Peggy and David Beller moved to the islands when they met in 1997. Prior to that, Peggy was a hard working single parent intent on making the best life possible for her children and the family pets.
She started her career as a bank clerk in Seattle and climbed the ranks to ultimately becoming the Senior VP of commercial real estate for a Florida regional bank.
Besides executive positions in various trade associations, Peggy was also an active board member of two non-profits established to provide low income/affordable housing. Her primary achievements in that capacity were to secure corporate investors in need of tax credits, as well as helping to establish a banking consortium for the purpose of providing low cost credit to these non-profits.
What can only be explained as a mid-life crisis, Peggy left her finance career in 1995 and bought a retail business in Sonoma, California. Fortunately an event known in her family as Parent Trap ‘97 brought an end to that endeavor and landed her in Friday Harbor.
Throughout her life Peggy has felt a special connection to animals. She mucked out stalls to satisfy her horse-crazy gene, and always managed to wear her parents down when it came to dogs, cats, fish, and birds.
Since coming to Friday Harbor, she has pared down her menagerie to just dogs (crow friend notwithstanding) whom are well known at Treasure Hounds. There they proudly volunteer at Peggy’s side, and assist her in training new volunteers.