Jen Trujillo
Interim Executive Director
Jen Trujillo has been managing the Accounting for Watershed since July of 2021 and stepped in as the Interim Executive Director in July of 2023. She believes in loving kindness, the power of community and digital receipts. Having worked in construction and real estate accounting in the Seattle area for over 25 years, she has flipped three of her four Seattle homes and spends as much time as she can on her boat on Orcas Island where she is in the early stages of developing affordable housing. She is an active multi-instrumentalist, a student of dharma, a business owner, and a mom to two grown sons.
Bill Evans
Maintenance Assistant
Bill, a Seattle native, comes to Watershed with a multifaceted background. He has worked at everything from landscaping to fabricating complex prototypes. He enjoys problem solving and the journey the path to a successful resolution takes you down. In his spare time he enjoys motorcycles, golf, camping and tinkering. He likes dogs and cats, prefers comedies to dramas, metal to wood, billiards to ping pong, Hawaii to Florida, fishing to tennis, showers to baths, charcoal to propane, and sunrise and sunset is a toss up. He is excited to help enhance your spaces to increase your productivity and elevate your mood.
James Morin
Construction & Maintenance Manager
James Morin was born and raised in the Boise, Idaho area and lived in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle for 7 years before moving to Vashon Island in 2023. He has a large scope of professional experience, from packing mules and horses in the backcountry of California to building stadium roofs all around the country. James has been a community member and tenant of Equinox since 2014, working mostly in metal fabrication. While being around this amazing place, he has been able to help Sam and the Equinox community on some large build-outs and projects, and now works full time with Watershed Community Development as the head of Construction on special projects, building maintenance, and anything and everything that needs fixin’. In his down time James enjoys his garden, hiking, golf, motorcycles and generally anything outdoors.
Kay Morrison
Deputy Director
Kay has a passion for art, for community and for fostering possibility at the intersection of the two. She has been walking the halls of Equinox Studios since 2007 as a part of the Iron Monkeys blacksmithing collective. She is honored and humbled to now be in the employ of Watershed helping to connect people and advocate for community while being surrounded with endless creativity and joy. It’s a dream job. An avid Burning Man participant since 2000, Kay proudly serves on the Board of Directors for the Burning Man Project.
DK Pan
Community & Property Steward
DK is excited to join the Watershed team; and looks forward to contributing decades of experience in the arts and affordable housing to the project and community. As an artist, DK investigates the intersection of place and memory — exploring the interstices and histories of site; the personal and collective body — through visual art, video, performance, public art, installation, interventions, and arts programming/organizing. They organized art interventions/cultural events such as TUBS and Bridge Motel; and projects with Sound Transit Art Program and Seattle Housing Authority. Professionally, DK has worked for Plymouth Housing Group and Community Roots Housing over the past 10+ years to address homelessness and create affordable, vibrant communities – in support of the maxim, ‘Housing Is A Human Right’. DK is also a part of the small team at Hugo House, literary arts center on Capitol Hill.
Claire Putney
Office Manager
Claire Putney is a visual artist and community servant living and thriving with her family between Georgetown and Vashon Island. Her daily practice is grounded in listening, learning, and creative collaboration. Claire comes to Watershed with experience working in a variety of non-profit and publicly funded organizations, with a focus on equity, accessibility, and education in the arts. When she’s not at Watershed, Claire can be found in the forest, in her studio, or cooking new recipes.
Partners
Ben Rankin
Community Development Partners
Ben Rankin lives in the Leschi neighborhood with his wife Margit. He is an amateur jazz violinist, and he has studied English at Reed College and Business Administration at the University of Washington. Since 1988 Ben has developed or supported a variety of projects and businesses involving housing affordability, historic preservation, recycling, heavy industry, and the arts.
Richard Conlin
Community Development Partners
Richard Conlin consults on sustainability, food policy, and local government, and is an affiliate faculty, Honors College and Department of Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington. He is a Principal in Conlin Columbia Partnership for Cities, which develops workforce housing in conjunction with community and cultural facilities. He served four terms on the Seattle City Council and was twice elected Council President by his colleagues. Richard has run an energy conservation business, directed Seattle YMCA Earth Service Corps, and co-founded Sustainable Seattle. He is currently co-President of the Seattle Christchurch Sister City Association and serves on the Washington State Food Policy Forum.
Sam Farrazaino
Founder, Equinox Studios
Samuel Farrazaino is the founder of Equinox Studios, the largest arts community in Washington with 100,000 square feet of workspace and over 175 artist and artisan tenants, located in Georgetown. In 32 years as a design/build general contractor and developer, Sam has created over 300,000 square feet of affordable arts and cultural spaces including the 619 Western Building in Pioneer Square, The Ridiculous Factory in West Seattle, and Inscape, a National Historic Landmark in the International District. He is a resident of Georgetown.
