About Me

I’m Shelly Randall, a 35-year-old mother of one, a freelance writer/editor/publicist, and the author of Sustainable Together.

I launched this blog in 2011 with the conviction that it’s not wise to “go sustainable” alone. Fortunately, I have landed in a welcoming place for sustainable living.

I sailed—really, I did!—into Port Townsend in 1999. For two years after college I had been crewing as a shipboard environmental educator, first with a program on Long Island Sound, then here in Puget Sound with Sound Experience on the schooner Adventuress. I met my future husband here at a contra dance and decided to stay.

My first job was reporting for the weekly newspaper, covering the port and shipyard beats, among others. (My feature on an owner-built Rastra home won an environmental reporting award from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association in 2001.) I later was employed as a grantwriter and communication manager for the Northwest Maritime Center and freelanced for maritime publications, including WoodenBoat and Sea Magazine.

In 2006 my husband Jeff and I took a year-long sabbatical road trip around North America (and I blogged about it, of course). The once-in-a-lifetime trip inspired him to switch careers from city planning to renewable energy (he now is employed by Power Trip Energy Corp.), and me to launch my own business.

Since 2007 I’ve owned a communications consultancy that serves local small business and nonprofit clients, such as the Jefferson County Community Foundation, Key City Public Theatre, the Northwest Maritime Center, and the Port of Port Townsend. Learn more about my professional services.

I graduated magna cum laude from Smith College, majoring in American Studies, and spent an amazing semester at the interdisciplinary Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program in Connecticut.

At the age of 20, I broke my leg in a fall down a mountainside that could have easily killed me. The outpouring of love and support I received during my recuperation felt like sitting through the eulogies at my own funeral. Knowing how much we’d be missed is a privilege we all should have before we die.

Another impressionable period in my life was the two years (age 8-10 for me) that my family lived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. My parents were former Peace Corps volunteers in Peru and wanted to return to South America once they had their three children. My veterinarian father volunteered with the international humanitarian agency World Concern and my mother substitute-taught at our English-speaking school. I understand now why they wanted us to experience life in a developing country with its cultural heritage largely intact. My horizons were permanently broadened.