Museum Staff
Amber Buell,
Executive Director
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Amber Buell (she/her) has always had a fascination with history. As a seasoned nonprofit leader, Buell was most recently the Executive Director of Kitsap County History Museum. During her tenure she led her team through the process of an update and remodel of their permanent exhibit space.
Buell is thrilled to bring her experience to Bainbridge History Museum. She looks forward to leading the museum into a new era as it grows, deepening engagement through the sharing of Bainbridge Island’s rich, diverse history. Amber holds a BFA in Art History from Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas.
Jessica Perkins, Director of Philanthropy
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Jessica Perkins (she/her) and her family originally moved to Bainbridge Island in 2010 and opened a farm-to-table restaurant, Local Harvest Restaurant. As an owner of a small business, she found her passion of connecting people and community partnerships.
Perkins is a passionate supporter of the Bainbridge community and brings a great depth of experience in developing strong member and community partnerships built at Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and as a former board member at the Peacock Family Center and the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association.
Previously she managed multiple galas for JDRF in Seattle and raised more than $6 million. Across her career, she has worked in marketing, membership, and development for numerous non-profits, including a sea turtle hospital, a foundation dedicated to finding a cure for blindness, and an association to advocate for natural products.
Perkins is delighted to contribute her expertise to the growth and vitality of the Bainbridge History Museum.
Lindsay Ogles,
Director of Exhibits and Engagement
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Lindsay Ogles (she/her) has had a lifelong love of history. As a public history and museum professional, Lindsay joins our team from Florida, where she worked with local history organizations and collections to showcase a variety of figures and experiences across communities and eras.
Having earned her BA in Humanities from Florida State University and her MS in Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Lindsay is excited to bring her passion and experience to the Bainbridge History Museum. She is looking forward to working with community members and groups to highlight the island’s fascinating history and heritage.
Savannah Grey-Styre,
Museum Experience Coordinator
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Originally from Arizona, Savannah Grey-Styre (she/her) holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from Western Washington University and brings several years of management and customer service experience from her work as a regional manager in the coffee industry. She has a strong background in creating welcoming, engaging environments and values the connections that come from interacting with visitors and community members.
Savannah’s passion for travel, culture, and history fuels her excitement to be part of a team exploring the rich and diverse stories of Bainbridge Island and its ties to communities near and far. She’s eager to work alongside volunteers and members to support the Bainbridge History Museum community.
Jaycee Baumer,
Museum Services Coordinator
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Jaycee Baumer (she/her) is a native resident of the Kitsap Peninsula who has always been passionate about building community connection through the arts. Having earned her B.A. at Western Washington University, Jaycee has notable experience in public speaking, arts instruction, and event execution. Jaycee also spent several months in Rome at John Cabot University, where she studied art history and public art policy, complementing her degree in Communication Studies and adding a global perspective to her work.
Jaycee is a firm believer in the power of museums and art to connect communities, encourage reflection on power and representation, and broaden worldviews. As the Museum Services Coordinator, Jaycee is excited to work closely with the Museum’s dedicated volunteers and members. During her time at the Bainbridge History Museum, she is looking forward to building long-lasting, impactful relationships with the community members that it serves.
Madelon Morrow,
Collections Manager
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Madelon Morrow (she/her) is native to the Pacific Northwest having grown up and lived in Oregon until she moved to Washington in 2019. Madelon received her BA in Anthropology at Willamette University in 2017, and worked in Human Resources after graduating, but always had a passion for museums. Madelon received her MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 2023, which led her to working in the Bainbridge History Museum. At BHM, Madelon started as being in charge of the Museum's dedicated volunteers and gift shop, but she transitioned in 2024 to the Collections Manager. Madelon has always been passionate about the individual stories that objects can tell in a museum's context, and is excited to bring her passion for collections to the Bainbridge History Museum.
Our Board
Officers
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Treasurer
Dave and his wife, Nancy, have been Bainbridge Island residents since 1980. They have one daughter, Natalie, who resides in Spokane. Dave graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. in History and an MBA in Finance. He spent 30 years in the fiduciary and investment business, managing personal trust departments for Seattle’s largest banks. He has served as Chair of the Bainbridge Island Historic Preservation Commission, President of the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation, a member of Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum Board of Directors and President of both the Seattle Public Library Foundation and the Seattle Children’s Museum Board of Directors. Dave’s family has been in the Puget Sound region since the early 1860s which accounts, in part, for his love of local history.
