“She is clearly a brilliant scientist, but more importantly, she is willing to share that brilliance in a meaningful and inspiring fashion with people and organizations in the region to make a difference in restoring our coastal waters,” writes Ginny Broadhurst, director of the Northwest Straits Commission, in a letter of nomination for Terrie Klinger, associate professor of marine affairs.
Klinger is being recognized with the Outstanding Public Service Award for helping craft strategies to address pressing issues concerning waters off Washington’s coast, in Puget Sound and around San Juan, Orcas and the other islands in San Juan County.
“Her goals for her volunteer work have been two-fold, to assure that efforts to protect marine waters grow and prosper and that those efforts be science-based,” writes Thomas Leschine, director of the UW School of Marine Affairs. “Her influence has been enormous, extending well beyond our state to the national level. She was invited to a White House-sponsored conference in acknowledgement of her dedication to volunteer work on behalf of marine conservation.”
Outstanding Public Service Award
Established in 1980, this award recognizes exceptional achievement in public service by a faculty or staff member of the UW.
Given all the organization, board and committee activities that earned her this award, it is ironic to think back on her training as a marine ecologist in the ’80s when, she recalls, the focus was on “ecology without humans.” Today one can’t consider ecosystem health without considering humans and involving them in the process, something Klinger is admired for.
An example is her work with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, one of 14 marine protected areas managed under the authority of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“A skilled communicator and facilitator, Dr. Klinger has helped the advisory council come to consensus recommendations on thorny issues such as Navy operations within the sanctuary, review of proposed alternative energy projects and, more recently, the creation of a revised management plan for the sanctuary,” writes Carol Bernthal, superintendent of the sanctuary located off the outer coast of Washington state with habitats that range from rich intertidal areas to productive offshore canyons. “This is an especially impressive feat given the diverse perspectives represented on the council.”
Klinger has served on the sanctuary advisory council since 2002, volunteering more than a thousand hours as the research representative for the 21-member council. Starting in 2004 she began serving as chair.
In waters adjacent to the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, the Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Initiative is a federally authorized program that works with local citizens to restore and protect the marine environment in northern Puget Sound, an area known as Northwest Straits.
Klinger first joined the effort in 1999 when she became a member and science adviser of the San Juan marine resources committee, one of the local groups operating as part of the Northwest Straits initiative. She consistently devotes 10 to 15 hours a month to the group and has helped with such things as bottomfish recovery and the creation of the San Juan Marine Stewardship Area. In 2008, Klinger was appointed to the Northwest Straits commission by Gov. Chris Gregoire.
“Dr. Klinger is thoughtful, considerate of the diverse perspectives in coastal communities and consistently offers clear and meaningful input to discussions,” Broadhurst writes.
Klinger, who has been a UW faculty member since 2001, plays similar service roles at the UW for the School of Marine Affairs and, now, the College of the Environment, where her colleagues selected her as first chair of the college council.
“She’s been as creative and resourceful in finding new ways to be a community resource as she has been in planning her own scientific research,” Leschine writes. “Her new line of scientific work concerns the marine ecological effects of ocean acidification, one of the most worrisome and poorly understood consequences of increasing carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.”
