Chair, Member since 2019

Programming Committee

Paul brings 23 years of not-for-profit management and international program development experience as the Director of Global Strategy of Unbound to the Port Townsend School of Woodworking (PTSW) board.

Unbound is an education and livelihood empowerment program operating in 19 countries. As Unbound grew in size and outreach, Paul traveled extensively, and worked domestically and internationally with board governance, human resources, organizational change management, and leadership support and coaching.

Before Unbound, he designed and installed software for the medical field for 14 years with an entrepreneurial company called Cerner Corporation. At Cerner, Paul led software development teams and spent much of his career on client sites.

Paul’s formal training is in chemistry, computer science, and business administration.

Paul has had a lifelong passion for architecture, craftsmanship, and sailing craft. He has restored family residences and was drawn to pursue his appreciation of woodworking as he restored windows, cabinets, and woodwork and saw the intelligence and care the maker put into the piece. He attended the Foundations of Woodworking course at PTSW in the spring of 2019 and is on the journey of building his own craft skills. In the summer of 2019, he participated in boat building workshops, constructing a traditional Viking fearing and a traditional Japanese river boat in Port Townsend. He continues to take additional coursework at the PTSW school. His plans are to work in the woodwork or boat trade. He is currently fixing up a small cabin on Samish Island and commutes regularly to Port Townsend.

“I appreciate greatly the spirit and depth that PTSW and other woodworking projects reach with students and instructors alike. I believe in craft, social justice, and lifelong learning. I really look forward to supporting PTSW’s vision and development as a student and board member.”

Member since 2022

Programming Committee
Equity & Inclusion Committee

Kirsten grew up in Washington State and has spent most of her life exploring the mountains and sea of the Pacific Northwest.

During her studies at Western Washington University, she purchased a wooden 32’ William Atkin sailboat to live aboard, and spent years sailing throughout the Puget Sound, the San Juans and Gulf Islands, as well as distant oceans.

Her interest in whittling wood from a young age, and working in a wood shop building yurts developed into a keen desire to take carving courses at PTSW. With her mother hailing from Haines, AK, Kirsten was introduced to the Tlingit art and culture at a young age and fell in love with it. It’s become her passion to bring local Indigenous carvers as well as Northwest Coast Formline artists to the school.

She is working with the Programs Committee and the Equity & Inclusion Committee to acknowledge the land we work and live on here in Port Townsend. This means honoring, celebrating, and educating the tradition, culture, spirit, and art of our local and distant tribes from their own voices.

Member since 2022

Born into the exciting world of exotic hardwoods, Buster Ferris is a Port Townsend native with a lifetime of splinters to prove it. He is the second generation owner and operator of Edensaw Woods, where he returned in 2014 after six years cooking in fine dining in New York and Chicago.

Buster is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and carries his gusto for food with him, despite having traded the culinary world for that of lumber.

From root to treetop, raw slab to finished tabletop, Buster knows his way around wood. The Port Townsend School of Woodworking is the first board of directors on which Buster has sat, and he's proud to do so. He's eager to share both his knowledge of business and lumber with his esteemed fellow Directors and to represent this fine school to the greater woodworking community.