Picture of Joshua PutnamSo who is this Josh person, anyway?

I was born and raised on Vashon Island, Washington, a semi-rural island in Puget Sound, between Seattle and Tacoma. Being an island with a fairly small population, Vashon was a place where, if you didn't necessarily know everyone, you certainly knew someone else who knew them; a small enough place that the only movie theater in town congratulated my mother on the birth of twins by putting a birth announcement on their main marquee.

If you're interested, here are a few views of Vashon and Maury Islands. (What's up on the Island these days? Check out the new web edition of the Beachcomber, our local weekly newspaper.) Also, check out the Vashon Links page at FinchHaven.com.

While Vashon was always "home," I have also lived in Valsad, Gujarat State, India, as a Rotary International Youth Exchange student, 1984-85, and in Claremont, California, while attending Claremont McKenna College, 1985-89.

After getting my BA in International Relations from CMC I returned to Vashon and, apart from occasional vacations, lived there until the fall of 2000.

In the spring of 2000, I fell head over heels in love with Koralee Roup -- we first "met" on the international bicycle touring mailing list, and then met in person on a ride in Seattle. Our first date was the Seattle Bicycle Expo, of course, and by fall we got engaged and I moved to her home in Kent, Washington, just across the water and up the hill from Vashon Island. (It's a small world -- my grandparents, Kay and Put, lived in the same complex for a while when I was about knee-high. Kay now lives on Vashon Island. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday at the nursing home.)

Unfortunately, moving off the island also meant I had to resign from my position on the Vashon Maury Island Community Council. After three generations of Island busibodies, my family has for now stopped poking our noses into everyone's business. I still maintain an active interest in Vashon Island -- it's still home to my parents, one grandmother, and one of my brothers, and I have quite a few clients on the island.

Koralee and I were married in February, 2001, a year after that first date. We had to miss the Bike Expo that year.

For eleven years, I was lucky to work as a securities analyst for the private investment partnership of I. S. Wolfe & Partners, headquartered in a secluded home on Maury Island. In my years working with Irving I went from the junior analyst to managing the daily trading activity of the Partnership. Sadly, the sudden death of Irving Wolfe, shortly before Koralee and I were married, led to the liquidation of the partnership in mid-2001. I remained with the Partnership during its liquidation, helping Irving's family and friends deal with this difficult time.

Today I am self-employed as an insurance agent. Besides insuring homes, cars, boats, motorcycles, and so on, I provide people with financial stability through life insurance, long term care insurance, disability insurance, etc.

Still, the biggest news of the millenium, even bigger than getting married, moving, or losing my friend and employer Irving Wolfe, was the birth of our twin sons, Morgan and Derek, in November, 2001. Morgan and Derek came a bit early, at 36 weeks, and spent some time in the Neonatal ICU at the University of Washington, but soon they were home and doing well.

You can find some photos of the twins, Koralee, Alessandra, and even a few of me here.

In the summer of 2004, after an offhand question to a client who happens to be a realtor, Koralee and I bought a house that has everything we had decided our dream house should have:

  • It's old, 1908, with lots of character.

  • It has four bedrooms, two full baths, and a kitchen big enough for company to stand around and talk.

  • Our lot is a quarter acre, including mature fruit trees and a small stream.

  • It's in a small town -- just over 5,000 people. (A small enough town that, when I emailed the community info page to get on their mailing list, I got a personal reply from the mayor.)

  • It's literally next door to the south end of the Interurban Trail.

  • We're within walking distance of the grocery store, post office, City Hall, and the library.

Now we just have to spend a few years updating this and that....

If you happen to be cycling through The City of Pacific this summer, you'll probably see us toiling away by the trailhead.

Other Tidbits

Member of

  • Adventure Cycling Association (formerly Bikecentennial), the country's leading organization for bicycle tourists. The ACA publishes the only real bicycle touring magazine in the United States, and their annual Cyclist's Yellow Pages is worth the cost of membership all by itself.

  • The Mountaineers, known elsewhere for the excellent books from The Mountaineers Press, but also an excellent organization for all sorts of outdoor activities -- cycling, hiking, climbing, sailing, etc.

  • The Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club, a 501c3 organization promoting responsible mountain biking and bicycle trail access in Western Washington.

  • League of American Bicyclists, (formerly League of American Wheelmen), a leading bicycle advocacy and education organization.

  • Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's leading advocate for the liberal arts and sciences at the undergraduate level.

  • The American Civil Liberties Union, defending civil rights even for people that all sensible citizens disagree with -- if a right isn't secure when someone unpopular exercises it, is it really a right you can depend on?

Manger of internet mailing lists including:

  • Bicycle Frame Building, a resource for professional and amateur bicycle frame builders and other HPV builders worldwide.

  • The International Bicycle Touring Mailing List, a list of over 1300 touring cyclists from almost every continent, discussing almost anything related to bicycle touring -- ride reports, route plans, supplies, mechanical concerns, riders seeking ride partners, etc. The list has even produced at least two weddings!

  • KidBike -- Bicycling with Children for anyone interested in sharing their interest in cycling with younger riders. This list started because Koralee and I wanted good rides with Alessandra, not knowing we would soon have two more cyclists in the family.

  • BBTCmembers, the mailing list for the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club.

  • The Vashon-Maury Island Community Council mailing list, for discussion of any community issues on Vashon and Maury Islands.

Education:

In case you're wondering if I'm the same Josh you knew under some other email address in the past, here's a list of old email and web addresses for Joshua Putnam.

This page written by Josh Putnam. Please feel free to email questions, comments, corrections, suggestions, etc.

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