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Board of Directors

We are governed by a volunteer board of directors. Our board represents a range of expertise, knowledge and skills. All of our directors are committed to furthering the school, and ensure we fulfill our mission. Our Board is instrumental to the continuation of the work we do.

John Lynch, President
John graduated as a chemical engineer from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1960, and subsequently went to law school receiving a law degree from Fordham University School of Law in 1964. That led to 40 years of legal practice, principally in the field of intellectual property litigation. Through the 1990’s, John served as the managing lawyer of his Texas law firm with offices in several states until 2000 when he supervised the merger of that firm into a megafirm with worldwide offices. He continues to practice with that firm, albeit at a reduced level, leaving time to participate on the Board of the School for the past four years.
John has been a sailor since the early 1960’s first on Long Island Sound, and thereafter on Galveston Bay, the Gulf and San Francisco Bay. After having visited Port Townsend on many occasions, principally for the Wooden Boat Festival, John is enjoying his semi-retirement in Port Ludlow, where he abandoned his allegiance to sail and now enjoys hiking with his two Vizsla pointers and cruising aboard the 65’ wooden motor vessel, Shamrock, with his wife Sharon.
John Bodger, Vice President
John graduated from California State Long Beach (now University California) in 1967 with a BA degree and from the Nevada School of Law in 1986 with a JD degree. He spent 20 years in youth services and school teaching and had a private practice of law from 1986 to 2001. John served as a court appointed special master (child support enforcement and paternity establishment) from 1990 to 2000 and retired to Port Townsend in 2001. He's a life long sailor, volunteer and a board member of the NWSWB since August 2004.
Bill Tolf, Treasurer
Bill attended Union College in Schenectady, New York majoring in engineering and business. After college, he moved to the Chicago area, worked in the metallurgical field and after a few years started his own company. For several years Bill raced Scows on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin: E Scows, A Scows and M-20’s. Eventually, moving to northern California, he continued to race one-design boats on San Francisco Bay. While living in the Bay area, he bought and restored a 35’ classic converted fishing boat built by Neese in San Francisco in 1946.
After moving to Vancouver, WA, Bill and wife Linda came up to the Wooden Boat Festival every year. They eventually decided to move to the Olympic Peninsula where they recently built a home. Bill is now in his “graduate school” of boat restoration. He is restoring a Blue Moon; a full keel, gaff rigged yawl. This also ties into his avid interest in wood working.
Bill has been on the Board of the NWSWB since 2006.
James Gormly, Secretary
NWSWB graduate 2005
Jim received his PhD in oceanography from Texas A&M University in 1975, and subsequently moved about as far from the ocean as one can get when he took a research position studying ground water quality in Nebraska (Oceanography jobs were not plentiful at the time). After 4 years working in Nebraska and 4 years in a research institute in Germany, he joined Mobil Research where he was employed as a petroleum geochemist for more than 20 years, with stints in Dallas, Stavanger, Norway and Houston. It was in Stavanger where he and his wife, Margie, were exposed to a cool temperate climate, fjords, mountains and beautiful wooden boats. A seed was planted in that experience. When he retired in 2004, he and Margie left the heat of Houston and headed to the Olympic Peninsula so that Jim could attend the Boat School, where he was a member of the first 12-month program in 2004-2005. “It was a super year in which I learned considerable craftsmanship from excellent instructors”. He joined the board in early 2006 and is an active volunteer on maintenance and expansion of the School’s facilities.
Elizabeth Becker
Elizabeth Becker is the Special Projects Director for Sound Experience, a nonprofit organization that offers environmental education programs aboard the historic schooner Adventuress throughout Puget Sound. She earned her B.S. and M.S. Degrees at Stanford in the School of Earth Sciences and spent close to two decades working in the fields of water quality research and regulation. She has lived in Port Townsend since 1997 with her husband Jack, an alum of the boat school who currently works in the marine trades. They own a lovely Lake Union Dreamboat which serves as the photo boat for Elizabeth’s maritime photography business.
David Blessing
