PSARA Officers

Karen Richter worked in public transportation her entire career and is a retired AFSCME member out of Chicago.   She organized and chaired the Fundraising Committee. She has worked on the Environmental Committee, the Advocate mailing committee, Social Security Works, WA Coalition, and on getting the King County Council to pass a motion to expand Medicare and social Security.

Email:  president@psara.org

Retired from Boeing and SPEEA, IFPTE 2001 staff. PSARA delegate to WA Senior Lobby, Former President of Martin Luther King Jr, County Labor Council, MLKCLC ending in 2015.  Active with 11th district democrats. Past KCLS Library Trustee and Past United Way KC Board.

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Angie Bartels comes from a large working-class family and was born and raised on the southern
shores of the Ohio River in 1956. College was out of reach, so she devoted those years to the
United Farm Workers Union and raising her daughter. She worked with the UFW’s boycott
from KY to Ohio and finally in the San Joaquin Valley of CA where she learned Spanish. She
came to Seattle in 1978 and while working as a legal assistant, volunteered for many years in
the sanctuary movement for Central American refugees. Finally, at the age of 37, she earned her bachelor’s in nursing at the UW. She devoted her nursing career to low income, uninsured
patients at the 45 th St. Clinic where she was the diabetes educator for nearly 20 years. She also worked for 13 years in HIV and other infectious diseases at Bailey Boushay and the Madison Clinic at Harborview. She retired at the age of 58 in 2014 due to her own health issues and her
husband’s ALS diagnosis. She nursed Tony through his battle with ALS for seven years until his
death in November 2020. As well as Membership VP for PSARA, she serves as the surrogate
grandmother or “auntie” for the baby of a low-income immigrant family. “It was the height of
the pandemic and Tony was gone. I didn’t have anything to do and they needed child care so
why not help a family in need? After all, I was a single mom for all those years so I understand
some of the struggles that young families go through. It just seemed to make sense and indeed
it has brought happiness and purpose to my life once again.”

After working in the travel industry for 25 years, Lisa Dekker found a new calling at Washington Community Action in Seattle, fundraising and working toward social, racial, and economic justice.  As a volunteer with the Sierra Club, she was a proud participant in actions like the 1999 WTO protests.  Now retired on the North Olympic Peninsula, she is on the Advisory Committee of Sequim Indivisibles, a PCO with the Clallam County Democrats, and part of a Citizen Lobby group of the local Sierra Club chapter.  Most recently, she became a member of the Steering Committee of a newly formed group, Voices for Health and Healing.  Spearheaded by Tim Wheeler, “Voices” formed to counter a campaign of fear and disinformation against the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s proposed treatment center in Sequim for OUD, Opioid Use Disorder.  She has been a member of PSARA since _____ and lives near Port Angeles with husband Keith and their lively husky-mix, Arlo, who is a constant source of comic relief in the era of Trump.

Jeff Johnson is the former President of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) which represents more than 500,000 employees in the state of Washington.  Formerly the research Director of the WSLC, Jeff in his former life was a college professor.  He is currently on the board of the Labor Network for Sustainability where he focuses on the intersection between labor, climate change and climate justice including a “Just Transition”.

Email: president@psara.org

Tom Lux is a 35 year member of the Machinists Union and was on the staff of the union for eight years and serves as a member of the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee. He is on the Visiting Committee of the Harry Bridges Chair at the UW and is the President of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association.

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Rick is a retired veterinarian who has been in private practice in Oregon, worked in the pet food
industry and taught at the School of Veterinary Medicine in Davis, Ca, and at Carroll College in
Helena, MT. He had special interests in Animal Behavior, Animal Welfare and the relationships
between humans and nonhuman animals (Anthrozoology). He has lectured internationally on
these topics. He spent 5 years in the Republic of Georgia, where his wife Marcia, also a
veterinarian but with an additional degree in veterinary public health, taught veterinarians how
to diagnose and manage dangerous and highly contagious animal diseases. After Marcia retired
in 2016, they moved to Whidbey Island where Rick pursues an interest in ceramics and clay
sculpture. It was on Whidbey that Rick discovered PSARA. His major interests are the
challenges to Medicare and the need for a national health plan similar to that enjoyed in
countries in Europe, Canada and Latin America. Their daughter, Tracy, is an artist living in
Eugene, OR.

Dina is active in Imigrants rights groups and