Organization Leaders

The Gig Harbor BoatShop Board of Trustees and management team have a diverse skill set including non-profit organization management, small and large business owner/operators, for-profit small boatyard employment and management, commercial fishing experience, and marketing and graphics design expertise.

Board of Directors / Management Team

Guy Hoppen - President, Founding Director
Guy Hoppen called the Eddon Boatyard property home for his first 24 years. His parents, Ed and Marty Hoppen, owned and operated the Eddon Boat Company from 1950 until 1978. Hoppen earned a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Education from th University of Washington, a fine art degree from Seattle's Photographic Center Northwest and a 100-Ton Master's License from the United States Coast Guard. Every summer Guy, wife Ann, and sons Jacob and Dale travel north in their historic Ted Geary-designed 90-foot fish tender, the Beryl E, to work the Southeast Alaska salmon season. Hoppen also has a stock photography business, and when time permits, provides shipwright and boat repair services under the family business name of Eddon Boat Company. Hoppen's boatyard experience, in addition to working for the Eddon Boat Company, includes employment at May Boatworks on Lake Union in Seattle in 1978, Hanson Boat Shop in Wrangell Alaska during 1981 and 1982 and contract work for Blue Heron Yachts until the mid-1980s. Active in the community, Hoppen sits on the Shenandoah Steering Committee for the Gig Harbor Peninsula Historical Society, was a founder of the Gig Harbor Maritime Pier Committee, served a three-year term on the Gig Harbor Arts Commission, served on the Skansie Bros. Park ad-hoc committee and was a founding member of the Friends of Eddon Boatyard group, the grassroots group that spearheaded the successful campaign to save the Eddon Boatyard property. Hoppen is a director for the national maritime heritage non-profit Coastal Heritage Alliance, an organization that is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of commercial fishing family cultural heritage, and is a director/vice president of Southeast Alaska Rainforest Wild, a non-profit with a mission to promote Southeast Alaska's quality wild seafood and the fishermen that harvest that seafood.

John McMillan - Director/Vice President/Treasurer
John McMillan is an industrial designer and owns McMillan Design, Inc. McMillan's company is a multi-disciplinary industrial design corporation specializing in product development, including the manufacture and sales of the Sea Catch Toggle Release, a mechanical quick release sold to users world wide. McMillan is an honors graduate of the Art Institute of Seattle with an Associate of Applied Arts Degree in Industrial Design Technology. He also completed a year of study at Le Tourneau College in Longview, Texas. Raised in Africa, McMillan is fluent in Swahili and conversant in French and Lingala. His work experience includes being the executive coordinator and vice president of a seafood plant, Inlet Salmon, located on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula and three years designing and supervising the construction of a tubular goods inspection and repair facility in Prudhoe Bay for Arctic Pipe Inspection of Kenai, Alaska. Moving to Gig Harbor in 1996, he quickly became active in the community by serving on the Maritime Pier Committee, the Skansie Bros. Park ad hoc committee, the Eddon Boatyard Park Steering Committee, the Crescent Valley Alliance and the Shenandoah Steering Committee. McMillan was also a founding member of the Friends of Eddon Boatyard.

