New WLAC Trustees

NEW WLAC

TRUSTEES

HOLLY ANGILERI

Holly spent her first 18 years in Northern Michigan. She relocated downstate for school, stayed for work and marriage. She returned to the North in 1993, moving to Walloon with her darling husband and three delightful children. Living on the lake year-round, the family settled into their new community. When her wonderful children set out on their own adventures, Holly joined the WLAC Government Affairs Committee, representing Resort Township. Skip ahead to 2022, and she joined the WLAC Board of Trustees. Protecting the water of Walloon Lake is exceptionally important to her, this includes protecting the entire watershed.

Holly enjoys biking, hiking, boating, reading and eating. But her #1 favorite activity is enjoying Walloon with her husband, their children, grandchildren, and granddog.

WLAC Board Seeking COMMITTEE MEMBERS & TRUSTEES

If you are interested in making a difference, contact Josephine Roberts, Executive Director: 231.535.6112 or josephine@walloon.org MARY ELLEN GEIST

Mary Ellen Geist has spent every summer of her life on the water or in the woods at her family’s Wildwood Harbor cottage on Walloon Lake where she learned the names of the birds, trees, plants and mushrooms, and continues to waterski, kayak, sail, and paddleboard.

After graduating from Kalamazoo College, she moved to the cottage full-time and got her first radio jobs at WPZ/ WMBN and WJML in Petoskey and sang with various bands. Eventually, she moved to Los Angeles where she became the morning reporter at the ABC News Station, KFWB. She was then offered a job at the flagship ABC News Station in San Francisco, KGO Radio, where she spent 13 years as a reporter and anchor, and won many awards for her environmental reporting, including the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Associated Press Reporter of the Year Award.

When she moved to New York to become an afternoon anchor at WCBS Radio, her father began to rapidly decline from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. She quit her job and came home to Michigan to help her mother care for her father on Walloon Lake and at her parents’ home in the Detroit area. She wound up writing a memoir of her time as a caregiver called Measure of the Heart which won the Michigan Notable Book Award.

In 2016, she became Great Lakes Bureau Chief at Detroit Public Television where she reported on and made documentaries about the Great Lakes and water issues and won two regional Emmy Awards. Mary Ellen and her husband, Tim van Laar, an artist and writer, split their time between Grosse Pointe Farms and Walloon Lake. This is her first year with the WLAC, and Mary Ellen is looking forward to using her reporting and communication skills to help protect the lake she loves.

TOM SAELI

Tom, his wife Molly and their four children have been Wallooners on the West Arm for over 30 years. While summer is a special time at Walloon, the whole family also spent many winter weekends skiing together in Northern Michigan. Tom and Molly have been married for 41 years, and together with their children; Tyler, Brent, Sarah and Connor have built memories at Walloon that will endure the test of time. The family has happily expanded to include; a daughter-in-law Kate, a son-in-law Dixon, and granddaughters Izzy and Olive! Tom and Molly’s love for Northern Michigan in general and Walloon in particular is what motivated Tom to become involved in the WLAC.

Tom is the CEO of a privately held industrial products manufacturer based in Michigan, and has significant experience at the board level in the public, private and notfor-profit sectors. Aside from a few for-profit boards, Tom is currently a board member of Corewell Health, which is the largest nonprofit health care system in Michigan created through the combination of Spectrum Health and Beaumont Health.

Tom’s interests include; boating, biking, hiking, travel, snow skiing, golf, reading, beekeeping, petting his dog Oliver, spending time with his family and friends and playing with his granddaughters!