Amber Larsen
Project Manager, The Bend
Amber Larsen has worked on the Watershed Community Development Georgetown Community Development Authority project since its inception and has previous experience in nonprofit management and community focused finance projects.
Signal Architecture
Signal Architecture are our Master Planners, helping us develop the big picture for the Live/Work District.
MxM Architecture
MxM Landscape Architecture is our partner working on the Green Streets/Streetscapes project.
Tamar Benzikry, Art + Purpose
Art Imperative Director
Blank Space
Blank Space is a boutique, user-centric design studio. Co-Founders Melinda and Riley Raker founded Blank Space in Seattle, Washington in 2007. Blank Space is our graphic and visual identity design partner, helping us become Watershed Community Development and The Bend.
Board
Ronald Posthuma
Interim Chair/President
Ron Posthuma is semi-retired, enjoying family, community involvement and travel. He spent 38 years with the King County Department of Transportation in various leadership roles. From 1998-2013 he managed King County’s Transit Oriented Development Program which involved negotiating development agreements including affordable housing on county-owned properties, principally in surface park-and-ride lots. He also served on an intergovernmental committee that allocated funding to affordable housing projects throughout King County. Ron has served in multiple boards including the Washington State Transit Association, the Transportation Policy Board, and the Puget Sound Regional Council which focused on regional issues at the Duwamish Coalition. Ron co-founded the Proactive Persistent People for Progress (P4) in 2017 and remains active there. He received a degree in History and Political Science from Hope College and his Master’s in Public Administration from Syracuse University. He has been happily married to his wife of 45 years and is an active grandfather of four boys. He is a member of the Woodland Park Presbyterian Church Choir.
Elizabeth Romney
Treasurer/Secretary
Elizabeth Romney has lived in south Seattle for over 40 years. Although not a Seattle native, her husband and son are so she too claims the status. Elizabeth’s passion is doing what she can to make the world better. She was on the Board of King County Sexual Assault Resource Center in the 1980s and served on boards at her son’s elementary school. From 1999 to 2015 she volunteered for CARE USA in its work to support women and girls in developing countries, particularly Guatemala, Cambodia, Burma, and Afghanistan. She also regularly lobbied U.S. legislators and senators to support foreign aid. Most recently she has been a member of Washington Women’s Foundation since 2009. She has a BA in English and French literature and an MBA in finance, both from the University of Utah. Her work experience, largely in banking and the capital markets, included work in several large and regional banks. In her final career move, she and three friends ran a toy manufacturing company creating science toys for kids. Fortunately, the company, Be Amazing Toys, sold before the pandemic changed the world. Her true love is being outside: hiking, bike riding, skiing especially in the San Juan Islands and in Montana.
Paulina Lopez
Member
Paulina Lopez is the Executive Director of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition. She has over 25 years of experience working on issues of civil rights, social environmental justice, equity, education, and diversity. Paulina emigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador and has made Seattle her home for the past 18 years. She holds a master’s degree in Human Rights Law from St. Thomas University.
John Kirschenbaum
Member
John has a passion for well-designed furniture, art of all kinds and the people who make it. When not occupied with angles and curves he is an active supporter of the community he found when he came to Equinox in 2008. John is honored to serve on the board of an organization built upon that community.
Mary Dzieweczynski
Member
Mary moved from Saint Paul, MN to Seattle, WA in 1994. From high school until mid-life (relatively speaking) she worked in the nonprofit world in a variety of roles including Counselor, Program Director and Executive Director. She studied Learning Psychology at the University of MN and received an MA from Antioch University in the Environment & Community Program. In 2011, she started a residential remodeling business where she no longer needs to report out to a Board of Directors (insert irony). Through her current work she gets opportunities to juggle finance, the laws of physics, inevitable forms of decomposition, human psychology, and simply – Making Things. Mary lives in White Center (Go! Fishsticks!) with her partner, two kids, 2 dogs, 7 chickens, a rabbit who thinks he is a chicken, a scary snake she never wanted in the first place, and a guinea pig with one good eye.
Check back soon to learn more about our new Board Members.
Community Task Force
We are a volunteer group of Equinox tenants who support and encourage community. We do this through planning and executing public and tenant events, including art walks and Open Houses, promoting Equinox artists through social media, a newsletter, and building community among Equinox tenants and Watershed folk. We take our work, the creation of fun and community engagement, seriously — but not ourselves.
We are small business owners, artists, artisans, designers and makers — and we value the experience each of us brings to the group. We look to each other for differences of opinion, bringing our true selves and various senses of humor to the table. We are guided by the Stone Soup allegory that small things contributed and mixed together will grow and nurture our community. We get a big buzz out of seeing what we are able to make happen together.
There is always room at the table for better jokes, more brilliant ideas, and folks to implement them. If you are interested in finding out more, we’ll save you a chair, just respond here.