Our Crew
Brady Ryan
Brady is the founder of San Juan Island Sea Salt. Along with his wife Leah and his kids Sawyer and June, he loves making salt! Check out his podcast Happy When Curious!
Favorite Place on San Juan Island: South Beach during a winter storm
Favorite Product of Ours: Popcorn Blend is an addiction.
Fun Fact: He loves early morning runs, the darker the better!
Leah Wymer
Leah is Brady's wife and is the sweet to Brady's salty. She is the lead baker at our Salt Shop, so if you're addicted to our cookies, it's her fault!
It was her idea that led Brady to try making salt in a greenhouse, and she was there in the early days, labelling jars in the living room!
Favorite Product: Popcorn Blend
Favorite Place on SJI: American Camp trails
Fun Fact: Will always be a collegiate soccer player at heart. And thought Brady's name was Tom for a long time when we first met.
Tyler Ryan
Tyler was employee number 1 and Brady's brother. He is our master of flavors and has come up with the recipe for almost every seasoning we make. He's also often the friendly smiling face at our store in town!
Favorite Product: Madrona Smoked Pepper
Favorite Place on San Juan Island: The Fields above South Beach.
Fun Fact: Tyler makes amazing bean to bar chocolates in his spare time! Find them all here
Essine Kilpatrick-Boe
Essine is employee number 2, our Operations Manager and is the queen of the warehouse. She manages our shipping crew, manages the production of all our blends and is our main customer sercice person.
Favorite Product of Ours: Kimchi Salt mixed with Popcorn Blend
Favorite Place on San Juan Island: Reuben Tarte Park in the moonlight.
Fun Fact: First ever job was wrapping caramels with SJI Sea Salt
Ian Nixon
Ian is one hardworking dog. He is the head of all things salt for us. In charge of our harvesting, drying, processing and packaging of our natural salt. He is also often working our shop in town and sharing his love for salt with our customers.
Favorite Product: Reserve Salt and it's beautiful little crystals.
Favorite place on San Juan Island: The West Side at sunset.
Fun Fact: Nickname is Angel.
Anna Nelson
Anna has been with us off and on since 2019, wrapping caramels, filling jars, labelling jars and shipping your orders! She is now in charge of blending all of our seasoning blends-the chief of the spice kitchen!
Favorite Product: Kimchi Salt
Favorite Place on San Juan Island: Roche Harbor Quarry
Fun Fact: Loves playing video games!
Lindsay Johnson
Lindsay is Leah's sister and she is our behind the scenes helper, preparing our crew for shipping days.
Favorite Product: Natural Salt because it goes perfectly with EVERYTHING!
Personal Detail: My garden is my happy place.
Favorite spot on the island: Walking through the forest at Jakle’s with my kids.
Barb Jensen
Barb has been a caramel wrapper for years and in 2021 became the lead of that crew. She does an amazing job of coralling an awesome group of folks who hand wrap 10,000 caramels a week!
Favorite Product: Daily Grind
Favorite Place on San Juan Island: Fir Oak Farm in San Juan Valley
Fun Fact: Birding is my passion and I love to take my friends birding around the county and the PNW.
Jonna Sanders
Jonna started as a caramel wrapper for us and now helps out in the kitchen filling blends and labelling.
Favorite Product: Madrona Smoked Pepper
Favorite Place on San Juan Island: Zylstra Lake Preserve
Fun fact: I love Bollywood movies and cooking Indian food.
Hayley Erica
Hayley is an awesome part of our warehouse crew, filling and labelling blends and shipping orders!
Favorite place on SJI: Being among the Island Moss, Madrone, and Gary Oak trees.
Favorite Product: I love the Garlic and Friends along with the Seafood and San Juan Blend. Also, a big Yes for yeast on popcorn!!!
Fun fact: Walking stick insects make great pets. However, not much beats creating alongside my two kiddos.
Madison Miller
Maddy has been with us since the beginning of 2024, and has done just about everything! She does a ton of baking for us at the shop, has worked the shop as a salesperson a ton, has harvested salt, and shipped and filled and labeled jars.
Favorite Product: I love using Seafood Blend on salmon with lemon wedges
Favorite Place on the Island: Eagle Cove for swimming and free diving
Hobby: Mixed media painting inspired by the nature of the islands
Izak Friar
Izak has been with the crew since September 2024, working his buns off harvesting salt, processing salt, and doing tons of other things on the team!
Favorite product: Popcorn Blend! I really Enjoy cooking fried chicken with it.
Favorite island location: Lime Kiln Point for the sunset
Favorite thing to do when not at work: Hiking local trails
Caramel Wrapping Crew
Once a week a group of about 20 folks join us in our commercial kitchen to hand wrap 10,000 of our Salted Honey Caramels. These folks are the hidden workers of our caramels and they are downright awesome!
Read a great story about their team from one of their own here.