Friends of Port Townsend Golf Park
Board of Directors
Bob Wheeler, President
In 1990, Bob came to PT as the City’s Public Works Director, where among many responsibilities he oversaw the Golf Course Lease. After leaving the City, Bob served as the President of Triangle Associates where he oversaw staff and worked on a variety of public facilitation processes for many diverse capital projects for local, state, and federal governments. He has also served as the Founder and President of the local nonprofit Olympic Neighbors group. Bob is an active golfer at Discovery Bay golf course and plays other courses when traveling and believes that gives him insight into what is important from a golf user’s perspective.
Chuck Gauger, Treasurer
Chuck is a retired Attorney and CPA who owned and operated his practice for 38+ years. He had clients that operated 4 golf courses (including Gearhart) over his career. Chuck was Treasurer and Board Member of one of Oregon’s first educational foundations to support public schools for 12 years and has also served as Treasurer and Board Member for the Oregon Symphonic Band for 15 years. He enjoys the dual practice of accounting, taxation, and law and likes to play around with spreadsheets, calculations, and business planning. Chuck learned to play golf on one of Iowa’s 254 public nine-hole public golf courses and has a house near the Port Townsend golf course.
David Peterson, Secretary
Dave is a civil engineer and project manager, recently retired from 23 years as City Engineer for Port Townsend. In his career he completed over 40 public works projects with the City including transportation, utility, environmental improvement, streetscape and historic building renovation projects. His work included implementing non-motorized plan projects and volunteer trail building throughout the city. Dave brings his project management skills to the board and provides expertise in master planning, contracting, public bidding, and coordination with the City, as well as working with diverse interest groups and integrating local expertise into project implementation. Dave learned to play golf as a young kid from his grandfather on a 9-hole course in Iowa. Since retiring, Dave has taken up playing golf again.
Tim Caldwell
Born and raised in Port Townsend, Tim returned to Port Townsend in 1992 and served for 17 years as the executive director of the Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce. He served in community outreach and customer service positions with Puget Sound Energy and Fort Worden State Park Public Development Authority (PDA). After retiring in 2020, Tim spent the Covid pandemic years working on research projects for the Jefferson County Historical Society. Currently Tim is a member of the JCHS board of trustees and a member of Jefferson Transit’s citizens’ Transit Advisory Group. Tim is an active member and volunteer of the Port Townsend Golf Club and served as a golf liaison/stakeholder member during the City public process.
Bruce Bode
Bruce Bode, raised in Lynden, WA, retired as the senior minister of the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in 2018, after serving the congregation for fourteen years. Before coming to Port Townsend, he served congregations in Grand Rapids, MI, Tulsa, OK, and Houston, TX. During his years in Port Townsend, he has maintained a yearly membership at the golf course, been an integral part of a group of weekly golfers, and, in the past three years, assisted in providing summer golf lessons to youngsters ages 9-12. His interest in being on the Board of Directors for the PT Golf Park is to help guide a process that will both preserve the present golf course and its green space and make it more accessible to the larger community.
Robert Horner
Born and raised in Leicester City, UK, Robert developed a love for golf at a young age. He moved to Illinois from England with his family at age 7 and continued to play golf & soccer throughout his youth and into adulthood. Robert is a trained architect and professional public artist that has completed projects across the Pacific Northwest for almost 20 years. Robert moved to Port Townsend in 2010, where he is the co-owner and brewer at Propolis Brewing located in Port Townsend. In addition to operating Propolis Brewing, Robert is the owner of Pi R Squared, a local design/build business. Robert has a love for community planning, art, design and building. He is a member at the Port Townsend Golf Course, and his involvement in the board is to provide design & planning support to the course, as well as to ensure a sustainable future for the golfing and non-golfing community of Port Townsend.
Linda Sulllivan
Linda is a retired landscape planner and project manager with degrees in Journalism and Landscape Architecture. Her connection to Port Townsend began while working for Washington State Parks as lead planner for relocation of trails and parking near Battery Kinzie at Fort Worden. She later managed a multi-year project to restore 20 acres of Puget Sound shoreline with trails and native plants as part of expansion of Seattle’s largest wastewater treatment facility. Other professional work included project management of new exhibits at Woodland Park Zoo, and supervision of project managers and engineers in siting and design of wastewater facilities in residential Seattle neighborhoods. Linda started playing golf at age 50. She lives in Port Townsend in the house she and her husband began building more than 20 years ago.
Mark Welch
Mark is a retired teacher, mediocre golfer and fourth generation Port Townsend resident. He is the great grandson of Charles Eisenbeis, Port Townsend’s first mayor and grandson of George Welch, the founder and first president of the Port Townsend Golf Club. Prior to his teaching career Mark worked as a photographer/videographer, owned and operated multiple businesses including Video Mart and Grayland/Welch Productions, producing instructional and informational videos for corporate and institutional clients. He is a co-author of City of Dreams: A Guide to Port Townsend, and has had articles appear in Washington Magazine, The Seattle Times and other publications. He has served on the Port Townsend Parks Board, JCHS Board, Planning Commission, PEG Board and three terms on the Port Townsend city council, including a term as mayor.