Team Resource Media just got a little bigger!

May 30, 2020

Resource Media is excited to welcome three new faces to our team. Read on to get to know our newest board and staff members: 

Elizabeth Lunney Headshot

Elizabeth Lunney

Elizabeth Lunney (she/her/hers) is Resource Media’s newest board member, and lives in Seattle.

Tell us about your background, and what skills and expertise are you excited to bring to Resource Media’s board.

I’ve spent most of my life helping environmental groups to build stronger organizations, working on board leadership, fundraising capacity, financial management and program development. I love trees and wilderness and clean water and all the pretty birds and fish in the sea, but what really gets me out of bed in the morning is the power of community. I’m happiest when I see organizations being creative and inclusive in defining the role of community in their work. Resource Media is leading the field here; I’m so impressed. All those pretty birds and the fish in the sea, they depend on a society that understands right sharing of resources. I wish we were there already; but we’re not, and we don’t have time to waste. If we want a just and equitable world where birds and fish and humans can thrive, our nonprofit communities will need to be adaptive, resilient, and centered in social justice. And of course, they will absolutely need strong communications strategies, too. 

What is one hobby that you have pursued over the years that gives a little window into your life outside of Resource Media?

I grew up car camping with my family. My parents had an Icelandic canvas tent with forty guy lines. That thing was designed for wind and torrential rain on a volcanic plain. If there’s one thing the Icelandic are good at (besides writing dark, winter-long sagas), it’s serious weather. My dad was a Navy cryptologist, and when he was stationed at Keflavik, we’d load up our Volkswagen Beetle and trek through the Fjallabak for no other reason than it was a place without roads or any other signs of civilization. Years later, living in London, we spent summer vacations touring Scandinavia and Europe, camping in some farmer’s field for $2 or $3 a night.

In college, I discovered tent technology had improved significantly since the early 70s and carrying a tent on one’s back had become a reasonable thing to do. So, I let my passport expire and spent my summers backpacking America’s best long-distance trails. Once I had kids, I started car camping again, often with my mom, who was living part-time out of a converted van. Together, we traveled to spots my backpacking trips had missed: Yellowstone, Glacier, the Canyonlands, the Redwoods. My kids and I are now the happy caretakers of my mom’s new solar-powered tear-drop trailer, and we look forward to more adventures as soon as we can leave Seattle without potentially serving as vectors. In the meantime, we’ve been camping in the back yard and having a great time. 

Okay, you knew this was coming…do you have a new hobby you have taken up since the pandemic started?

I haven’t taken up any new hobbies since the pandemic started. I have plenty of sewing and house painting projects that have been sitting around untouched for years — and I’m still ignoring them. Instead, I’ve been trying to learn to let go and make space for the hard work of adapting to the world as it unfolds and behaves in unpredictable ways. There’s so much we don’t know; so much we don’t understand. Even on a personal level. It takes time to really stop and understand how someone else is doing these days. Everyone is responding in different ways, and it can show up differently in the same person from one day to the next. For better or for worse in my life, I’ve leaned on expectations to move through life faster and more efficiently. Few things are meeting my expectations now. So, I am setting aside a lot of time for the slow and unpredictable process of learning to understand. 

Jenn Cho

Jennifer Cho headshot

Jenn Cho (they/them/theirs and she/her/hers) is Resource Media’s first-ever development database manager and works out of our Seattle office, or rather, they will work out of that office once stay-at-home orders are lifted!

Tell us about your background, and what skills and expertise are you excited to bring to Resource Media.

My background is in nonprofit development, product management, and marketing. I earned an AB from Princeton University in East Asian Studies and a MA from the University of Southern California in Cinema & Media Studies. One of my favorite experiences was founding an intersectional feminist creative community at USC to tackle the unequal representation of artists who identify as womxn and leveling the field by providing more equitable access to funding and resources. Prior to Resource Media, I worked in the Development department at Pacific Northwest Ballet where I was part of the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee and the Seattle Center Racial Equity Cohort.

What is one hobby that you have pursued over the years that gives a little window into your life outside of Resource Media?

The hobby that’s taken up most of my free time over the last couple years is bouldering. I actually started climbing because I was scared of heights! While I can’t say I’ve gotten over my fear, bouldering has been a really rewarding hobby. The routes that you climb are called “problems” because they’re little puzzles that you have to find the solution to. The fun thing about those solutions is that they are different for everyone! Everyone’s climbing style and strengths are different, so you are really just competing against yourself to get to the top. Plus bouldering really teaches you humility and persistence: when you’re climbing at your limit on a problem you will spend most of your time falling off but you keep working at it and it makes sending it all that more rewarding.

Okay, you knew this was coming…do you have a new hobby you have taken up since the pandemic started?

I am actively trying to get better at the ukulele rather than strumming the same three chords and recently purchased an Omnichord — a kind of electronic autoharp from the 80s. When I’m not trying to fulfill my secret dream of becoming a pop star I’m trying to teach myself German through a combination of grammar books and nonstop listening to the German Wicked and Frozen soundtracks.

Kareli Wenrich

Kareli Wenrich Headshot

Kareli Wenrich (she/her/hers) is Resource Media’s new business and accounting manager and works from York, Pennsylvania.

Tell us about your background, and what skills and expertise are you excited to bring to Resource Media.

My background is in business management. I have over ten years of experience in the corporate world where I have been able to learn and experience the ins and outs of many different industries. I am really excited to bring my organizational skills and resourcefulness with the goal of becoming Resource Media’s organizational guru. With most of my experience in the construction industry, I know how to work with multiple stakeholders, ever changing environments and the need for accuracy and efficiency.

What is one hobby that you have pursued over the years that gives a little window into your life outside of Resource Media?

I am a recreational runner. I started running in college when I decided to train for a marathon out of the blue. Ever since, it has become a way for me to explore and decompress. I prefer trail running and enjoying discovering new trails. Some of my favorite runs have been in the Appalachian Mountains, the Pennsylvania cornfields, Napa Valley in California and alongside volcanic rocks in Hawaii. To me running has never been about speed or competition, it is a way to challenge myself to do something that at first seems impossible but attainable once you put in the work.

Okay, you knew this was coming…do you have a new hobby you have taken up since the pandemic started?

I have started practicing hand lettering. A few years ago, I took a calligraphy class but never really did anything with it. With so many things going on lately, I found breaking out some pretty colors and writing inspirational or silly phrases in pretty letters to be extremely satisfying.