October 5, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 7A
Old growth could be key for native songbird species
Associated Press
GREG DAVIS
Oregon State’s Hankyu Kim set a decoy de-
signed to trigger the territorial instinct of
hermit warblers. The small songbirds will
be caught, tagged and released so their
movements can be tracked.
BLUE RIVER — Hotter, drier
summers are having an impact on
some of the migrating songbirds
that come to Oregon and Wash-
ington state to breed each spring.
Oregon Public Broadcasting
reports that because of rising tem-
peratures, the areas where hermit
warblers can live and find food are
shrinking by up to 4 percent each
year. Now researchers with Or-
egon State University are devel-
oping an experiment to track the
tiny songbirds through the Pacific
Northwest.
Oregon State researchers have
already found that warbler pop-
ulations declined in areas with
young forests but in some cases
increased in old growth forests
despite the warming climate. Re-
searchers Hankyu Kim and Adam
Hadley are conducting a new ex-
periment to determine why the
warblers are doing better in old
growth areas.
Kim has gotten inside the head
of the hermit warbler. He knows
what makes the tiny songbird tick.
“These birds are territorial in
the breeding ground, they set up
their territories and they fight with
each other to defend it,” he said.
Kim uses a nearly invisible
net strung between two fishing
pools, a plastic warbler decoy and
a looping bird-call recording to
lure hermit warblers so they can
be captured, tagged and released.
The tiny radio tag allows Kim and
Hadley to track the birds through
the dense forests of the Oregon
Cascades.
They hope to determine how
the birds use the forests and
whether they use the temperature
variations between the top and
the bottom of the forest canopies
to mitigate the effects of climate
change.
Hadley says it’s possible that
when it’s warmer, the birds stay to
the bottom and more shady parts
of the trees.
Learning how the birds move
could help explain how warblers
and other species deal with rising
temperatures.
“We have these long-term pop-
ulation monitoring routes across
the Northwest. And a surprising
number of species are declining,”
said Oregon State professor Matt
Betts. “Actually, more than about
half of the species that live in a
forest like this are in decline.”
Earlier research by Oregon
State’s Betts and Sarah Frey found
warblers declined in areas with
young forests, including those
replanted after clear cut logging.
But hermit warblers are doing bet-
ter in other areas.
“In landscapes that had more
older forest, their population de-
clines were lowered, or even re-
versed, even though the climate
has been warming,” Frey said.
Jeff Carlsen to step down from conference center
Christian
conference
center director
steps down after
35 years
was berating someone at the
front desk. While Knoch’s first
inclination was to give the guy
a piece of his mind, Carlsen lis-
tened and decided to upgrade
the room.
“I was so frustrated,” Knoch
said. “But then he said ‘This
guy needs to be here. Let’s not
make his behavior distract us
from why we’re here, which is
to serve people.’
“His focus was solely about
someone having a spiritual ex-
perience,” Knoch said. “That’s
a good representation of who
he is.”
By Brenna Visser
Cannon Beach Gazette
After more than 22 years
as executive director of the
Cannon Beach Christian Con-
ference Center, Jeff Carlsen is
ready to retire.
“Why now? I’m tired,” he
said wryly.
First as program manager
and then as director, Carlsen
has served in a leadership
role at one of Cannon Beach’s
largest employers for more
than 35 years, overseeing
what has been a period of im-
mense expansion and change
for the 73-year-old Christian
retreat.
Since he started in 1996,
a staff of 22 has grown to be-
tween 70 and 150, depending
on the season. Yearly guest
attendance has doubled from
about 7,000 to more than
15,000 people.
Carlsen has been involved
with the purchase of five new
properties, the building of
two new structures — with
the third set to be complete in
2020 — and starting a Chris-
tian preschool, an after-school
program and the Christian
Culinary Academy. In 2008,
he faced the realities of keep-
ing a nonprofit afloat during
an economic recession.
So he’s ready for his down-
time, he said. At the end of the
year, he will hand the organi-
zation off to Marc Hagman,
who will begin as executive
director starting in January.
