Board of Directors
President Bob Rose
Bob Rose first became familiar with Zen teachings through the poetry of Gary Snyder. Inspired, he moved from Boston in 1970 and settled in northwest Washington, working as a carpenter and shipwright. Advocacy work to protect Heart Lake on Fidalgo Island led to a long career conserving the state’s forest and farmlands. He served as special assistant to the Washington Commissioner of Public Lands (1981-1993) and as Executive Director of Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland (1995-2006). Bob now works with Taylor Guitars to ensure a sustainable source of koa wood from Hawaii.
Following a 2010 visit to the San Francisco Zen Center, he began practice with Red Cedar Zen, formally taking the precepts with Nomon Tim Burnett in 2014. In 2016 he joined Mountain Rain sangha for a pilgrimage to Japan and has participated in numerous sesshins at Loon Lake and Red Cedar Zen with Zoketsu Norman Fischer. Bob served as Red Cedar’s tenzo for the past 5 years and was shuso for the 2021 winter practice period, leading the sangha in an investigation of Shi Tou’s Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage.
Contact: BoardPresident@RedCedarZen.org
Vice President Mary Durbrow
My path to Buddhism began with religious studies in undergraduate days at the University of Vermont. 
My studies continued through on-line classes from Harvard Divinity School, Great Courses, and other institutions. Living in rural Alaska for 30 years never afforded a Buddhist community with whom to practice, although I had developed a daily meditation practice through Transcendental Meditation when I was 20. I was so happy to discover Red Cedar Zen Community when I moved to Bellingham! The wonderful teachers and sangha have nurtured my practice and understanding . I received precepts in 2024 from Kanho Chris Burkhart with whom I continue to explore the teachings.
Our move to Bellingham in 2005 offered an opportunity to build a non profit from the ground up. It was a steep learning curve and I am happy to say that our non profit, the Community Boating Center in Fairhaven (est. 2007) has become a thriving, vibrant community hub where people can find a place on Bellingham Bay in human and wind powered watercraft without barriers. Having 10 years of experience in non-profit management led to my service on the RCZC Board of Directors. I recommend everyone take a turn on the Board - it is gratifying, interesting, and all are welcome regardless of experience.
Professionally, I worked for 30 years in Alaska Native Health programs as a nurse, physician assistant, and faculty at the University of Alaska. Most of my years were in Western Alaska serving Yupik Eskimo people as a health provider and teacher. The most important takeaway from that time is that indigenous knowledge is as powerful a "way of knowing" as is scientific method. The Yupik worldview promotes, and the Yupik people model, living in an interconnected and interdependent way with all beings (human, animate and inanimate). I am grateful for all my teachers everywhere!!
Interim-Treasurer and Member John Wiley
Member John Wiley is temporarily serving as Treasurer
John Wiley began practicing Zen in 1995 with the Bellingham Zen Practice Group which was later named Red Cedar Zen Community. He has maintained a regular practice at home, attending sesshins, and filling various roles in the sangha. He received the precepts from Zoketsu Norman Fischer in 1998, was shusho in 2006 and received lay entrustment from Norman in 2010.
John’s career was in psychotherapy, first working at Bellingham’s Community Mental Health Center for 12 years, then in private practice for 27 years. He retired in 2013.
Contact: Treasurer@RedCedarZen.org
Secretary IkuShun Desiree Webster
IkuShun Desiree Webster has been a Zen practitioner since 1987. She practiced for many years in the Plum Village traditionwith the Thich Nhat Hanh community and at a spiritual community here in WA (Mountain Lamp) which combined practice Plum Village style with the Zen style of Robert Aitken Roshi. She served on the board there for 2 years. She moved into our Soto Zen Lineage around 2015, took Jukai in 2017 and was Shuso (head student) for our Winter Practice period in 2023. Her formal teacher is Ryushin Andrea Thach, who has since returned to the Berkeley Zen Center.
Professionally, Desiree was a Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator, now retired. She worked at Boulder County Public Health for many years in CO, then worked for Sea Mar Community Health Center and at Peace Health where she and her colleagues ran the Nutrition and Diabetes Clinic there.
Member Mari Ritalahti
Bio coming soon
Member David Ketter
Dai Jiyu David Ketter moved to Bellingham in 2019 and began practicing zen in early 2021 with Diane Musho Roshi Hamilton of Two Arrows Zen in Salt Lake City. Wishing to have an in-person sangha to practice with, he began practicing with Red Cedar Zen later that year. Previous to practicing zen, David practiced Vipassana meditation for 12 years. During this time he attended numerous 10-day meditation retreats, practiced at a dharma study center in Thailand for a month and led two study abroad programs there focused on Engaged Buddhism. He has also attended multiple sesshins with both Two Arrows Zen and with Red Cedar Zen, and he received the precepts from Diane Hamilton in 2023.
