Dear Friends,
We began 2023 knowing that it would be a year of transition on the journey to a fully renovated downtown visitor experience in the Flagship Landing building. We strengthened our infrastructure, launched our new website, and began planning for facilities transitions at Fort Worden. Our dedicated volunteers, capable staff, board and AmeriCorps members, generous supporters, and our network of environmental leaders and practitioners made this year of progress possible.
The biggest story of 2023 was the installation of the beautifully articulated gray whale skeleton on Union Wharf in August. Thanks to the untiring volunteer efforts of Stephanie Worwag, Mario Rivera, Les Schnick, and Ric Brenden, this specimen became a thought-provoking and visually stunning public exhibit that is celebrated every day. Our deepest thanks to them for their commitment to bringing this gift to Port Townsend.
The Whale on the Wharf exhibit, along with other programming in the downtown building, is helping us achieve our strategic goal of increasing our reach. In fact, in 2023, we set a new record of serving over 37,000 people, 40% more than in any other year previously.
Downtown, the Flagship Gallery hosted several original installations including the walk-through exhibit Bull Kelp: Our Remarkable Underwater Forests, Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home, and the combination workspace/exhibit Fossil Lab. Additionally, visitors participated in unique programming such as Microscope Fridays, and an elephant seal articulation experience.
Connecting with the broader community was an ongoing theme in 2023. The popular JeffCo Repair events and Fix-it workshops, as well as area beach cleanups ramped up, illustrating the rising interest in environmental sustainability initiatives and opportunities led by PTMSC and our community partners.
Along with traveling exhibits, Wildlife Cruises, Low Tide Walks, Summer Camps, and the Future of Oceans lecture series, public programs grew to more than 6,729 participants from around the region.
A growing number of volunteers contributed to ongoing critical Citizen Science programs such as the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, SoundToxins, and Intertidal Monitoring. PTMSC added training for community volunteers to identify and report invasive European green crabs along local shorelines, and helped to coordinate a group of skilled volunteer divers who successfully relocated sealife for the Point Hudson Marina Jetty improvement project.
The Aquarium and Museum exhibits at Fort Worden welcomed and delighted curious visitors. Another giant Pacific octopus raised at PTMSC after the release of Sylvia, became a visitor and staff favorite. Kakantu, a fitting Klallam language name, is still thriving in the central tank as I write. Ongoing projects such as larval Dungeness crab monitoring and the satellite Pinto abalone nursery remained core to our conservation work and provided authentic science content for our education programs.
In anticipation of reduced teaching space due to our facility changes ahead, education staff began adapting curriculum for delivery at schools or nearby field sites. Hands-on labs, classes and field experiences for Pre-K to adult classes served over 1,380 students in 2023.
With the long term goal of moving the visitor experience downtown, and the short term challenge of transitioning operations off the pier, it was time to shift. Washington State Park's plan to remove the pier in the 2027-29 biennium may not be finalized, but we took a deep, collective breath and decided that 2024 would be the aquarium building's final season for public visitors, a difficult but necessary decision after a 42-year history on the iconic pier.
Now in mid-2024, we are excited about the opportunities presented by uniting our exhibits under one roof in the Museum (Building 502) on the shore across from the pier. Building 502 will become the main PTMSC location for visitors at Fort Worden, providing a stable home for ongoing programs over the next few years. Working with Washington State Parks, we are planning modest building modifications that will allow us to continue to share some of the aquarium's live animal experiences in a refreshed exhibit space. A first step toward this transition at the end of 2023 was purchasing a stand-alone recirculating tank which is now installed in the Museum and home to Wetzel, a sunflower star from Dr. Jason Hodin's research project at UW/Friday Harbor Labs.
PTMSC remains a place to find inspiration, to be inquisitive and to take part in solutions. At the end of the year, we updated our mission to reflect our commitment to offering meaningful ways to affect environmental change for a sustainable future: Empowering conservation for a thriving Salish Sea. Thank you for your place in our PTMSC community.
PTMSC Executive Director
Whale of an Ambassador
In the first month after its opening in August 2023, an estimated 12,000 people visited the new Whale on the Wharf exhibit on the Union Wharf dock in downtown Port Townsend. Witnessing the grace and beauty of this skeleton sparks curiosity and respect for marine life.
