Staff
Ray Brunson: Center Director – Supervisory Fishery Biologist, Certified Fish Pathologist, AFS, Fish Health Section, field diagnostician, microbiologist
Ray Brunson is a 1979 graduate of the National Fisheries Academy “Identification and Control of Fish Diseases” of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He has served for 35 years in the USFWS. The first 7 years of his career was at the Bozeman Fish Cultural Development Center and Coleman NFH where he gained valuable and extensive experience and knowledge in fish cultural techniques for both trout and anadromous salmonid species.
In 1979, he accepted a job as a fish health biologist at OFHC where he performed diagnostic services to 22 Tribal fish facilities and 3 National Fish Hatcheries. In 1988, he became the Director of the Olympia Fish Health Center. From 1991 - 2005, Ray was an instructor for “Introduction to Fish Health” sponsored by the National Education and Training Center which was held each summer in Olympia, Washington. He and the staff currently provide short fish health training workshops on an intermittent basis.
In addition to his duties as Director at OFHC, Ray is a U.S. Title 50 inspector, a “Fish Health Official” recognized by Department of Fisheries and Oceans for Canada and a Certified Fish Pathologist by the American Fisheries Society – Fish Health Section. He is also a member of the European Association of Fish Pathologists. He has served on the Fish Health Section "Blue Book" committee (1983-85), Technical Procedures Committee (1984-85), Chairman of the Board of Certification (1993-94), and Chair of the Professional Standards Committee (1996-1999). He served as Chairman of the Pacific Northwest Fish Health Protection Committee in 1992-1993 and has served as the Executive Secretary from 1993 to the present. He currently is a member of the Pacific Region’s Hatchery Review Team that are reviewing programs and operations of Region One National Fish Hatcheries.
Dr. Joy Evered: Veterinary Medical Officer –Field diagnostician, federally accredited veterinarian, fish pathology, Regional Investigational New Animal Drug (INAD) coordinator
Joy received a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Animal Science from Washington State University. She received her DVM from Washington State University. She began her federal career working with fish in 1991 at the Northwest Science Center, NOAA-Fisheries and was transferred to OFHC in 1994 as the first Veterinary Medical Officer to be employed by Service Fish Health Centers.
In addition to her diagnostic and fish health services, Joy is the Region One, Aquatic Animal Drug Coordinator and works closely with hatcheries and the Service’s Aquatic Animal Approval Partnership to comply with reporting requirements for Investigational New Animal Drug permits. She is a federally accredited and licensed veterinarian, a member of American Veterinary Medical Association, Washington Veterinary Medical Association, and is a Certified Inspector of the American Fisheries Society – Fish Health Section.
Dr. Sonia Mumford: Veterinary Medical Officer
Sonia received her BS in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her DVM at N. C. State University. She completed internships in small animal medicine and surgery at Michigan State University and aquatic animal medicine at the New England Aquarium in Boston, MA. She worked as collection veterinarian at the New England Aquarium for an additional three years. She has been employed with the US Fish and Wildlife Service Olympia Fish Health Center as a veterinary medical officer for the last 6 years. Her duties at the fish health center include diagnostics, inspections, and the National Wild Fish Health Survey. Sonia is the current lead staff in histology services at OFHC and currently coordinates, instructs, and cooperates with NCTC on the “Introduction to Fish Histology and Histopathology” course offered every other year. In addition to the Fish Health section of the AFS, Sonia is a federally accredited and licensed veterinarian, a member of the European Association of Fish Pathologists (EAFP), the International Association of Aquatic Animal Medicine (IAAAM), and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).
John "Chris" Patterson: Laboratory Manager
Chris Patterson received his B.S. in Zoology with emphasis on molecular biology in 1991. He joined the staff of OFHC in the same year as a Biological Technician.
Chris is currently the Laboratory Manager and is in charge of performing and making sure that all microbiology and laboratory tests are completed in support of the OFHC mission. During his tenure, he assisted in the implementation of Enzyme-linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA) testing procedures and was responsible for implementing current Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (QPCR) capabilities for the lab. He has worked with various database applications and created the OFHC laboratory database that is currently used at our facility.
Sharon Lutz: Fish Biologist, Microbiologist, Field Diagnostician.
Sharon received her degree in Biology from California State University at Humboldt. and later completed the USFWS "Identification and Control of Fish Diseases" long course in 1989. Sharon is the most recent addition to our staff and was hired in April, 2009. Sharon has over 15 years experience in fish disease diagnostics in the Pacific Northwest and prior to joining the Olympia Fish Health Center, she worked for 13 years as a Microbiologist/Fish Health Specialist at the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. Sharon's duties will be combined field diagnostics, collections and laboratory testing. Her skills and experience make her a valuable "cross over" member of the staff enabling a much needed extra capacity to our station.
Donna Gallup : Administrative Officer
Donna started her federal career with the Department of Defense (DOD) in September 1989 at Kingsville, TX as a Clerk Typist III. She had numerous transfers within DOD due to a military spouse with stints at Adak, Alaska and Bangor, Washington.
Her first job with Fish & Wildlife Service began in January 1997, as an Administrative Support Assistant with the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
She was later transferred to the Washington Maritime Refuge Complex in July 1999 in the same support capacity. Donna then left the Service for 4 years to take a position with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Salt Lake City, UT as an Administrative Operations Specialist. She returned to the Service in March 2008, as the Administrative Officer for the Olympia Fish Health Center.
