Stephanie Pettinga

Stephanie recently became a proud Maryland resident in 2024 after living in Houston, Texas for the past 20 years. She graduated with honors from Sam Houston State University with a BAAS in Business and Management. She was raised in Kansas City, Missouri where her love of historic preservation began, having lived in the city where the Pony Express originated. She has had the pleasure of working with diverse commodities in both private and public sectors, along with being an educator teaching 4th Grade, coding, and robotics. In 2020 she and her husband became certified sailors, shortly thereafter they sold their Houston home, bought a Pearson-28 sailboat, and moved to the Gulf Coast where her adoration of the maritime industry flourished.
There she worked as Port Base for Disney Cruise Line and volunteered with the Galveston Historic Foundation at the Seaport Museum, which further influenced her passion for maritime conservation. In 2023 an Annapolis trip to admire the Chesapeake Bay was all it took to begin the process of making Maryland home. Her daughter and son-in-law are also planning to join them soon! In her free-time she enjoys traveling, sailing, and exploring all this beautiful region has to offer.