Voice of Vashon’s Executive Director Kate Dowling is stepping down from the island radio station at the end of this month.

She’s wrapping up a five-year tenure at VoV in order to care for her aging parents closer to her home in Bellingham, Dowling said. She’ll also be taking on a new role as the capital campaign manager for the Whatcom County Council on Aging, a nonprofit which is building a new senior center in Bellingham.

Dowling and her family moved to the island in 2015, and over her decade on Vashon she’s volunteered at numerous island institutions including the DOVE Project and Vashon Center for The Arts. She was briefly a reporter for The Beachcomber until she was caught in a round of pandemic-induced furloughs at the paper’s parent company Sound Publishing.

Then, on April 1, 2020 — as the penumbra of the coronavirus pandemic descended over the country — she was hired as the executive director at Voice of Vashon.

“Those were really intense days,” she said, recalling the daily health and safety newsletters produced by VashonBePrepared. (The organization has now scaled back to publishing newsletters every other week.) She met most of the volunteers and board members over Zoom.

But VoV had strong systems, board members, volunteers, producers and members of the Emergency Alert Team in place to weather the blows, she said. “I was walking into an organization with deep roots.”

“Kate got us through the pandemic, and in fact, we thrived, largely due to her grace under pressure, and her ability to guide people and lead them,” said Rick Wallace, a Voice of Vashon board member since 2009. “It’s been a marvelous experience for all of VoV … to have somebody so graceful helping us get through from day to day and long term.”

Despite being a part-time job — Dowling said it can be about 20 hours per week normally, spiking up to a full-time schedule during fundraisers — her role is no small feat.

The director oversees radio programs from talk to local sports, the island’s 24/7/365 Emergency Alert Service, public access TV, and broadcasts of public events such as the annual graduation and Strawberry Festival parades, among other charitable events and fundraisers. As a nonprofit, those efforts are powered by grants, donations and underwriting.

“We think of ourselves as a mini broadcast conglomerate,” Wallace said. “There aren’t too many little radio stations that actually are also TV stations, and emergency alert systems.”

Dowling has “been marvelous” at managing that complex operation for half a decade, he said: “It’s like she was conducting an orchestra, but there often was no sheet music. Dealing with the day to day cash flow, as well as producing programming is a very complicated and big challenge.”

VoV’s board Vice President and Treasurer Jon Flora called Dowling “a gem to work with” and someone who committed herself to Voice of Vashon and the nonprofit’s work.

For her part, Dowling said that Vashon “won my heart forever.” She cited the reach of the Emergency Alert System, VoV’s website rebuild and the nonprofit’s connection to the community as the pieces she’s proud of during her time there.

“Hearing people say that they’ve just moved to the islands and had heard about the Emergency Alert System and signed up immediately, I believe is a huge win,” she said.

As executive director, Dowling succeeded Lisa Breen, who in turn took the top job from former station manager Susan McCabe, who now hosts “A Vashon Minute” on VoV.

After moving off-island to West Seattle, Dowling moved to Bellingham a year and a half ago to be closer to her parents, and had been commuting to the island ever since.

“My parents, no matter what role I’m taking, what I’m doing in my life right, [they are] my absolutely 100% focus,” she said.

That said, Dowling will continue helping the station for a month — through September — after her last day. And don’t count her out of island life.

“I said I would never not pick up the phone,” Dowling said. “I love my old neighbors. I have dear friends on the island. It’s not like I will never be there. I just need to make sure that Voice of Vashon is set up for the next person. … I’ve so much enjoyed this role. I’ve learned so much from … such different personalities and talented and dedicated people. This is an organization that I feel strongly will be here for the next 150 years, and I’m so honored to have been a part of it.”

The Voice of Vashon Board of Directors was set to meet the evening of Tuesday, August 19 — after The Beachcomber’s print deadline — to discuss the organization’s next steps and its search for a new leader.

They hope to hire someone soon, but it’s too early to say whether the organization will have an interim executive director in the meantime, Wallace said.

“We’re eager to have a new executive director,” Wallace said. “We’ve had three executive directors in a row who’ve been incredibly good. … (and) we have to have somebody in charge. We have to have a conductor.”

That said, the organization is robust and those involved know how to play their parts during the transition period, Wallace said: “We can get through this without going through the process of having an interim executive director — but that’s going to be up to the board.”

Captain Joseph H. Wubbold III — a retired Chief of Operations for the U.S. Coast Guard, enthusiastic Point Robinson lighthouse tour-giver and host of the weekly VoV program “From the Captain’s Chair” — said that in ways big and small, Dowling showed devotion to the station, such as by making personal calls or messages to donors.

She also helped sell raffle tickets in VoV’s fundraisers on her own personal time, and “she did it no matter what was going on in her personal or family situation, always with great cheer,” he said.

“That’s important to me — that when you got a job to do, you pick it up and roll it out. She did that every time. And for that, I will always love her.”