Expanded Reach
Our new downtown location and the Whale on the Wharf exhibit fueled an astounding surge in growth for our mission. As a result, we are proud to announce that PTMSC served 37,475 people in 2023–a 64% increase from 2022 and 40% more than in any other year.
A New Audience
With our prime downtown location, we attracted over 16,248 visitors to the Flagship Landing building through our rotating exhibits in the Gallery, “Microscope Fridays,” and the educational and marine-themed products featured in our store.
Inspiring the Next Generation
At Fort Worden State Park, area schools, and selected field locations, our dedicated team of educators continued to inspire young people through experiential learning programs. As a result of our efforts, 1,217 students became more science literate and will carry these critical skills forward into adulthood as they participate in our democratic society.
Making Memories
Our sought-after marine science summer camps offer hands-on experiences to youth that cannot be replicated anywhere else. In 2023, we served 164 campers ages 6-14 in 12 camps—many of these campers will return year after year; some will grow up to become marine scientists.
Science with a Purpose
One of the longest-running citizen science programs in the country, our projects allow local volunteers to make meaningful contributions to science. In 2023 our citizen science efforts ranged from monitoring for harmful phytoplankton to responding to stranded marine mammals.
Three Citizen Science Projects
In our sixth year of Intertidal Monitoring, our team counted 92 species, creating a baseline for understanding climate change impacts. After checking our light trap 131 times, our larval Dungeness crab monitors counted 1,836 megalopae, helping determine sustainable harvest levels. Our SoundToxins team spent 642 hours collecting, identifying and cataloging plankton across 4 testing sites, marking our 16th year of keeping people safe from paralytic shellfish poisoning.
Tidepools and What They Can Tell Us
Guided by skilled naturalists, 135 people experienced awe and amazement at the creatures they found in tidepools on our low tide walks. These people learned the tools to be better environmental stewards for marine organisms that live in the daily extremes of the local intertidal zone.
Lifelong Learning
692 lifelong learners were enriched by the world-class scholarship of 8 guest speakers in the Future of Oceans lecture series. Topics included sea otter conservation, Western Washington fossils, hybrid coastal beachgrass, gray whales, and river restoration.
Puffins and More
435 people participated in 12 wildlife cruises, counting 57 species during the season. Traveling to nearby Protection Island or Smith Island, where nearly 70 percent of the nesting seabird population of Puget Sound and the Straits nest, cruise goers learned about the threats faced by migrating birds and other wildlife, and what can be done to help.
Volunteers, We Love You!
We rely on our volunteers to help us carry out our mission to empower conservation for a thriving Salish Sea. We simply cannot do our work without them! Our volunteers pitched in through beach cleanups, docenting, greeting, auction help, citizen science, and so much more. 348 volunteers served a total 9,100 hours, representing $303,759 of in-kind donations. Among the notable contributions made by our intrepid volunteers, 19 of our volunteers gave 2,231 hours to engineer, articulate, install, interpret, and maintain the Whale on the Wharf exhibit.
2023 Financial Information
2023 PTMSC Staff
Diane Quinn, Executive Director
Liesl Slabaugh, Development & Marketing Director
Betsy Carlson, Citizen Science Coordinator
Debra Diner, Administrative Specialist
Brian Kay, Marketing & Development Coordinator
Alexandra Redman, Aquarium Curator
Gabriele Sanchez, Registrar & Communications Manager
Carolyn Woods, Education Manager
Tracy Thompson, Volunteer Coordinator
Mandi Johnson, Outreach Coordinator
Emilee Carpenter, Aquarium Specialist
Elizabeth Lyon, Store Manager
Brian Simmons, Facilities Maintenance Coordinator
Mia Steiner, Flagship Store Cashier
Beckett Jones, Summer Camp Assistant
PTMSC AmeriCorps Members
2022-2023
Hadley Beahan, Marine Stewardship Educator
Lydia Plescher, Marine Stewardship Educator
2023-2024
Gabriel Meyer, Marine Stewardship Educator
Lydia Plescher, Marine Stewardship Educator