IN BASKET: Washines named board president of Columbia Riverkeeper organization

Environment

Emily Washines, a Yakama Nation tribal member, has been named president of the Columbia Riverkeeper board of directors, the environmental organization recently announced. Washines, a Columbia Riverkeeper board member since 2018, is the founder and CEO of Native Friends, a Native lifestyle empowerment business focused on language, history, and culture. Formerly a public relations professional with Yakama Nation Fisheries, Washines is a graduate and a former trustee of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, and earned an MPA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia. She lives in Toppenish with her husband, Jon, and three children.

Housing

Marty Miller recently was elected president of the Rural Community Assistance Corporation’s board of directors. Miller, a member of the RCAC board since 2012, is executive director of the Yakima-based Office of Rural and Farmworker Housing, a nonprofit housing developer serving rural Washington. He has more than 25 years of affordable housing development experience. He has a bachelor’s degree from Whitworth University in Spokane and a master’s degree in economic development from Eastern University in Pennsylvania. RCAC seeks to collaboratively build the capacity of organizations that serve low-income people living in the rural West.

Health care

• Kittitas County resident Rhonda Holden, RN, BSN, MSN, was one of 17 individuals throughout the country recently selected to join the Ground Ambulance and Patient Billing Advisory Committee. The new federal committee was created in 2021 to improve the disclosure of charges and fees for ground ambulance services and to better inform consumers of insurance options for such services and protect consumers from balance billing. Holden is a Roslyn resident and registered nurse who serves as the chief ancillary officer at Kittitas Valley Healthcare and is the director of strategic initiatives for Kittitas County Public Hospital District 2, which operates Medic One, the only advanced life support ambulance service in Upper Kittitas County.

• Jennifer Gribble, a certified physician assistant, has joined the staff at the Yakima Farm Workers Clinic’s medical-dental clinic. Gribble, whose clinical interests include cardiology and pediatrics, earned her master of science in physician assistant degree from Bethel University in Arden Hills, Minn.

• Dr. James Wallace has joined Prosser Memorial Health as a full-time emergency physician. Wallace has been working in emergency medicine for 30 years and is certified in advanced cardiac, advanced trauma and pediatric advanced life support, and has a certification from the American Board of Family Medicine. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Oklahoma and MD from the University Texas Southwestern, then completed an internship and residency with the University of Washington in Seattle and went on to build his professional career in Port Angeles.

Interior design

Tanna Edler, an interior designer and owner of Yakima-based Tanna by Design, recently received the "Praiseworthy Pick" recognition from the National Kitchen and Bath Association for the 2022 Person of the Year award in their publication, Kitchen and Bath Business. Edler represented Washington state as one of the magazine's eight "Praiseworthy Picks." Specializing in residential and commercial, new construction and remodeling projects, Edler began her career in 2011 after graduating from Washington State University and spending more than a decade in corporate human resources as a trainer and coach, working with companies such as Microsoft and Amazon.