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President
Michael is a Pacific Northwest native who grew up camping and learning about the natural and human histories of the West. This fed a lifelong interest in history and the outdoors.
Michael earned B.A.(History), and MBA degrees from the University of Washington. His professional career included several years in book publishing, followed by 26 years in the software/technology industry.
Michael relocated to Bainbridge Island (Fletcher Bay neighborhood) in 2021 with his wife Cathy. He appreciates learning and sharing the stories of the communities of Bainbridge Island and the Pacific Northwest.
He is a passionate skier and hiker, and also enjoys choral singing, wine-making, photography and travel.
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Mark comes to Bainbridge Island as a Washington native. He was born in Chewelah and as a child his family lived in Walla Walla, Wenatchee, and Chehalis. He graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work and has an MBA degree from the University of Washington. Mark spent his career in the travel industry, doing sales and marketing, for cruise lines and tour operators based in both Washington and Alaska. His focus has always been on Alaska. He started his travel career sharing Alaska’s history and beauty with visitors, as a tour guide/ motor coach driver while in college. Mark, his wife Nancy, and their three children moved to Bainbridge Island in 2003. Now retired, he has no trouble filling his time as a substitute school bus driver, golfer, racquetball player, world traveler, and gardener. He especially enjoys family gatherings with his children and son-in-law, all of whom have settled in the Seattle area. Mark feels deeply rewarded by contributing to the Bainbridge Island community in general, and the history museum specifically.
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Secretary
Bruce loves history and the lessons we can learn from it. Retired from a career in nonprofit management and institutional advancement, mostly in higher education, his professional interests/expertise include ethics, organizational structure, and strategy in philanthropy. Since 2015, he has lived near Fay Bainbridge Park with his wife Debra. He has relished their time in the Pacific Northwest since the early 1980’s. Debra is a third generation Washingtonian who grew up with her toes in the clear waters of the Puget Sound near Tulalip. They have two grown sons, a daughter in law, a grandson, and one exuberant German shorthaired pointer.
Board Members
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Prior to settling on Bainbridge Island, Kevin was somewhat of an “itinerant” journalist, working for newspapers and publications across California, Oregon, and the Midwest. In addition, he spent nearly 20 years in the chamber of commerce, tourism and economic development fields in Washington and Oregon, including more than a decade running the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce (2001-2011, and then as interim executive for most of 2020). Prior to that, he had a lengthy career as a writer and editor in Seattle, Sacramento, Chicago, and Milwaukee. He's the former editor of the Puget Sound Business Journal and founding editor of Washington CEO, a statewide business monthly that ceased publication in 2004. As a writer, he's contributed to the Seattle Times, the Kitsap Sun, West Sound Home & Garden, Alaska Airlines in-flight magazine, and others. Four years ago, he collaborated on a non-fiction book, "Meadowmeer: From Strawberry Fields to Fairways" which is available on Amazon and in local bookstores.
Kevin is currently the editor and publisher of The Island Wanderer, a local online media site that explores island businesses, community culture, interesting people, island history, nonprofits, parks and recreation and other "fabric of the community" subjects.
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Kevin is an Island kid from Port Madison. He attended Bainbridge High School, graduated from WSU and took up journalism, photography, and film. He even went on to travel Europe and work as a cameraman with Rick Steves in the 1990s.
A Seattle-based cameraman, he and his wife, Judy Kaplan, later created their first feature documentary, “Back to the Garden, flower power comes full circle” (2009) which opened at the Seattle International Film Festival and was televised on both local and national PBS stations. They continued in documentary films, and later produced and directed the mental health-themed documentary “CRAZYWISE” (2017).
Kevin is honored to be a part of the BHM board and team and is always drawn to our island’s diversity and storied history (especially the tall tales that he learned growing up of Bainbridge’s lumber mills and shipbuilders).
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Ralph Spillinger has 45 years experience planning, designing, constructing, operating and maintaining industrial facilities for the US Navy and NASA. Since retiring in 1997 as a Navy Captain and as NASA’s Senior Manager for Facility Design and Construction, Ralph settled on Bainbridge Island. He continues to consult on a broad range of facilities engineering management topics, most recently supporting construction of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Performing Arts, and Helpline House construction projects.