Chris Fiala Erlich - Director/Secretary
Chris Erlich, owner of Chrisworks, works as a museum specialist. Her clients include the Working Waterfront Museum in Tacoma, the Tacoma Historical Society, the Washington State History Museum, the Lakewood Historical Society, the Dupont Historical Museum, the Washington Public Ports Association, the Bainbrdge Island Historical Society and the Squaxin Island Museum. Erlich earned a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of Washington and a Masters of Arts from Seattle University. From April 1997 through March 2003 Erlich worked as the Executive Director of the Gig Harbor Peninsula Historical Society. In addition to designing and installing up to six exhibits annually for the GHPHS, Erlich was instrumental in the society's acquisition of the historical vessels Shenandoah, a Skansie Shipyard-built purse seiner, and Thunderbird #1, an Eddon Boat Company-built sailboat. Prior to her tenure at GHPHS, Erlich was the Exhibition Project Director and the Executive Director for the Adam East Museum & Art Center in Moses Lake, Washington. A respected exhibit curator and designer, Erlich has created numerous exhibits throughout Washington State including the award-winning exhibits: Ports, Your Vital Link; Reflecting on A Vision; Moses Lake and the Columbia River Dams; and Generaciones; Mexican-Americans in Moses Lake. Other recent exhibits include: How Tall Ships Touched Tacoma; From the Ground Up: 130 Years of Shipbuilding and Shipworkers; and Gig Harbor, the Maritime City. Erlich served four years as vice-chair on the Gig Harbor Arts Commission and served on the Washington Museum Association for six years including time as Vice-President and Legislative Liaison.

Erik Carlson - Director
Erik Carlson, born and raised in Gig Harbor, was a frequent visitor to the Eddon Boatyard from an early age. In addition to being familiar with the Eddon Boatyard facility, its employees and the Hoppen family, he has spent countless hours on the water in Eddon Boatyard-built vessels including Minto and Eddon Gig dingies, Thunderbird sailboats, and the Seaborn-designed sailboat Nautilus IV. His family partnered with the Joe Heitman family in one of the last new vessels launched at the Eddon Boat Company, the 36-foot Ed Hoppen-designed sailboat Hansa. Currently Erik and his wife Kathleen, own two sloops, one of which is the Hoppen-designed sailboat, the 36-foot Sanguine. Carlson received a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Washington and is a Certified Service Professional. He has 30 years of business experience operating his own companies and is currently working with partners as part owner and Senior Vice President of Operations of Aqua Quip, a swimming pool and hot tub retailer with 10 stores in the greater Puget Sound region. Carlson has extensive board experience on both local and national industry boards, most notably serving six years on the National Pool and Spa Institute board including a term as president of the 5,000-member organization. He has also represented the pool and spa industry internationally traveling on their behalf to Canada and Great Britain. At present the Carlsons reside in University Place, but have a home and moor their boats in Gig Harbor.

Steve Helgeson - Program Director/Boatyard Manager
Steve Helgeson is currently employed as the Director of Support Services for Alaska Crossings, a Wrangell, Alaska based experiental wilderness therapy program for young people. The program is a division of Alaska Island Services, a non-profit agency devoted to primary health care and behavioral health for Alaskans. Helgeson, who was raised in Portland, Oregon attended Portland State University for a year and University of Puget Sound for a semester before being drawn to wooden boat building and specifically, the boat-building program at Bates Technical College in Tacoma, Washington. After Bates, Helgeson began his apprenticeship at the Eddon Boat Company under Master Boat-Builder Ed Hoppen. He has the distinction of being the last shipwright hired at the Eddon Boat Company by Ed Hoppen. In the summer of 1980, Helgeson left Gig Harbor for Alaska aboard the classic Mojean-built yacht Holiday. The M/V Holiday was one of several culturally significant vessels Helgeson owned and restored. The list includes a Thistle class sailboat, a Nevins-built Six-Meter sailboat and a Thunderbird sailboat. Helgeson landed in Wrangell, where Olaf Hanson hired him as a shipwright at the Hanson Boat Shop. He worked for Hanson until 1983. From 1983 until 2002 Helgeson owned and operated a boat-building and custom woodworking business based in Wrangell. The business served the local commercial and pleasure boat fleets and was active in a variety of widely diverse projects outside of Southeast Alaska, which included the repair of an Eskimo whaling boat in Barrow, Alaska, and project managing the exterior joinery for a new 160-foot mega yacht in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Helgeson, in addition to apprenticing for Ed Hoppen, feels fortunate to have honed his journeyman shipwright skills under Olaf Hanson and Norwegian-trained boat-builder Arthur Svnedsen.