David grew up in Seattle and graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Physics. Since that time, he has gradually become an engineer instead. For most of his working life until 2002, he was a nuclear power engineer, working on nuclear submarines for the US Navy. While living in Virginia, David sailed on Chesapeake Bay. He built a cold-molded wooden 505 sailboat which he raced for many years, and learned to appreciate the statement “Upside down is slow.” David built two other small wooden boats in his shop in Virginia. When it was time to choose another career beyond submarines, David came west to the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding where he could pursue his passion for wooden boats. After graduating, he worked for a while building wooden sea kayaks. In 2004, an opportunity came up to join the Lockheed Martin team developing the design for a nuclear powered spacecraft for scientific exploration. Subsequently, he has been working on advanced reactor designs for commercial application and on energy conservation projects. In his spare time, he is building another wooden sailboat in his workshop in Port Ludlow.
Bill Brock
NWSWB graduate 2000
Bill received his Bachelors degree in geology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1970. He then went to graduate school at Texas A&M where he received a Masters in geology in 1973. After 25 years in the oil exploration business with Amoco Production Company, Bill took early retirement and came to Port Townsend to attend the Boat School. He graduated with an Associate Degree in June of 2000 and has been volunteering at the school since then. He has been on the Board of Directors since January, 2001.
Chris Chase
NWSWB graduate 1989
In 1988 Chris Chase made the move from Colorado to Port Townsend to attend the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. Following boat school, Chris stayed in Port Townsend and worked as a shipwright, joining the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op in 2001, and specializing in woodworking and fine joinery. In his spare time, he keeps busy with backcountry skiing, sailing, fishing, and raising and riding horses, not to mention the continuing restoration of Alerté, a 35’ French pilot cutter built in the 1950s.
J. Michael Delagarza
NWSWB graduate 2004
Michael brings to the board a valuable and broad spectrum of business knowledge, including small market television production as well as restaurant, retail and corporate management experience. Prior to attending the boat school, Michael served as Director of Inventory Management Services for Henry Schein, Inc., the world’s largest distributor of healthcare products to office based practitioners, based in Long Island, New York. A life-long sailor, Mr. Delagarza sailed small boats at the New Jersey shore as a child and cruised the Pacific Northwest during the 1980’s. A musician since the garage band days of the late 60’s, Michael still plays guitar, bass and harmonica. He is involved with computer information systems and software conversions at the boat school and hopes to participate in education and maritime community initiatives. Currently he is working on the restoration of a 51-foot wooden schooner and developing independent business opportunities in the Port Townsend area.
Krist Lane
NWSWB graduate 2001
Krist retired as a Staff Director to the Senate Budget Committee in California. He served as a legislative staff member for 34 years in various policy and fiscal consulting positions including Chief Consultant to the Assembly Ways & Means Committee and Staff Director to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Krist was raised in Washington and worked his way through college as a purseiner in Puget Sound and South East Alaska. He is a graduate of Stanford University. Krist maintains a small consulting practice and has been a member of the NWSWB Board since 2003.
Judson Linnabary
Judson R. Linnabary is a true “Blue Blood” of the yachting industry. His blood runs as blue as the waters which he’s lived on, raced on and thrived from since childhood. At age 10, Jud began his racing career on a Ranger 33 and has since raced and placed throughout the U.S. As a young adult, his first yacht crewing job, among many, was on the M/Y Platypus, a 96’ Westport. On land, Jud worked for Delta Marine before venturing out on his own. Today, Jud is the President of Platypus Marine, Inc. in Port Angeles, one of the largest repair yards in the Pacific Northwest, and owner of the M/Y Lady A, a 72’ McQueen. Jud is well-known in the world-wide boating community for his extensive knowledge and experience in all phases of vessel construction, refit, management and business consulting. Trinity, Delta, Crescent, Horizon, Westport and most recently Aleutian Yachts are among the numerous yacht builders who have partnered with Jud and Platypus Marine, Inc. to complete their projects.
Margaret Maxwell
Margaret Maxwell has two degrees in music and spent the first half of her career as a music educator, private teacher and free-lance performer in organ, piano and voice. She spent the second half of her career in nonprofit administration including the Washington State Coalition for the Homeless, the North Olympic Regional Housing Network and Diversified Resources. She is a long-time volunteer for Sound Experience/Adventuress. She became acquainted with the Wooden Boat School when she and her husband and two grown children built a Skunk Island Skiff three years ago at Family Boat Building, ably assisted by alumni from the Boat School. As director of Diversified Resources she did a small project in support of the Wooden Boat School's capital campaign.

Program Advisory Committee

Ernie Baird - Owner, The Baird Boat Company
Franz Witte - Partner, Rainshadow Marine
Jim Lyons - Co-founder, Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op
Jim Franken - Designer/Builder
Michael Hoskins - Cabinetmaker