Business Community

Waterfront Alliance promotes Clare Dunis to executive director

A new voice will lead the Gig Harbor Downtown Waterfront Alliance starting in 2026. And that voice has a charming Australian accent.

Clare Dunis, an Australian who grew up in Melbourne, becomes the alliance’s executive director starting Jan. 9. She replaces Carrianne Ekberg, who led the organization for nearly three years.

Ekberg said she loves the job, but she wants to take the opportunity to spend more time with her pre-teen kids, Milo and Cora.

“It’s been an awesome experience. I love the organization and feel like we’ve done some great things over the last three years,” Ekberg said. “But I’m ready to hang out with my kids. I’m really fortunate that I can take this time and just take a break.”

Dunis currently serves as the organization’s special projects and outreach director. Applications for that position closed Dec. 18.

The nonprofit alliance is a Main Street organization and is active in the Washington State Main Street Program. Its purpose is to “unite community and Waterfront District stakeholders to encourage economic vitality and preserve historic character.”

Clare Dunis, left, and Carrianne Ekberg in Harbornest, which shares a building with the Gig Harbor Downtown Waterfront Alliance.

Coming to America

Dunis came to the U.S. for work, but she came to Gig Harbor for love.

She graduated from the Australian Institute of Management in Melbourne and launched a career in corporate agency sales and marketing. She worked for a U.S.-based agency in Australia before transferring stateside in 2011.

Dunis met her husband, Gig Harbor High School graduate Mark Geist, after moving to the U.S. In 2019, they came to Gig Harbor to provide care for Mark’s aging father.

The COVID-19 pandemic began the next year, which would’ve made it difficult to move at that point. Dunis didn’t really want to anyway.

“We really have to come to feel like Gig Harbor is home,” Dunis said. “For my husband, it’s returning home and for me its, ‘We’ve found a home.’ ”

Joining the alliance

Dunis started a business, Bower and Bare, which makes natural botanical home, health and skin care products. She became involved in the Local Makers group that stages pop-up markets in the Gig Harbor area.

Ekberg recruited her to join an alliance committee. She became the manager of the Waterfront Farmers Market, the alliance’s highest-profile event, in 2024. This year, she served as special projects and outreach director.

Clare Dunis with one of the candles for sale inside Local Whimsy in 2023. Photo by Julie Warrick Ammann

Among her projects in that role, Dunis helped lead the Community Currents community art project; helped create the “I (heart) GH” brand, with merchandise available on the alliance website; and stayed involved with the farmers market.

Ekberg said Dunis and Meg Norris, her successor as farmers market manager, “turned it back into a farmers market, where there were fresh eggs and fresh fish and things people want when they come to a farmers market.”

Continuity

Ekberg plans to remain an active volunteer with the organization. As Dunis said, “she doesn’t get to go far away.”

And Dunis doesn’t plan any huge changes immediately.

“I think Carrianne has put such an amazing foundation in place, a lot of it is just continuing what she’s started. … I’m a big believer that, even when things are great, (you should ask) is there an opportunity to iterate and tweak them, make them better?” Dunis said. “That’s what I’ll be focused on out of the gate.”

The Community Currents mural, part of the Chalk the Harbor festival, was one of Clare Dunis’s projets at the Gig Harbor Downtown Waterfront Alliance. Photo by Vince Dice