2024 was a year of movement and evolution here at NAMA. In particular, we had some key hellos and goodbyes.
We started the year by welcoming three new members to our team: Andrianna Natsoulas, James Mitchell, and Casey Willson, who had been collectively leading the Don’t Cage Our Oceans (DCO2) coalition. As a founding member of DCO2, we had been working with this threesome for some time and were excited to have them join our team as we fully adopted DCO2 as a project.
We also said hello to four new board members who have brought abundant light, wisdom, and spirit to our organization: Melanie Brown, Emily Farr, Justin Solet, and Shley Suarez Burgos.
We said goodbye to Jen Halstead who joined us in the early days of COVID lockdown times. Luckily, she continues to grace this work through her involvement in the One Fish Foundation and Slow Fish North America.
We said hello to Hamida Kinge who joined us mid-year as our Content Strategist. We first met her in 2019, but it took us a few years to wake up and realize we were destined to work with Hamida! She’s been an amazing addition to our communications team and keeps us on our toes by planning our weekly online game group.
While we are on communications, I’m sorry to be saying goodbye to Casey Willson who is leaving us at the end of January. But she’s not swimming too far away from this work — Casey has received a Knauss Fellowship through the National Sea Grant Office and will be spending a year working on the Climate and Fisheries Adaptation Program with NOAA OAR. Congratulations, Casey! Although you will definitely be missed, I’m personally looking forward to having a chance at winning a weekly game without you taking every round 🙂
We also said hello to Lateefah Morse who joined us as a Development Coordinator. Lateefah’s diverse skills — from policy analysis to community development to cultivating donor relationships — combined with her creative side (she has a ceramics practice), adds a cornucopia of wisdom and experience to our development team.
In November, we welcomed Pedro Altagracia as our new Program Director. We were introduced to Pedro by one of our board members, Emily Farr. Pedro put up with a unique interview process consisting of not one or two interviews by committee, but seven one-on-one conversations with individual staff, board members, and a trusted consultant. Each of us felt we could “see” him at NAMA and wanted to bring his wisdom and experience into the organization. His first day on the job was joining us at the Slow Fish gathering in Charleston, SC where he jumped in with both feet!
And that leaves me with a big goodbye… after fifteen years of working together, saying goodbye to Brett Tolley was not an easy task. Brett joined NAMA in 2009 at a critical time. It was a bit over a year after I had stepped into my role and had begun rebuilding the organization almost from the ground up after a period of transition. The years between 2009 and 2012 were hard ones. We had embarked on a journey to break our work out of the typical marine conservation box and catapult ourselves into the intersection of social, economic, environmental, and food justice. This was not an easy undertaking and there were lean years when it would have been easy to just give up and do something else. Brett’s commitment to the work didn’t falter and I am beyond grateful to have had him as a brother in arms — nonviolently, of course! To say the trajectory of the organization and our work would not have been possible without him would be an understatement. And I am so glad to know that he’ll continue to nurture this work in his role as the general manager of the Chatham Harvester’s Cooperative, a business that is practicing the very values we’ve been talking about as an organization for years. Fair winds, Brett! Although we won’t be working together, I’m looking forward to having a martini with you as I kick your butt in backgammon!
More hellos to come soon, so stay tuned.
Below, check out some of the things our amazing team got up to in 2024. Wishing you all much peace and good health in 2025. And I hope to get to say hello to many of you in person as we make our way through this year.
With gratitude,
Niaz Dorry
Coordinating Director