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Kate grew up along the Merrimack River messing about in family-owned boats among the Great Salt Marsh behind Plum Island and sailing the coast of Maine as far Downeast as Roque Island with her grandfather before heading to sea as a deckhand on the Newburyport Whale Watch boat Capt. Red at age 12, a seasonal job she held for more than ten years. During this time she attained and still holds a 100-ton U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license.

In May 2011, Kate earned a M.A. in Environmental Education at UNH. This pedagogy, along with nature connection and coyote mentoring, guided many of Merrohawke programs in the founding years of the organization. In summer 2019, Kate began teacher training in Waldorf Early Childhood education with Sophia’s Hearth in Keene, NH, where in July 2022 she earned a Certificate in Waldorf Early Childhood Teaching (Birth to Seven).  She also studied Waldorf handwork teaching, and in Summer 2022 participated in Waldorf Collaborative Leadership training at Sunbridge. In April 2024, Kate completed a year-long Waldorf Leadership Development Program at the Center for Anthroposophy. She is now pursuing a Doctor of Education (EdD) in Waldorf education at Antioch University, where she is deepening Merrohawke’s unique pedagogy by studying the principles of Waldorf education and Indigenous Land Education in outdoor, nature-based learning. Kate is Director qualified by the Mass. Department of Early Education and Care and certified in Wilderness First Aid & CPR. She serves on the Advisory Council of the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness and the organizing committee for Newburyport’s Indigenous Peoples Day event.

Prior to co-founding Merrohawke, Kate spent 15 years working as an award-winning investigative journalist who wrote about the sea and the people who worked and played upon it. She is the former editor of Embassy Cruising Guides, a series of four bi-annual guides spanning the cruising waters from Canada to Alabama. She also holds a BA in Journalism (minor in marine biology) from UNH (1995) and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College (1999). Her award-winning work appeared in Boston Magazine, Boston Sunday Globe Magazine, Cruising World, Commercial Fisheries News, National Fisherman, Offshore, Professional Mariner, Robb Report, Voyaging, and others. She is the author of the nonfiction book Dead Men Tapping: The End of the Heather Lynne II, published by McGraw-Hill in 2003.

Kate met her husband, Capt. Rob, in first grade at Newbury’s Woodbridge School. They later become high-school sweethearts at Triton Regional High School, where they first studied marine biology and oceanography together. Kate and Rob were married in 1996 and are raising two college-aged sons, who inspired all of Merrohawke’s early program development. Rob and Kate have owned the F/V Erica Lee since April 2005. Contact Kate by email.