19 apply for vacant Richland School Board seat. Meet the top 7
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- Richland board narrowed 19 applicants to seven finalists for interviews Oct. 21.
- Board will appoint member to serve through November 2027 after a director’s resignation.
- Finalists include teachers, parent volunteers, lab scientists and former public officials.
Seven candidates will interview next week for a vacant seat on the Richland School Board.
This week, the board narrowed the list down from the 19 who applied.
They are Tamara Burnett, Dan Evans, Kristin Omberg, Alexis Painter, Michelle Robertson, Linda Stairet and Beth Stevens.
The person appointed will serve through the end of the current term, until November 2027. Board member Chelsie Beck stepped down in August because she moved out of the district.
Board President Katrina Waters said the outpouring of applicants was a “really strong reflection of the commitment of people in our community to the importance of education” for all students.
“I’m very impressed by all the candidates who applied because that shows their commitment to serve,” Waters said, noting that it’s often a “huge commitment” and “thankless job.”
School board members do not receive a stipend or salary.
Their main responsibilities include hiring and evaluating the superintendent, setting the vision and goals for the district, reviewing and adopting school policies, passing annual budgets and serving as a representative in the community.
Richland board members this week seemed to prefer candidates who had kids in their schools, who would bring new perspectives and/or those who would balance the strengths of the current board.
But Waters said there was a “very wide demographic” of applicants who included parents, volunteers and Richland graduates.
Candidates will be interviewed for 15 minutes during a public session at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
The board then will recess into a closed-door session to deliberate. The board will return to the public meeting to discuss and vote. The meeting will be held in-person and online to view.
Richland School District provided the Tri-City Herald the candidates’ resumes.
Tamara Burnett
Burnett is a supervisor and process engineer with Framatome North America, and an advocate for STEM and technical education.
She is co-chair of the STEM program at the Department of Energy’s Hanford nuclear site, where she helps bring education to students, teachers and tribes, and has volunteered as a career coach.
She also has served as president of the local federal employees union.
She holds a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a minor in aerospace engineering from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and is pursuing multiple additional certificates.
She earned her degree while raising two children as a single mother.
Dan Evans
Evans is director of engineering at Translation Technologies, a Spokane MCAD software and solutions firm. He’s been with the company for more than 25 years.
He’s had three children graduate from Richland schools, and his youngest is an 8th grader at Enterprise Middle School.
Evans also has a history of coaching student basketball, softball, baseball and football teams.
He currently volunteers with the Greater Richland Little League Board of Directors, Hanford High School booster club and the Washington District 12 Little League UIC.
He holds both a master’s and bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Washington State University.
Alexis Painter
Painter is a teacher and logistics professional who currently works as an assistant educator at Sagebrush Montessori Elementary.
Between 2009 and 2018, she worked as an elementary teacher at various schools locally and internationally.
She previously worked as a reliability engineer at Twitter and in administration and logistics for Omneon, a California-based company.
Painter has a master’s in education from Heritage University and a bachelor’s in history from Washington State University.
Michelle Robertson
Robertson is a parent volunteer in Richland schools who currently works as a substitute for high school-level seminary classes.
From 2021 to earlier this year, she substitute taught K-5 classrooms in the Richland School District.
She also currently volunteers as a Meals on Wheels driver, delivering food to elderly residents, and as a lunch coordinator with the Richland High School Bomber Booster Club.
Between 2006 and 2024, she volunteered as a classroom parent volunteer, helping reading and math groups and organizing student work at Badger, Orchard and White Bluff elementary schools.
She holds a bachelor’s in family science from Brigham Young University.
Linda Stairet
Stairet is a retired language arts teacher. Between 1978 and 2020, she mostly worked in Richland classrooms, as well as on assignment at Delta High School in Pasco.
Between 1995 and 2005, she also held several executive positions with the teacher’s union, Richland Education Association.
Toward the end of her career, Stairet worked as a classroom support teacher providing professional development for literacy standards and Smarter Balanced Assessment preparation, peer coaching and data management.
She holds a bachelor’s in English/Education from Washington State University.
In 1982, she completed a master’s in English with an emphasis in teaching and specializing in rhetoric and composition curriculum design.
Beth Stevens
Stevens is a mother of four public school children with an “extremely broad range of academic abilities and challenges.” She also has experience as a public official, having served three years on the school board in Raymond, Wash.
She resigned in 2014 to move to Richland.
Stevens works as an operations support specialist at Central Plateau Cleanup Company at the Hanford site, and previously worked 23 years in appraising, including with the Pacific County Assessor’s Office.
Her volunteer experience includes time with the U.S. Pony Club, Columbia River Pony Club, and with the Pacific County 4-H program.
She holds an associate’s degree from Grays Harbor College.
Kristin Omberg
Omberg is a senior technical advisor for the National Security Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In this role, she’s led six national laboratories to develop a vision to counter the nation’s illicit drug crisis for the Department of Homeland Security and National Security Council.
Before coming to the Tri-Cities, she spent 16 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a yearlong fellowship with the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget.
Omberg lists volunteer time spent with the American Chemical Society and Scouting America, as well as affiliations with Sandia National Laboratories and the National Science Foundation.
She holds a doctorate in inorganic chemistry from University of North Carolina, bachelor’s in chemistry and philosophy from Gonzaga University and certificates in public policy analysis and international security.
