CRITFC Staff
Jill-Marie Gavin
Public Information Specialist
Office of the Executive Director Department Off-site teleworker
Biography
Jill-Marie, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), joined CRITFC’s Communications Department in February of 2023 as Public Information Specialist. Named Kaa’Aaw Laykin (Morning Light on Water), she grew up between Kootenai Tribe of Idaho country, the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Portland, Oregon. She studied journalism at Portland Community College and Mt. Hood Community College, where she became the first Indigenous editor of The Advocate newspaper.
Jill-Marie’s career has spanned journalism, social services, and elected leadership. She began as a reporter intern for the Confederated Umatilla Journal in 2011, later working full-time there before serving as a social services caseworker and returning to CTUIR’s Communications Department as a radio assistant. From 2017 onward, she led the CUJ as editor and created award-winning radio programs including Mission Minute and Tacmeywii Nixyaawii, co-hosted with Boots Pond. During her 2019-2021 term as CTUIR Board of Trustees member-at-large, she served as the Tribe’s delegate for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and other critical committees while continuing her media work.
Her journalism has earned 15 Native American Journalist’s Association awards across radio, photography, and writing. At CRITFC, she works with the Communications Director to share information about river and salmon restoration in the Columbia River Basin, including historic First Food harvests at Willamette Falls. As a Cayuse woman, she remains passionate about cultural preservation, Treaty Rights protection, and the sovereignty of the four Columbia River Treaty Tribes.
Education
- A.A., Journalism, Mt Hood Community College, 2012