Who We Are

Del Langbauer, President:  Del handles our grantmaking in Alaska, provides strategic and investment guidance, and manages the work of the Board of Trustees.  Del taught for 22 years in the Religion Department and Asian Studies Program at the University of Puget Sound.  His area of personal research was the history of religions and comparative philosophy, with a focus on the implications for environmental ethics of symbols and values in traditional Asian cultures.  He was involved in the development and operation of the University’s Asia Study-Travel Program, and traveled to Southeast Asia, northern India, and Nepal for teaching and research.  Del has been an active outdoorsman and long-term volunteer environmentalist.  He began serving as environmental program advisor to the Harder Foundation in 1978.  Later, he became Vice-President of the Foundation and after retiring from the University in 1994, was elected as its President.   

Bob Langbauer, Treasurer: Bob has long enjoyed working with state grassroots conservation groups and has decades of experience in investment management.  He manages the Foundation investments from our office in Naples, Florida.

Kay Treakle, Executive Director:  Kay manages the overall operations of the Foundation and handles our Grantmaking Program for Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  A native of Tacoma, Kay joined The Harder Foundation in 2006.  Prior to joining the Foundation, Kay was a Program Officer in the Environment Program at the C.S. Mott Foundation, in the Reform of International Finance and Trade grantmaking area.  Kay has also been the Executive Director of the Washington DC-based watchdog group, the Bank Information Center, where she worked for 10 years advocating for transparency, accountability, environmental and indigenous rights policies at the World Bank and other international financial institutions.  For 15 years, Kay worked in various capacities as a senior manager, campaigner, and board member of Greenpeace US and Greenpeace International.  She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), and the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity.  Kay is married to a science teacher, has a son who works in motion picture advertising. She spends her spare time watching birds, gardening, and reading.   

Isabel de la Torre, Administrative Manager:  Isabel manages the grants administration process and administrative operations for the Foundation.  She has worked as a reporter, newspaper editor, and environmentalist for 20 years. She has worked with local and national governments around the world, and NGOs working on international institutions on trade, finance, energy, forestry, fisheries, toxics, environmental justice, indigenous peoples, coastal management, women, and human rights issues.  Isabel organized and cofounded the environmental networks Industrial Shrimp Action Network (ISA Net) and the South East Asia Fishers for Justice Movement (SeaFish for Justice), and the Tacoma-based Earth Economics.  Isabel worked as the Executive Director of ISA Net and the United States Society for Ecological Economics and Special Projects Director of Earth Economics before joining The Harder Foundation.  She has a graduate degree in law and a bachelor’s degree in communications, major in journalism.  Isabel is studying martial arts (Filipino Martial Arts, Thaiboxing, and Jiu-Jitsu) at the Lenderman Academy.  She enjoys reading, cooking and, more so, eating, and loves to ride her bicycle around her neighborhood.