Photo Credit: Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, Mills River, NC
Meet Our Team
Members
Holly Blue Hawkins - Advisor
A Founding Member. Holly Blue’s interest in dying began in the 1980s when she was an Environmental Educator Puppeteer. Fast forward, now an International Natural Deathcare advocate and educator, Holly Blue co-teaches the Green Burial Masterclass, presents at death conferences, and serves on the Gamliel Institute faculty. As a local cemeterian in the Santa Cruz area, Holly Blue is honored to serve as the head of the local Chevra Kadisha/Jewish Burial Society. Natural Burial which includes honoring the body of the deceased simultaneously with the earth in loving, respectful, and restorative ways is where Holly Blue loves to invest herself.
Hilarie Hauptman
A Founding Member. Nature is Hilarie’s soul medicine. After she dies, Hilarie looks forward to her body’s transformation into compost to be laid in a conservation burial ground. She is passionate about working with the Trillium Natural Burial team to enable such a vision. With decades of connecting people to resources and initiating programs in the intergenerational and caregiving/aging fields, Hilarie is thrilled to put her energy towards creating a more purposeful death for herself and for others who may want that too.
Kairaya Jones-Walsh
As a born-and-raised Olympian, Kai has a deep love and appreciation for the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, especially the wet and windy Salish Sea. When their life eventually ends, they would love nothing more than for their body to nourish the environment they love as a way to give back to the place they call home. Kai is happy to lend their perspective and experience as a gender-non-conforming person to help ensure the services offered by Trillium are as inclusive and welcoming as possible to people of all orientations and identities. While they work full time in accounting for the Washington Federation of State Employees (a local labor union), they dedicate their spare time and expertise toward the goal of making Trillium Natural Burial a reality for all those who wish for their bodies to be returned to nature in the soil of the South Salish Sea.
Kairaya Jones-Walsh (and feline friend Baby)
Karen Lohmann
Fostering the conservation of wild places for natural burial in perpetuity, is Karen’s passion for this life. As a grandmother and lover of the earth’s deep wisdom she has worked in the fields of energy healing and end of life presence for many years. Nature has been her greatest teacher; from painting to flower arranging, landscape design and construction, to Flower Essence and Healing Touch practitioner. Karen is an ordained chaplain working for a local Hospice. She also facilitates home funeral vigils, ritual, and ceremony, practicing deep listening, cultivating joy and compassion.
Gene Maltzeff
Over 50 years, Gene has had many amazing experiences as an Alaska commercial fisherman.He has been immersed, energized and schooled by salmon!Gene created multiple companies related to fishing and fish products and built commercial fishing boats. These remarkable fish have taught him valuable lessons! Gene is very excited about the future of Trillium Natural Burial. To Gene, it seems humans only take from this beautiful planet. It is deeply meaningful to him to provide his body as soil for a new beginning, and contribute to making that an option for others.
Laura Schleyer
Laura’s biologist mother welcomed her to this world and taught her about its wonderful life forms, and the planet that sustains us all. She took this lucky beginning to heart and her life’s calling became ameliorating the relationship between people and the environment. After environmental studies in college, Laura helped homeowners conserve energy, farmers prevent water pollution, and businesses use safer products. Now, realizing a long held dream, She is part of a vibrant, dedicated group to bring Trillium Natural Burial ground into being—for ourselves and others.
Leeann Tourtillott
Leeann is a lifelong conservation advocate, author and teacher. Her MA Ed is in Environmental Education and she is certified as an Advanced Care Planning Facilitator. She worked with Hospice for 13 years, and is currently working to complete the Master Class for green burial with Conservation Burial Alliance. Leeann has also coordinated and managed home funerals. Working on making conservation burial available, in southwest Washington state, is inspired by her deep love for the planet. When not volunteering, Leeann fills her days working her farm and delighting in the awe she experiences outdoors.
Founding Members
Evan Ferber
After working in community mediation for many years, Evan, as a 75 year old retiree, found out about natural burial. What a revelation; that his body could be lovingly laid to rest in the earth without cement or plastic vaults or liners, as generations of Jewish ancestors had before him, to be gently reabsorbed from where it had come. Evan helped found what is now Trillium Natural Burial and continues to support establishing our regional conservation burial ground in perpetuity.
Angie Ward
Angie was raised on a farm in Thurston County, and the sensibilities she developed there color every step of her life. She learned to welcome thoughts of death and dying each day as an opportunity to live more deeply. In the last decade, she has said yes to many opportunities to serve in this space. These include hospice volunteering, death doula training, and service on both the National Home Funeral Alliance and the Washington State Funeral and Cemetery Boards. She holds very dear the part she played in the beginning stages of Trillium Natural Burial and looks forward to when people can feed this native land as their bodies truly return to the earth.