Margaret Neuman, Executive Director
Margaret has been a key part of growing the organization. Margaret has more than 30 years of experience in watershed restoration, including organizational, grant, and program management. In addition to leading the organization, Margaret is also responsible for project development and implementation in the Klickitat, White Salmon and Wind River watersheds. Margaret joined Mid-Columbia Fisheries in 2005.
Rebecca Wassell, Yakima Basin Program Director
Rebecca joined Mid-Columbia Fisheries in 2008. She is responsible for project development and implementation in the Yakima Basin, which encompasses most of Kittitas, Yakima and Benton counties. Rebecca brings six years of experience as a fisheries biologist with the USDA Forest Service to this position.
Rhonda Starling, Bookkeeper
Rhonda joined Mid-Columbia Fisheries in 2012 and has had a long career in bookkeeping. In addition to working for Mid-Columbia Fisheries, Rhonda owns Gorge Bookkeeping.
Katrina Strathmann, Riparian Program Director
Katrina has been with MCF since 2012, and brings over 25 years of ecological restoration experience to the team. Katrina manages all aspects of riparian restoration projects for MCF. She has managed ecological restoration projects in numerous habitats, and managed landscape-scale inventories (meadows, forests and shrub-steppe), invasive plant management, native plant propagation, vegetation monitoring and rare plant management. Prior to MCF she worked for the Yakama Nation and the National Park Service. She has an M.S. in Biology and Community Ecology from California State San Francisco
Merritt Mitchell Wajeeh, Outreach and Communications Manager
Merritt joined the MCF team in 2016. She received her B.S. from the University of South Florida and a M.S. in Environmental Science and Education at Lesley College in Massachusetts. Merritt’s career experience includes being part of the opening team of The Florida Aquarium where she developed, marketed and implemented educational outreach programs for the public and recruited, trained and managed facility volunteers, and as External Affairs Manager/Ombudsman for the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection. She loves working on issues in the lower Yakima river and all of MCF’s educational outreach, media and social media.
Mike Bosko, Upper Yakima Project Manager
Mike manages restoration projects in the upper Yakima Basin. He has extensive experience in stream ecology and educational endeavors supported by degrees in Computer Science and Biology. He is currently working on a multi-year independent stream wood study that seeks to answer questions on mobility, entrapment, and function and involves 700 pieces of tagged wood in seven streams. For 18 years, Mike owned and operated a business developing solutions in mobile data collection where he pioneered RFID and barcode technologies. Mike taught science for 9 years at the Wahluke School District where he established an extra-curricular stream science internship program that brought his students into the forests to study restoration efforts and learn the ecology in and around streams. In 2014, Mike previously worked with Mid-Columbia Fisheries to help co-develop our own Intern program. Prior to coming onboard, Mike also earned the Patsy Collins Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Zac Zacavish, Middle and Lower Yakima River Project Manager
Moving from the heart of the Appalachian Mountains (West Virginia), Zac joins the MCF team with a diverse background. Zac has both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the West Virginia University and has spent time studying Panax quinquefolus (American Ginseng) along its entire native range during his B.S, and spending a decade of winters as a snowboard coach, countless whitewater trips, to completing a M.S in Fisheries Biology where his project sought to address habitat stability in headwater systems and how temporal pool availability impacts fish population dynamics.
Tori Wood, Education and Riparian Outreach Coordinator
Tori Wood has joined our team as the new Education and Riparian Outreach Coordinator. Tori has a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies and recently completed a Masters of Science in Environmental Education from Southern Oregon University. Her work experience includes a combination of organizing and leading volunteer events to improve wildlife habitat and teaching community members of all ages about the ecology of the Pacific Northwest. Tori spent two seasons as an intern with our partner organization, the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association, where she developed a passion for connecting people with the natural world and empowering people to be better stewards of salmonids and their habitat.
Emily Smith, Opertions and Grants Coordinator
Emily first joined the team as an intern in 2016, and after graduating from Central Washington Univeristy with a Environmental Biology. Since this time Emily has held many hats at MCF. After a breif departure, Emily is excited to be back at Mid Columbia Fisheries because she is passionate about natural resources, habitat restoration, and operational organization. In her free time she loves being outside, baking, and spending time with her family.
Steven Urakawa, Riparian Project Manager
Steven joined MCF in 2022 after receiving his B.S. from Central Washington University and finishing two field seasons with WDFW. His professional interests lie within stream and wildfire ecology, ecological succession, and statistics. In his free time, he enjoys many activities- including fly fishing, bird hunting, and chess.
Aaron Balagot, Restoration Crew Supervisor and Volunteer Coordinator
Aaron joined the MCF team in 2018 after graduating from CWU with a bachelors in Biology. In his free time he enjoys lifting weights and cooking (and eating) delicious food. He always looks forward to his upcoming field seasons at Mid Columbia and to continuing on working to improve and restore habitats around Washington!
Carson Briski, Project Manager
Carson graduated from Central Washington University in 2018 with a B.S. degree in Environmental science with a specialization in geography. Carson has been apart of the team since 2019 and is an enthusiast of everything outdoors especially hunting, dirt biking, and fishing.
Aimee Taylor, Fish Biologist
Aimee Taylor is a field biologist and the Bull Trout Recovery Coordinator for Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group. She has been working on salmon, steelhead and native trout recovery in California and Washington for the past seven years. Aimee completed her undergraduate studies in 2016 at University of California, Davis with a degree in Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology. In 2022, she completed a Master of Science degree in Biology at Central Washington University. Aimee originally joined MCF as a crew lead for the Bull Trout Task Force in 2019, and has been working with Bull Trout ever since. She now coordinates the Yakima Basin Bull Trout Working Group and continues to lead the Bull Trout Task Force during the field season.
