Staff Bios

YNF Project:
Cleanup and restoration of hazardous waste sites in the Columbia River Basin.

Background:

Davis Washines/Yellowash, member of the Yakama Nation, retired from law enforcement in 2014 after 30+ years of service, including three terms as Chief of Police for the Yakama Nation and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. He has served on the Executive Board of the Yakama Tribal Council and on Yakama General Council as Executive Chairman.

As a youth educator, he directed the Yakama Nation Youth Summer Camp for several years and was a paraprofessional and middle school guidance counselor for the Wapato School District, as well as a Yakama language instructor at the high school. 

He is on the Board of Trustees for Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences and on the Native American Advisory Board as Vice-Chairman for the Burke Museum at the University of WA.

Yellowash is called upon in the tribal communities of the region to conduct traditional ceremonies because of his knowledge of his native language, culture and oral traditional history of native people, land and natural resources. He also carries the Oglala Lakota name of "Yello-Wash-Tay" bestowed by a Lakota elder at Crazy Horse School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in 1995 at a traditional gathering.