Meet Our Staff

Sarah Baker, Garden Director

Sarah has degrees in Botany and Environmental Horticulture/Urban Forestry from the University of Washington. She has managed the Garden and Nursery since early 2008.

Emily Sprong, Program Director

Emily has worked at the Garden since 2008 managing the volunteer, membership, and education programs. She has a degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Vermont and brings valuable knowledge of birds and wildlife to the Garden.

Aaron Silverberg, Development Associate

Aaron has just joined KBGF as of 2012.  He has been an organic gardener since graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Environmental Science and Philosophy. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, an avid birder and photographer and brings a wealth of fundraising and development experience.

Heidi Koonz, Garden Staff

Heidi has a degree in Horticulture from South Seattle Community College, a BFA in Photography from the University of Washington, and has worked at the Garden since 2003. An avid seed collector and propagator, she also has an interest in medicinal herbs and ethnobotany.

Roseann Barnhill, Garden Staff

Roseann has a BFA in Photography from the University of Washington and certificates in Stream Restoration and Wetland Science and Management. She has worked at the Garden since 2004 and has an interest in oaks, rock gardens, and wetlands.

Vicki Demetre, Garden Staff

Vicki has a degree in Environmental Horticulture from Lake Washington Technical College and a MFA in Photography from the University of Washington. Her botanical interests include native prairie plants and rock garden plants. She has worked at the Garden since 2007.

Rowland Adeniyi, Garden Caretaker

Rowland, an honorary member of the Kruckeberg family, was born in Nigeria but has lived at the Garden for many years. He lives onsite and does much of the maintenance in the Garden, in addition to operating his own technology consulting company.

Our Board Of Directors

Ann Jacobus, President
Ann is an enthusiastic amateur gardener and lives in Shoreline with her husband, young son, and nine-year-old mutt. She is a relatively recent transplant to Shoreline, having left her established garden in Lake City two-and-a-half years ago. Once again faced with creating a garden from scratch, she is gearing up to tackle her backyard with its trifecta of garden evils—Himalayan blackberry, English ivy, and bindweed (goats may be involved). Not surprisingly, it is taking longer to create a garden when there is a preschooler involved.

In her professional life, Ann is the Manager of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Cornish College of the Arts, overseeing the grant writing and sponsorship program for the College. She has over 14 years experience in development and grant writing and has secured and managed funding from a wide range of foundations and various state, county, and city organizations. Prior to joining Cornish, Ann held positions at several non-profit organizations, serving as the Manager of Government, Corporate, and Foundation Relations for Bellevue Art Museum and Development Director for a social justice organization. She has presented workshops on grant budget development for the Puget Sound Grantwriters Association and proposal writing for the Center for Nonprofit Success.

When not involved with her family, Cornish, or the Garden (or thinking about goats), Ann can be found practicing yoga or cooking.

T. Richard Leary, Vice President
Rick was born and raised just outside the small farm town of La Porte, Indiana. Early on, he acquired his passion for gardening from his mother, a farmer’s daughter. He graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Chemistry and received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Purdue University, where he met his wife, Elizabeth. Even as graduate students they found time for productive vegetable gardening in the warm, humid summers of central Indiana, where four tomato plants could supply a laboratory of graduate students for several months. Rick continued his post-doctoral education as a Fellow of the American Cancer Society and an Associate Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the UW.

Rick soon moved from academia to industry to work in the burgeoning field of biotechnology. He developed seven different commercial products for the healthcare field, working both in Research and Development and Technical Operations. In the early 1980s he also developed a deep interest in martial arts, earning a third degree black belt in Aikido. He was accepted as a student and earned a teaching license in the Koryu art of Muso Shinto Ryu Jodo, the 400-year-old, multi-disciplined, martial art of Japan. He continues his study of and research in Jodo.

Primarily a vegetable and herb gardener, since his retirement, Rick has labored to amend the loamy and hard pan soil. He is the principal cook of the family, specializing in Scandinavian, Chinese, and Mediterranean cuisines, and enjoys cooking with the herbs and vegetables from his garden. Rick and Elizabeth also enjoy birding, ballet, and national and international travel with many more cultures and countries to be visited. They have passed these interests on to their daughter and son.

Enid Kruckeberg Kriewald, Treasurer
Enid is the youngest daughter of Art and Mareen Kruckeberg. She grew up on the KBG’s four acres and has watched it develop. Although born into what a friend of hers called “botanical royalty,” Enid’s love was horses. She pleaded with her parents daily for the chance to have a horse in the pasture. Watching Enid work with her friends’ horses and show her sense of responsibility, her parents finally got a horse on loan from Hidden Valley Guest Ranch in Cle Elum (where her sister Caroline was the head wrangler) for a winter. Enid was ecstatic and Art and Mareen held off their big plans for the meadow. She had many wonderful years riding Chloe and her next horse Flame around Richmond Beach, Woodway, and Edmonds.

