Janet Thomas is the executive director of Orca Relief Citizens' Alliance, an organization based on San Juan Island that has been fighting to save the Southern Resident orca whales from extinction for more than 20 years. As superintendent of San Juan County Parks in the mid-'90s, Janet was instrumental in banning jet-ski whale-watching tours from launching at county parks, a decision upheld by the Washington State Supreme Court in 1997.

An activist since the antiwar and civil-rights movements of the 1960s, Janet is also a writer. Throughout the '80s, her many plays (most of them enviro-socio-political) were produced in theaters from Seattle to New York City. Her books include The Battle in Seattle - The Story Behind and Beyond the WTO Demonstrations and Day Breaks Over Dharamsala - A Memoir of Life Lost and Found. As a kid, the smell of low tide saved her life. It still does.