“Even with the challenges,
the ups and downs, it’s been a
wonderful place to be. It real-
ly is all about the people, the
relationships,” Carlsen said.
“It’s so gratifying to watch
people grow. It’s been a great
35 years.”
Coming to faith
Carlsen came to his faith
at a time in his life not often
associated with religiosity —
freshman year of college.
He was studying to be a
teacher at the University of
Washington when an old high
school friend introduced him
to Christianity.
The path forward
BRENNA VISSER
Jeff Carlsen gives a tour of the new construction at the center.
“That was back in the ear-
ly ’70s. It was a crazy time in
this country. There were lots of
people searching for answers.
It took a period of time of ex-
ploring to see if it was some-
thing I believed in,” Carlsen
said. “And after awhile it just
made sense.”
It’s a decision that changed
his life, leading him to com-
bine his love of faith and teach-
ing as a program director at a
Christian camp in California
the following summer. That’s
where he met his wife, Jean.
They have two children, Adam
and Erin.
The Seattle native’s jour-
ney to Cannon Beach began
when he saw a job posting
for a program manager at the
conference center in 1983. He
remembered being impressed
by the facilities and enamored
by the beauty from past con-
ferences he had attended, and
decided to make the leap from
California.
When he arrived, the confer-
ence center in many ways still
operated like a mom-and-pop
operation, he said. Still a rela-
tively small outfit, in the mid-
1980s the camp faced financial
and cultural challenges. Much
of the clientele was steady but
aging, sourced mostly from the
original generation that came
to the conference center when
it first started in 1945. Money
was tight — not an unusual sit-
uation for nonprofit camps that
rely heavily on volunteer labor
and donations to survive.
As program director, he
focused on making the cen-
ter more attractive to younger
families in the hopes of in-
spiring the next generation of
guests and conference par-
ticipants. With the increased
efforts, over the course of two
decades the budget ballooned
from $600,000 to about $4 mil-
lion a year.
“There weren’t young-
er families coming, so it’s
been encouraging to see that
change,” Carlsen said. “Seeing
the next generation develop
over time is exciting.”
wondering what exactly the in-
stitution does, Carlsen admits.
To a certain extent, that’s by
design.
“We feel our role is to sup-
port the community in any way
we can, but not to be political.
It’s not our calling,” he said.
“Our purposes are spiritual. It
doesn’t do any good to be di-
visive.”
While Carlsen avoided di-
visiveness in a public sphere,
some long-term coworkers say
difficult times and moments
of conflicts are where he has
shined brightest as a leader.
“Whether it was hard times
or good times, you always felt
respected, no matter who you
were,” said Sam Ortig, who
has been maintenance manager
for 40 years.
That served the organiza-
tion well during the recession,
when visitor volume dropped
dramatically, leading Carlsen
to implement across-the-board
pay cuts to stay afloat.
“Even in ’08, when we
were all trying to find cuts and
it was stressful, he always was
reasonable,” Ortig said. “He
always wanted input. He was
always fair.”
Paul Knoch, the human
resources director, recalled a
time when a very difficult guest
While the conference cen-
ter is on good financial footing
and seeing record attendance,
Carlsen feels confident he’s
giving his successor a healthy
institution to grow upon, he
said. But the conference center
will always have to be ready to
evolve.
Like many other employers
on the North Coast, staying ful-
ly staffed remains difficult. Part
of what has kept the confer-
ence center stable has been its
unique ability to house about
75 percent of its staff, miti-
gating the affordable housing
issue most employers point to
when hiring.
But between not paying
comparable wages to the other
businesses in town and find-
ing workers who are professed
Christians, hiring will continue
to be a challenge.
The conference center, like
other Christian entities, will
have to adapt and evolve to
stay relevant to a generation
growing more secular.
“The new director gets to
face that challenge,” he said.
No one can predict how the
center will evolve in the next
20 years. But Ortig did have
some advice for Carlsen’s suc-
cessor.
“Copy Jeff,” Ortig laughed.
A spiritual purpose
As the institution contin-
ued to grow financially and
geographically, the center con-
tinued to keep a notably low
profile — sometimes so low it
leaves some in the community
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