Members

Jeff Breckel has extensive experience in salmon recovery and natural resource issues. He retired in 2016 after serving eighteen years as the executive director of the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board. While there, he led the board from its inception, through writing the first salmon recovery plan in Washington to be federally approved, to seeing that same plan implemented. Before leading that board, Mr. Breckel served as a nuclear waste policy adviser for the Governor’s Office and Washington State Department of Ecology. Previous to that, he was the executive director of the Columbia River Gorge Commission, which protects the unique scenic, natural, historical, and cultural features of the Columbia River Gorge. He came to the commission after serving in the Navy, where he earned the rank of lieutenant. He received a bachelor of arts degree in business administration from the University of Washington.

Kadi Bizyayeva is a Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians councilmember, fisheries director, and Northwest Indian Fisheries commissioner. She is passionate about her role protecting and conserving tribal treaty rights and believes in honest co-management and finding common ground. Ms. Bizyayeva is the fisheries director for the tribe’s Natural Resources Department, where she has worked since 2013. She co-manages treaty resources with state, federal, and tribal governments and works with them to recover species of concern in the Stillaguamish River watershed and Puget Sound. She has been a strong advocate for salmon and habitat recovery throughout the Salish Sea. She previously served as the tribe’s fisheries deputy director and Northwest Indian Fisheries alternate commissioner, where she assisted with project oversight and policy guidance, and as an accounting and administrative assistant in the Natural Resources Department before that. Ms. Bizyayeva has an associate of arts and sciences degree with an emphasis in Native environmental sciences from the Northwest Indian College.

Kaleen Cottingham retired after fourteen years as the director of RCO. Before that, she served as deputy commissioner of public lands and supervisor of the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Ms. Cottingham has served under four governors, including as a natural resource policy advisor and legal counsel to former Gov. Booth Gardner. Former Gov. Gary Locke appointed her to the pollution control and shorelines hearing boards. Former Gov. Christine Gregoire appointed her to lead RCO. She earned her bachelor of science degree in forest resources from the University of Washington and her law degree from the University of Puget Sound. She is a life-long Washington resident and enjoys being in the great outdoors, gardening, and spending time at her cabin on Willapa Bay.

Chris Endresen Scott is the administrator for the Department of Social and Health Services’ Community Service Office in Omak. Previously, she served on the Poulsbo City Council and ten years on the Kitsap County Commission. As commissioner, Chris was very involved in addressing the listing of salmon in Puget Sound under the federal Endangered Species Act and also served on the Hood Canal Coordinating Council. One of her priorities was preserving land for parks, open space and fish habitat. After elected office, Ms. Endresen Scott was the state director for Senator Maria Cantwell’s Office from 2007 to 2010 and then the economic development director at the Puget Sound Regional Council until 2013. An advocate for lifelong learning, Ms. Endresen Scott received her master’s degree in public administration from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. She grew up in Seattle, spent thirty-two years in Poulsbo, and now lives in Conconully with her husband.

Joe Maroney is a life-long salmon advocate with a vast knowledge of Columbia River basin resource management issues and their impacts on fish. He is the director of Fishery and Water Resources for the Kalispel Tribe of Indians, where he has worked since 1995. Mr. Maroney has spent his entire career working on hydropower relicensing and implementation across Washington, Idaho, and Montana. He was a two-time chairman of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, representing resident fish managers. He has worked on bull trout recovery, fish passage, and non-native fish suppression and eradication projects focused on northern pike and brook trout. Mr. Maroney has been a member of the Washington Invasive Species Council since 2016. He was born and raised in Spokane and when not spending time with his wife and young daughter, you can find him fishing or hunting.

Jeremy Cram is the salmon recovery policy lead for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Before moving to this policy position, Mr. Cram led a unit focused on salmon recovery science. His work has included salmon, steelhead, and bull trout population status and trend monitoring, life cycle modeling, and participation on habitat development teams. He has served on the Snake River and Upper Columbia Regional Technical Teams. Mr. Cram is a doctoral candidate at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. His dissertation research is focused on spawning habitat selection by natural- and hatchery-origin salmon and the use of riverscape surveys in population monitoring. Mr. Cram has led research examining the role of marine-derived nutrients in aquatic food webs and their implications for water quality.

Tom Gorman is the interim manager for the Aquatic Resources Division of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Much of his work there involves management and administration of a suite of programs that focus on habitat restoration and stewardship and management of state-owned aquatic lands that both directly and indirectly benefit salmon species and other aquatic species. Before working at the department, he led a research team that investigated the ecology of threatened and endangered species and implemented wetland and riparian restoration. Mr. Gorman received his doctorate degree in fisheries and wildlife sciences at Virginia Tech, his master’s degree in biology at Minnesota State University, and his bachelor of science degree in wildlife ecology at University of Maine.

Dr. Annette Hoffmann is the manager of the Department of Ecology's Environmental Assessment Program. She has a doctorate in biostatistics from the University of Washington and twenty-four years of experience with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife where she led statistical analysis of salmon data, served on numerous salmon committees, co-managed fisheries with tribal governments, and oversaw state hatcheries throughout western Washington.

Susan Kanzler is the fish passage coordinator the Washington Department of Transportation. Ms. Kanzler is a biologist with twenty-four years of experience working for the State of Washington. Before joining the department, she worked in the field of fish passage and salmon habitat restoration for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. In addition to other duties there, she served as a technical reviewer of fish passage project proposals being submitted to the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. When she’s not planning fish barrier corrections at state highway crossings, Ms. Kanzler enjoys gardening, hiking, paddleboarding, and volunteering with her two teenage kids to plant vegetation along streams. She received her bachelor of science degree in environmental science from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

Levi Keesecker is a natural resource scientist at the Washington State Conservation Commission. He works with a variety of organizations to enhance the use of science and monitoring for environmental stewardship. Mr. Keesecker works at the nexus of agriculture and ecological systems including water quality and quantity and wildlife habitat. He previously worked as a Geographic Information System analyst for the Squaxin Island Tribe’s Natural Resource Department, a research fellow through the National Science Foundation, an instructor at Gonzaga University, and a private consultant. Mr. Keesecker received his doctorate degree in environmental science from the University of Idaho and the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Center in Costa Rica and his bachelor of science degree in environmental science from the University of Washington. He enjoys exploring Pacific Northwest landscapes with his kids and playing live music when the right opportunity presents itself.