After graduating from Shorewood High School in 1981, Enid enrolled in the school of hard knocks. She moved to San Francisco and then Sacramento, where she started as a receptionist in a Volkswagen dealership. Enid climbed the corporate ladder for the next eight years and then decided to move back to the Pacific Northwest. She settled in Ballard and started a 20-year career with Acura of Lynnwood, where she currently works as the controller.

In 2004, Enid married her husband Randy and soon after two beautiful bounding baby golden retrievers were stealing the couple’s hearts and making good use of their acre+ in Snohomish. Enid is a member of the Mountaineers and the Native Plant Society, which was co-founded by her father many years before. She spends as much time as she can hiking and snow shoeing and even occasionally tries her hand at plant identification.

Eric Swenson, Secretary
Eric came to Seattle in 1965 to attend the UW and become an English professor. After way too many years pursuing a PhD and being a college instructor, he stopped teaching writing and started doing it. Since then, he has written or co-authored seven books and hundreds of articles on subjects as diverse as baseball, DNA, dispute resolution, bioterrorism, commercial fishing, and China. He also worked at Microsoft and Ernst & Young and was the Editorial Director for the Northwest’s largest web developer. He now coordinates the Productive Oceans Study Group, formed to address seafood sustainability issues, especially ocean acidification.

As the sole proprietor of a bamboo nursery and boutique landscaping business specializing in Asian-style gardens, Eric has a professional interest in horticulture. It is rooted, however, in his passion for using rock, wood, plants, and water to create sacred spaces. The North Seattle home he shares with his sweetheart Holly is surrounded by different types of display gardens—bog, woodland, water, and English cottage among them—all on a fifth of an acre. His current major project, which Holly calls the “Big Dig,” is a backyard waterfall that drops 15 feet.

Not an international traveler until recently, since 2009, Eric has taken work assignments in Guatemala, China, Costa Rica, and New Zealand and has caught the bug. With Holly retiring early in 2011, travel is on their agenda. The one complication: four granddaughters, ranging from a toddler to a high schooler. It’s hard to be away from the girls they dote upon. The two also enjoy cooking together, especially Asian and Mediterranean cuisine; bird watching; opera; and New York Times crossword puzzles.

Paul Grace
Paul is a native of the Midwest who grew up near St. Louis. He is a 1968 graduate of Dartmouth College, where he met Claire, his wife and life partner since 1972. After working overseas for several years and living in Boston, they moved to the Northwest in 1983, drawn by Shoreline’s great schools. They have stayed here because of the city's remarkable neighborhoods and neighbors.

Their daughters attended Shoreline schools, and Paul was active in the PTA and other aspects of their education. He served on the Shorewood Site Council and as a member of the Shoreline School Board, including terms as vice president and president. Paul was appointed to the Shoreline City Council in 2003 and served through 2005. He is also active in conflict resolution, acting as a mediator for dispute resolution centers throughout Western Washington since 1993. Paul has worked at the Port of Seattle for the last 18 years in Labor Relations, Human Resources, Facilities, and for the last five years as Senior Operations Manager at Sea-Tac Airport.

The Grace’s third of an acre is replete with Kruckeberg Garden shrubs, ground covers, and trees, which they began collecting at a Mothers’ Day sale 20 years ago. Paul loves to garden, and he supplies his house and neighborhood with vegetables and flowers almost throughout the year. Paul and Claire have expanded their Shoreline gardens to include a 80' square French-style potager (kitchen garden) that they expect to have fully in place by the spring of 2011. The two.are avid sea kayakers and have enjoyed kayaking in many areas of the United States and Canada. Paul is the family chef (favorite cuisine: Italian) and for years has donated gourmet meals to school, Chamber, Arts Council, and other community auctions.

John Hagman
Like many of the plants he loves, John is a Northwest native. He was born into a family of orchardists in the Yakima Valley and attended Seattle’s public schools then the University of Washington. His interests in the region’s remarkable and diverse flora began early at the Washington Park Arboretum, where he has been a habitué for over half a century.

A teacher his entire professional life, John earned his BA from the UW and his MA from the University of Chicago. For three years he taught history and philosophy at Coe College in Iowa, but the charms of college teaching were lost on him. He turned to adult literacy, where the work and mission were more to his liking. Returning home, he earned another MA, this one in Developmental Education and Reading Instruction at Seattle University. He spent the next two decades teaching at community-based organizations, community colleges, reservations, prisons, and the King County Jail. In 1997, he returned to college teaching at Cornish College of the Arts, while continuing to coordinate youth education program for the United Indians of All Tribes. He is the author of many texts, learning materials, and articles on adult literacy and has twice received Cornish’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

John and his family have lived in Shoreline for over 30 years. The family has always gardened avidly. His wife, Ritsko, is the brains behind whatever grows, and all that provides the rich physical, sensuous, and spiritual beauty of their garden. John provides the brawn, the strong back that every garden seems to need. He and Ritsko are now introducing their grandchildren to the wonders of plants and the joys of gardening.

