Our Board
The all-volunteer Board of Directors plays a critical role in the day-to-day operation of the Hoffman Center—helping ensure financial stability, good governance, and making certain our volunteers have the tools and processes they need to provide the wide variety of programming we offer. Click on their name to see their entire bio.
Learn about the other volunteers—our Program Leads—who make the Hoffman Center hum.
Program Leads
Sharon Gibson
Sharon Gibson is co-lead of the Clay Program where she has been working with clay and volunteering at the studio since 2013. Sharon manages some of the day-to-day operations of the program and represents the program on the Hoffman Center Board. She enjoys the opportunity to grow a thriving clay community while literally getting her hands dirty.
Steven Gibson
Steven Gibson took his first class at the Hoffman Center clay studio in 2013. Since that life-changing moment of touching clay, he has spent many hours creating functional ceramics at the wheel, managing the kiln, and volunteering in many capacities at the Hoffman Center and the clay studio, where he co-leads the Clay Program.
Marcia Silver
Marcia Silver began volunteering in 2014 with the Writers’ Series, coordinating weekly sessions in the Writing Lounge. She has begun to write poetry supported by a series of classes offered by the Hoffman. Her interest in the visual arts has been stimulated by her work for the Gallery recruiting and training volunteer hosts. She values the Hoffman Center for the creative opportunities it provides to our rural community.
Mary Roberts
Since volunteering with the Clay Studio beginning in March 2016, Mary Roberts has become involved in a number of areas including leading the Gallery and serving on the Board of Directors. As a ceramic artist and life-long lover of the arts, Mary relishes being part of a thriving and engaging art center.
Toni Zenker-Greening
Toni Greening began volunteering at the Hoffman Center in 2017. Her time is spent working with artists to create workshops that reach artistically diverse audiences. She finds the coastal community rich in talent and generous in sharing time and skills. She spends about half of her life in Manzanita and the other half in Portland, which is sometimes confusing to her dog Porter.
Bonnie Kost
Bonnie Kost is co-lead of the very busy Visual Arts program and sees her role as assisting her partner in providing the community with the types of workshops that are popular, interesting and well taught. Her goal is to make sure the workshops run smoothly and participants are comfortable in their time at The Hoffman Center. After vacationing in Manzanita since the early 1970's, Bonnie and her husband moved to Manzanita full time in 2016.
Ketzel Levine
Ketzel Levine has a passion for plants and horticulture and became NPR’s gardening expert, the “Doyenne of Dirt,” talking plants on Saturday mornings. She set down roots locally leading enthusiastic volunteers tending the Wonder Garden with the assistance of her Golden, Milo, who doesn’t do laundry but does entertains guests at their airbnb Sea, Sit, Stay! atop Neahkahnie.
Vera Wildauer
Vera Wildauer has been involved with the Hoffman Center since 2008 and helps bring authors, publishers, and writing instructors to our area. As co-founder of the Manzanita Writers' Series and North Coast Squid literary journal, she is delighted to bring opportunities for learning and community to local and visiting writers. Prior to moving to Manzanita full-time, she had 20+ years’ experience as a marketing professional and non-profit board member.
Phyllis Mannan
Phyllis Mannan is about to publish her first poetry chapbook. Her poems and nonfiction pieces have appeared in The Oregonian, Rain Magazine, StringTown, Willow Springs, and other publications. Her years of connection to the Portland poetry community and her love of poetry are put to work producing the periodic poetry events and managing the Poetry Kiosk in the Wonder Garden.
Emily Ransdell
Emily Ransdell divides her time between Manzanita and Camas, WA. Her poems have appeared in Timberline Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. She was featured on Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. After years of marketing work for HP, she recently completed her MFA in Poetry and teaches poetry classes at the Hoffman, along with volunteering.
Andy Barker
Andy Barker taught creative writing as a high school English teacher before retiring two years ago. He splits his time between Manzanita and Portland. His years as an advisor to an award-winning student journal are being put to work as editor of the North Coast Squid Literary Journal. His stories have appeared in journals including the North Coast Squid and Rain Magazine.
Ellis Conklin
Ellis Conklin is a longtime journalist who has worked primarily as a political reporter at several news organizations, including the Anchorage Times, United Press International, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He retired a few years ago and, after decades of vacationing on the Oregon coast, settled in Manzanita with his wife Lynn and Piper, their ocean-loving Australian Shepherd.
Lynn Steinberg
Lynn Steinberg has worked as a high-school teacher, journalist and communications executive over the course of a long and varied career. After years of city life up and down the West Coast, she recently retired from The Boeing Company and moved to Manzanita full-time with her husband Ellis.
