Maradel Gale is a native Washingtonian now living on Bainbridge Island. During her career as a professor of land use planning law at the University of Oregon, Maradel was involved in a wide range of volunteer environmental activities. She was a founder and the first President of the Oregon Environmental Council and worked on many of the landmark Oregon environmental laws in the early 1970s. Upon retirement, Maradel returned to the Puget Sound region and became trained as a beach and marine mammal naturalist.