Committee assignments

General Government Committee, Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA), Thurston County Solid Waste Advisory Committee

Areas of special interest

GRuB, Brewery Neighborhood Planning, gardening, golf, reading and poetry writing, and spending time walking in wonder and revere nature’s abundance and beauty. 

Career background

Joan Cathey has served on the City Council since 2008. She is a native of California. She holds a bachelor’s degree biological science, English, and history, a master’s in psychology, and a Master of Divinity in Philosophical Theology. She is a Presbyterian minister and has served churches in California and Washington for the past 35 years. Joan came to the Pacific Northwest to be the campus minister at The Evergreen State College in 1992. Her diverse background includes being a business owner, high school teacher and coach, school board member, and local social service agency executive director. Joan represented the City on the team that created a unique partnership with GRuB and the Tumwater School District to begin a farming program for low-income, and at-risk high school students at the City Linwood Barn property, now Isabella Bush Park. She lives in northeast Tumwater and is actively involved in the Brewery Neighborhood Planning.