Two Islanders joined the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council executive board last week, filling seats vacated by departing board members in the past two months.

Chris Beck and John Staczek were appointed to the board July 13, replacing board members Jolene Lamb and Melodie Woods.

Lamb, a longtime board member and treasurer, resigned in May.

Woods, a board member since February 2008, stepped down because of an unexpectedly busy work schedule requiring her to travel for several months out of the year.

Other board members seemed excited to have new blood on the board.

“I am sincerely thrilled that people of such caliber and enthusiasm want to join the board,” said council board president Jean Bosch.

The new members will bring “new energy,” said board member Hilary Emmer.

“I’m hoping that will energize everybody,” she said.

Beck and Staczek come from different perspectives, but both said they are eager to work in their new quasi-governmental roles for various community causes.

Beck, a legal investigator, artist and Island resident for 37 years, said the time she’s spent serving on local organizations’ boards will lend itself to her new position.

She described herself as a “color inside the lines” person, who appreciates rules, bylaws and mission statements.

“I know what the board’s supposed to do, and also what the board’s not supposed to do,” Beck said. “I think the council has done great things and has the potential to do even greater things.”

She said a strength she’ll bring to the council is her public and media relations experience.

She’s looking forward, she said, to working closely with the community and local newspapers to ensure that Islanders know what the community council is up to.

“The council is actually doing some pretty interesting stuff,” she said, including helping bring seminars about carbon sequestration and auxiliary dwelling units to Vashon.

“But if people don’t know, then they can’t come.”

She said she’s eager to work on “all those many things that face the Island that are a little different than everywhere else.”

Staczek, 66, moved to Vashon more than three years ago and said he’s glad to serve on the council board in a community that has welcomed him and his family wholeheartedly.

“I thought, ‘This is an opportunity to give back to an Island that when we came here was very embracing,’” he said.

Staczek is a professor of management and the treasurer of the Westside Water Association.

Among the Island issues he’s interested in, he said, are transportation, maintaining quality of life and the Vashon town plan.

Before Woods announced her resignation earlier this month, Beck and Staczek were jockeying for the one seat left open by Lamb’s resignation. Lyman Houghton was also interested in the position, but dropped out of the race earlier this month.

“When I saw that there were two good candidates vying for one position, I thought that would be a good time to resign,” said Woods, who said her time away from the Island “wasn’t good for the continuity of the board.”

The new members, she said, will add much to the nine-member board.

Staczek “will bring a real voice of calm and reason,” Woods said. “He’s a perfect fit for the council.”

And Beck, Woods said, “is great — a no-nonsense person. When she wants to get work done, she gets it done.”