Professionally, David worked in education, mostly teaching middle and high school science, but he also worked as an administrator of a professional development program for teachers and began his career in education as a work site supervisor and education program coordinator for an urban conservation corps in Oakland, CA. His passion throughout his entire career has been to connect students to nature in a way that transformed the way they thought about, perceived and related to their environment. At the center of this work was helping students perceive the interconnectedness of all things. Most recently, David served as a climate change education consultant for Washington State.
Member Barbara Noda
Barbara Noda's first introduction to Zen Buddhism was at Tassajara Hot Springs in Carmel Valley during the70’s. She backpacked in from Arroyo Seco, was greeted by a monk named Tony who showed her where to get tea, buy bread, and put down her sleeping bag. Since those days, she has returned many, many times to Tassajara as a guest or to attend workshops.
For a time during the 80’s, Barbara lived at the house of Mayumi Oda in Muir Beach near San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm. Mayumi Oda is an intensely devoted Zen Buddhist and renowned artist of Goddesses and paintings that embrace her spiritual path. Barbara helped Mayumi prepare the revision to her book Goddesses in 1988. She also assisted Mayumi in organizing and leading retreats for women and Asian women at her house in Muir Beach. Musim Patricia Ikeda, a Buddhist teacher and community activist, also lived with Barbara at Mayumi’s house. More recently, Barbara was part of a small sangha in Walnut Creek and also a member of the San Francisco Zen Center sangha.
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Member Scott Allen 
Way seeking mind: My Zen journey started during a 29 year career in the U.S. Air Force. In my travels I spent time in Japan, Korea and Thailand. It amazed me especially in Thailand that the people were so friendly and happy even though they didn’t have much in the way of material things. So I did what a lot of us do before formally committing to Zen, I read many books in different traditions not knowing which ones would be right for me.
In 2003 I retired from the military and started a civilian career in St. Louis. I was looking at the weekend edition of our local newspaper and it said there was going to be a large sitting to be held that weekend for all the Buddhist groups in the St. Louis area. It was called Change Your Mind Day to be held that weekend. That Saturday a few hundred people showed up at the Chain of Rocks Bridge overlooking the Mississippi River. Meditation cushions, blankets and padding were set up across the bridge which was the original route 66 bridge across the Mississippi and was pedestrian only. And after a Dharma talk we sat for an hour. I was hooked.
The next weekend I started practicing formally with the Missouri Zen Center which as it turned out was a Soto Zen Sangha, Rosan Yoshita Abbott. I practiced there until 2006 at which time I became interested in volunteer work in prisons with Rev. Kalen McAllister. We had a sitting group called Inside Dharma that sat weekly but I also had a commitment with her to lead a meditation group at South – Central Correctional Center in Licking Missouri which I led twice a month until 2007.
At Kalen’s urging I started practicing at Ryumonji Zen Monastery in Decorah Iowa from 2007 until I retired from Civil Service in 2014. I received Jukai from Abbott Shoken Weincoff in 2008 and participated in weekend sittings and Rohatsus until my retirement.
In 2014 my wife and I retired in Bellingham and I started practicing at Red Cedar Zen Community. After leading numerous introduction talks to newcomers weekly was selected to be Shuso for the 2019 Winter Practice Period.
I am currently in the Leaders Group and recently accepted a position on the Board.
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Member Terrill Thompson
Terrill Thompson began practicing zen in 1988 at Kansas Zen Center in Lawrence (Kwan Um School of Zen, under Zen Master Seung Sahn). In the late 1990s his practice transitioned to the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi, first at the Chapel Hill Zen Center in North Carolina, then at Red Cedar Zen Community (RCZC) when he and his family moved to Bellingham in 2001. Over his 20+ years in Bellingham he has maintained a steady practice and has been especially active in RCZC's Wilderness Program. He took the precepts with Zoketsu Norman Fischer and Nomon Tim Burnett in 2010.
Professionally, Terrill has worked since the early 1990s in the technology accessibility field, dedicated to improving the accessibility of websites, videos, software, hardware, and other technologies for individuals with disabilities. Since 2001 he has conducted this work while employed at the University of Washington. He has been active in multiple professional organizations, including EDUCAUSE (a nonprofit association focused on information technology in higher education), where he founded the IT Accessibility Community Group in 2007 and served as its leader through 2012; and Access Technology Higher Education Network (ATHEN), a nonprofit association that he co-founded in 2002 and served as vice president from 2007 through 2010.