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Bio On The Way
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Susie has lived on Bainbridge Island since 1980, where she and her husband, Steve, raised their son, Beau. Beau and his wife, Sara, have two children who are the center of Susie’s universe!
For 40 years, Susie led regional, national, and international nonprofits in both arts and culture and health and human services. Now retired, she is active with the Bainbridge History Museum and the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island. She also serves on Bainbridge Community Foundation’s Community Impact Committee and on the Civil Service Commission for the City of Bainbridge Island.
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Vice-President
Jenny was born in Ohio and moved to Bainbridge Island at the age of nine. A graduate of Bainbridge Island High School and the University of Washington, she began her career in sales and marketing shortly after college. In 1992, she joined Seattle Plastics, becoming an owner in 1999 and managing the company with her business partner until her retirement in August 2025.
Throughout her career, Jenny volunteered with Union Gospel Mission and Mary’s Place and has long split her time between Seattle and Bainbridge Island. In retirement, she looks forward to dedicating more time to the Bainbridge History Museum, supporting a wide range of museum projects and initiatives. She is also actively involved in the restoration of a 110-year-old house.
Jenny has been married to her husband, Carl Lucks, since 1984.
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Born in the Netherlands, John emigrated with his family to Portland, Oregon, in 1957. He graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from California State University-Long Beach, and subsequently earned an MBS from Santa Clara University. He worked on Project Apollo, the U.S. moon landing program, and later for a Bay Area defense contractor as a system engineer. He subsequently founded an apartment management business with his wife, Nancy, which has operated since 1972. After residing in Palo Alto for 44 years, John and Nancy discovered Bainbridge Island in 2015. He has served many academic and community organizations and joined the Bainbridge History Museum board in 2018. He has two children and five grandchildren.
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Richard Jones-Bamman grew up in Sacramento, California and attended Stanford University (BA in musicology) and Dominican College (California Teaching Credential). After college, he taught and co-directed a preschool in Palo Alto before becoming a partner in a small business focused on the repair and restoration of stringed instruments. During those years, he also performed professionally, playing guitar and banjo and singing with several groups, including a swing band with which he toured and recorded three albums.
In 1987, he and his family moved to Seattle so he could attend graduate school at UW. Following completion of a PhD in ethnomusicology, he stayed on for an additional year, teaching as an adjunct professor in the music department, before taking a job at Microsoft, working in the audio acquisition department in Redmond.
In 1996, he accepted a full-time teaching position at a small publicly funded liberal arts university in Connecticut, and moved east where he remained for the next twenty-two years, broken up periodically by research projects that found him living and working in northern Sweden, primarily among Sámi (formerly Lapp) populations.
He and his wife, Leigh, moved to Bainbridge Island in 2018, having previously determined to return to the PNW after retiring. Among their first stops was the Bainbridge History Museum, where they became members and where they continue to provide annual support. Richard has been a volunteer at the museum since 2022. Starting in 2019, he was also a volunteer at the National Nordic Museum, working in the collections department until the museum’s closure during the pandemic eliminated the position he held.
He’s been a museum fan for as long as he can remember, having visited local, regional and national museums whenever and wherever he’s traveled, here in the US and abroad. As an educator, Richard is intrigued with the variety of stories these institutions seek to convey and the different approaches they adopt in this process. He is especially interested in how museums reach out to younger audiences, both through collaboration with schools and by creating kid-friendly spaces that make history a tangible experience. Those are precisely the factors that drew him into museums as a child and instilled a lifelong interest in history and culture.
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Ashley Riley (she/her) is a native of New York and moved to Washington in 2019. She has a MA in Social Policy, BA in Political Science, and previously worked for Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon. Now a stay-at-home mom, she enjoys spending her free time volunteering in the community, exploring cemeteries and preserving historic headstones. She is the founder of the Bainbridge Grave Folk page on Facebook, Historian of the Elizabeth Ellington Chapter - Daughters of the American Revolution, board member of the Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society, board member of Port Blakely Cemetery, board-appointed volunteer conservator of Kane Cemetery, and was awarded the 2025 History Hero award from the Bainbridge History Museum.