Washington Butterfly Association - Seattle

Kelly McAllister is an Olympia native, descended from some of the earliest residents of Washington State, native Americans, a Hudson’s Bay Company employee and white settlers. He attended college at the University of Washington and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1979. After three months in the Gulf of Alaska as a foreign fisheries observer aboard Japanese trawlers, Kelly landed a job with Washington State, in the newly formed Nongame Program of the Washington Department of Game. Kelly stayed with the agency as it went through a couple of name changes and he went from a rare species database biologist to an endangered species recovery biologist to a District Wildlife Biologist. After 26 years at the state fish and wildlife agency, Kelly joined the Washington Department of Transportation’s Fish and Wildlife Program, first as the agency’s Habitat Connectivity Biologist and now as its Fish and Wildlife Program Manager. Kelly is married and has a son, a daughter, three grandchildren, a miniature Australian Shepherd, and an Appaloosa horse.