and by becoming a certified master scuba diver. Her time on dry land is spent raising her children, Christopher, Emerson and Marina, advocating for cloth diapers, attachment parenting, and the family bed. She is a strong supporter of the Waldorf school on Bainbridge Island and also volunteers as a seamstress for local theater productions. Being a part of the staff at YES! supports Paula’s interests in making the earth a cleaner, more sustainable planet for her children and future generations.

Rebecca Nyamidie, Development Coordinator

Rebecca Nyamidie first did some copy editing for YES! in the fall of 2008. She came to work for the development team as a contractor in the late spring and then as full-time staff starting in July, 2009. Rebecca has a B.A. in Linguistics from San Diego State and a graduate degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from the University of Washington. She has taught English in the U.S. and Japan, and has worked in a variety of fields including product control, software testing, desktop publishing, and technical writing. Rebecca recently moved to Bainbridge Island with her husband and son to be close to the YES! office. A Dedicated Friend of YES! for some time herself, Rebecca is excited about helping others discover the joys of supporting YES! Magazine in these times full of opportunity for real change.

Madeline Ostrander, Senior Editor

Madeline came to YES! in 2007 after more than a decade as a writer, activist, and researcher on environmental policy, most recently for Sightline Institute and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. She has also taught writing and environmental science at a rural university in Uganda and led a two-year project in eastern South Dakota to help tribal community members get involved in decision-making about the future of the Big Sioux River. She was a Graduate Fellow with the Ford Foundation U.S. Community Forestry Research program and a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook writers center on Whidbey Island, and has received an Outstanding Young Alumni Award from Illinois State University. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lilja Otto, Web Managing Editor

Lilja started at YES! as editorial intern in 2006. She was enchanted by the inspiring work and special people she encountered at YES! She has since worked on the Spanish online edition of YES!, and as of January 2008 she joined the web team as Associate Online Editor. Before joining YES!, Lilja developed a corporations watch center for a Fair Trade cooperative in Spain, where she researched and documented the human rights and environmental records of large corporations. She served on the board of an organic food co-op, and taught workshops on sustainable living. Lilja holds a MS in Rural Development from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Doug Pibel, Managing Editor

Doug has written for YES! since 1998; he was one of the original writers for YES! But How? He tends an organic garden where he grows heirloom vegetables and saves seeds. He aspires to expand his garden. He used to be a lawyer with a small-town general practice. He's been known to write opinion columns for small newspapers and internet publications. Both his degrees (the first was in English Lit.) came from the University of Washington.

Jackie Taylor, Fulfillment Assistant

 Jackie joined YES! in August 2009 after a lifetime in the computer industry, where after attending U.C. Berkeley she began as a technical writer and then moved on to technical pre-sales and management in the US and Australia.  Unbeknownst to her, she had been preparing for a career at YES! for several years by incorporating the values of social justice and sustainability into her life. She enjoys snowboarding and various other sports, travel, trying to grow food, and an inordinate amount of reading.

Sarah Ruth van Gelder, Executive Editor

As co-founder and executive editor of YES!, Sarah leads the framing and development of each issue of YES! and writes a column introducing each issue. Sarah blogs at YES!, and Huffington Post, writes articles and does interviews for YES! magazine, and speaks on leading-edge innovations that show that another world is not only possible, it is being created. Topics she has covered include the new economy, solutions to climate change, alternatives to prisons, food, water, nuclear disarmament and active peacemaking, education for a better world, beyond the superpower, happiness, and many more.

As part of her community involvement, Sarah volunteers on the Port Madison Reservation where she lives, working with the Suquamish Tribe on enhancing the quality of life for all area residents. She is co-founder of Suquamish Olalla Neighbors where she co-led a statewide effort to return the home of Chief Seattle to the Suquamish Tribe. She is also a member of the board of directors of the tribally-chartered Suquamish Foundation.

Sarah has traveled and lived in Latin America, India, China, and Central America. She was a founding board member and resident of Winslow Cohousing, and previously was a television and radio producer, a community organizer, a classical Indian dancer, and founder of a cooperative of food co-ops that linked organic farmers to urban markets. She has two young adult children.

Audrey Watson, Finance & Operations Director

Audrey joined the staff in Fall of 98 as manager of Marketing and Outreach, and moved to Online Managing Editor in fall of 2002, where she combines her interests in communication, sustainability, social justice, and technology. Previously she worked as a product marketing manager for Microsoft and as a marketing manager, developer manager, and systems analyst for various computer-related companies. She volunteers in her children's schools, served on the board for the Book-It Repertory Theater, and lives in Winslow cohousing. Audrey holds a BA in Applied Math from the University of Michigan, an MS in Computer Engineering from Stanford University, and an MA in management and consulting from the Leadership Institute of Seattle.

Sally Wilson, Fulfillment Manager

Sally moved with the co-founders to the Positive Futures Network from In Context in March of 1996, where she had served for five years in a similar capacity, managing subscription and distribution of the magazine. Her earlier career positions included sales support management at a major television network affiliate in Seattle and high school teaching. Sally holds a BA from the University of Washington.

Michael Winter, IT Manager

Founder of The Winter Group, Michael Winter has been an IT professional for more than 20 years. Having worked as a technologist and project manager for Federal / State /Local Government agencies, Corporations, and Start-up companies. Recipient of numerous awards  exhibiting excellence in performance including personnel recognition from President Bill Clinton, the Director of the CIA,  and the Department of Defense. Published author of several computer games, original hardware, software system designs, and whitepapers. Michael also holds a private pilots license and has flown helicopters and a variety of fixed wing aircraft. Achieving independence from fossil fuel energy and general sustainability are important issues for Michael and one of his many goals that brought him to YES!

Gretchen Wolf, Office Manager

Gretchen joined the compassionate staff of PFN in January of 2008. The opportunity to work for YES! came at a pivotal time in her life when she was looking for ways to expand her knowledge of the world around her and to contribute to positive change. Her experience working in the veterinary field as an Office Manager has prepared her for her role at YES! where she is hoping to continue her interest in communications while working in a supportive environment. Gretchen has made her home on Bainbridge Island for the past six years after moving here from Portland, Oregon. In addition to raising her two girls, Mariko and Justice, she also enjoys the outdoors, camping, reading, hiking, walking with her dog, and spending time with friends. Her goal is to lead an adventurous life and to explore different cultures through travel.