Robert Hauck
Bob first experienced the joy of bare feet in loamy soil in his parents’ 1940s “victory garden.” During school years in Minnesota he worked summers as a Scout canoeing guide and then a biologist with the fisheries research unit for the state—the Land of 10,000 Lakes—studying the ecology of fresh water lakes and streams. The demands of medical and graduate school drove him back to the soil where he found solace in a 50’ x 50’ vegetable garden every year.

In the mid-1960s, Children’s Hospital and the northwest climate lured him away from Minnesota’s six-month growing season to year-round gardening. When the Hauck family moved to the old Taylor farm home in Richmond Beach they knew they had arrived at a plant paradise. Bob retired from his pediatric practice at Group Health Cooperative in 1996 but still works part time at GHC and Richmond Beach Pediatrics. He has always been deeply invested in medical education and is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine. In retirement he is active in Shoreline Rotary Club (president 2001-2002), Shoreline/Lake Forest Park Arts Council, and other community activities.

For over 30 years Bob and wife Katie have cultivated their 1.5 acre plot in the Kruckeberg neighborhood. The two use their home as an informal B&B for their six married children and 14 grandchildren. Gardening as a hobby competes for Bob’s time with tennis, traveling, golf, grand-parenting, and bridge. He volunteers for the Board in appreciation of Mareen and Art, as an extension of his favorite hobby, and to ensure the Garden is sustained as a priceless asset in our community’s future.

Sandra Hasegawa Ingalls

Now a resident of Lake Stevens, Sandra is a Northwest native who grew up in Seattle with many opportunities to explore Puget Sound with her family—camping, hiking, skiing and sailing. She believes her career path was determined early in life when playing in the rich soil, creating elaborate landscapes, was one of her favorite things to do. In 1975, she received her BS in Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, where Dr. Kruckeberg was her Botany professor. She continues to be inspired by his books and the incredible garden Art and Mareen created.

Sandra has traveled the world, exploring many different cultural and natural environments. She immersed herself in the nature-oriented culture of Japan when she lived there for a year, which greatly influenced her professionally and otherwise. Sandra was particularly impressed by the restrained building interiors with disappearing walls that created a strong connection to the garden.  She emulates this design feature whenever feasible. After starting her career as a landscape designer-builder, she founded Foresight, Inc. in 1989 to serve residential, commercial and public utility clients. Sandra specializes in sustainable solutions; low-impact development; and connecting people with the wonders of nature, fostering healthier and more productive communities.

Serving on the board of directors for Outdoor Youth Connections, Sandra helps to empower youth by providing financial support for activities that encourage love and respect for nature, leadership, and community involvement. She is an active member of The Mountaineers, Washington Association of Landscape Professionals and Win With Washington.  Sandra’s son, who also lives in Lake Stevens, is a middle school teacher in Granite Falls. They enjoy collaborating on many projects together.  Besides her primary passion for gardening, Sandra also loves to hike, backpack, ski, snowshoe, kayak and travel.

Richard Olmstead

Dick was raised in upstate New York, but was drawn to the west by the grandeur of mountains, forests, and open space. As a student at the NY State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, his first mentor in Botany was a friend of Art Kruckeberg. Years later, after Dick moved to Seattle for his Ph.D. in Botany, Art was on his committee. Following appointments at universities in Michigan, Indiana, and Colorado, Dick returned to the UW in 1996 and is now Professor of Biology and Curator of the Herbarium in the Burke Museum. His research explores fundamental questions of evolution and natural history, primarily through phylogenetic reconstruction of flowering plants. He was President of the KBG Foundation Board 2007-2008.

Dick's earliest memories include tending the family garden and transplanting native trees and shrubs onto the 5-acre former cow pasture that was the site of his childhood home. He now lives with his wife, Sheila, and dog, Lolly, in Lake Forest Park, where their one-acre lot is filled with botanical novelties from around the Pacific Northwest and the world, and laced with woodland trails that their 5-year old grandson loves to explore.

A love of the mountains bloomed along with his discovery of the West. A passion for mountain climbing, which included several years as a professional mountain guide in Wyoming, has gradually been replaced by gardening and fly fishing. His professional travels have taken him to China, Australia, Patagonia, Brazil, and Andean South America, and have inspired a greater appreciation for global diversity as a theme in local gardens.