|
Randall Osterhuber Treasurer  |
Randall is a researcher at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Randall lives with his wife and daughter on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. |
|
Don Triplat Secretary |
Don has been a board member with Sierra Avalanche Center since 2006 offering expertise in event organization, business management and development and serves as the board secretary. He is an avid skier with fifteen years of backcountry experience, holding A.I.A.R.E level II, Wilderness First Aid, and CPR certification. Within the local ski community he coaches the Mighty Might ski program at Sugar Bowl and volunteers for kids programs developing telemark and backcountry skills. Don’s work career includes ten years as a Forest Research Technician for the USFS, Consultant Services for private land owners in forest health management, Arborist work, and five years as a working partner in a restaurant and catering business in Truckee, CA. Currently he works for an environmental restoration company in Lake Tahoe doing erosion control projects and water quality assessment. He volunteers for Truckee River Watershed Council as a stream water quality assessment team member and has adopted Squaw Creek and Alpine Creek as his monitoring locations within the Truckee River Watershed. Currently Don continues his education in Cranial Sacral work and plans on completing a degree program with the Milne Institute in the next few years. His contributions to SAC include a season of PR work at weekly slide shows, a monthly film series, and fundraising parties to support the continued success of Sierra Avalanche Center. |
|
Justin Broglio President  |
Justin works as the Executive Director for the Tahoe City Downtown Association on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. He has been involved with the SAC since 2005 and helped develop the online lift ticketing fundraising model used to sell, distribute and promote the SAC Ski & Ride Day Fundraiser lift tickets. His work on the board also includes procurement of several operational funding grants, vital community partner and sponsor relationships and a long-term relationship with the SAC's snowmobile partner company - Thin Air Motor Sports. As an avid backcountry skier, snowmobiler and winter recreation enthusiast he has a strong passion for avalanche awareness to all user groups and unlimited, free access to the SAC advisory. Justin is also an annual contributor to Powder Magazine; director on the North Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce Advisory Board; public relations consultant for Alpengroup.org; and freelance journalist and social media consultant. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Ecology/Conservation Biology and a Minors in Journalism and Public Relations. |
|
John Swanson Director  |
John is a local emergency physician, teacher, father of two budding skiers, and ski enthusiast. He brings a background in fundraising to SAC, and dreams of one day building a SAC endowment. |
|
Todd Offenbacher Director  |
Todd Offenbacher is an adventure climber, skier, and TV host for the Resorts Sports Network in Lake Tahoe. He has climbed first ascents around the world including 14 routes on El Captain in Yosemite, two with a disabled climber. He is a recipent of the Mugs Stump Award and the Lyman Spitzer Grant from the American Alpine Club. Todd skis the backcountry and local resorts during winters in Lake Tahoe. Todd has completed his AIARE Level 2 Avalanche training. |
|
Cameron Bordner Director |
Cameron grew up in Durango, Colorado and has been a skier and outdoor enthusiast his entire life. After graduating college, he did post-graduate work at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and during that time began ski patrolling at Eldora Mountain Resort. As a ski patroller, Cameron’s interest in backcountry skiing and avalanche awareness, as well as ski resort safety and risk management, grew. He attended various avalanche courses and started the avalanche dog program at Eldora, while also becoming the Director of Safety there. While living in the Boulder area, Cameron competed on the Rocky Mountain Telemark Series and did extensive ski film and photo work. Eventually, Cameron left ski patrolling to accept a position as a ski area risk consultant with Acordia Resort Services, a nationally recognized ski resort insurer. It was that job that brought him to beautiful Truckee, California. Cameron later took the Director of Risk Management position at Heavenly Mountain Resort, in South Lake Tahoe, California. After immersing himself in ski resort risk management and liability for virtually his entire career, he decided he wanted to do more to help and defend the ski industry. As such, he applied and was accepted to the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, where he earned his law degree. Cameron continues to live in Truckee and practices ski resort and recreation defense in Incline Village, Nevada with the law firm Lauria Tokunaga Gates & Linn, LLP. In addition to being a director with the Sierra Avalanche Center, Cameron is on the board of directors for the Tahoe Truckee Bar Association and volunteers with the Tahoe Adaptive Ski School at Alpine Meadows. In his spare time, Cameron loves to telemark and nordic ski, mountain bike, cycle, practice yoga and surf. |
|
Chip Morrill Director  |
I'm 51 years old, married, have two daughters in college and a third daughter in high school. I have worked as a patroller at Heavenly Ski Resort for fifteen seasons. I've been enjoying backcountry skiing since the mid 70's with numerous trans sierra tours. I have a background in guiding, kayaking, climbing, cycling, and surfing. I hope to be doing these things for a long time. |
|
David Paradysz Director  |
I grew up skiing at a small hill in Western Massachusetts called Mt. Tom, where both my parents were longtime ski patrollers. Following in their footsteps I began ski patrolling at the age of 15. I was able to work summers and during college breaks while earning a B.S. in Recreation Management from Thomas College in Waterville, ME. After college I relocated to sunny southern California with some college friends before pursuing a career in the ski industry. After enjoying the summer off I moved to Lake Tahoe where I took a job as a ski patroller at Heavenly Valley. In the spring of 1987 I was given a golden retriever puppy, Doc, from a fellow patroller and began training and searching with WOOF Search Dog Teams. For over 10 years we responded to hundreds of searches through out the west. During the summer months of 1989 I was fortunate enough to work at a small ski field outside of Queenstown, New Zealand as a Ski Patroller. Though The Remarkables was very small, only 3 lifts, the avalanche exposure and mitigation program was extensive. Upon returning to the States I realized working as an avalanche professional was what I desired to do. Though involved in the Avalanche Program at Heavenly, I knew it wasn’t enough for me. In 1990 Doc and I began work with the Kirkwood Ski Patrol. It was here during the winter of 92-93 when Doc located avalanche victim Jeff Eckland. At that time it was reported to be only the third time in North America where a trained avalanche dog had located an avalanche victim alive. To this day Jeff sports a tattoo over his heart of Doc. In the mid to late 90’s I was fortunate enough to work on exchange in Australia at Falls Creek Ski Resort located in northern Victoria for several seasons as a ski patroller. Upon returning to the states I was offered the Risk Management position at Kirkwood which I held for three years. Though I was able to still assist in the Snow Safety program from time to time, I missed being directly involved in the avalanche program. In 2003, when the position as Asst. Ski Patrol Director was offered to me, it was an easy decision to make. I was asked to join the Sierra Avalanche Center in 2004 and have been enjoying the additional challenges ever since. |
|
Jason Oelkers Director  |
Jason is the Sierra Avalanche Center’s Sponsorship Director. With over 10 years of marketing experience between the outdoor and telecommunications industries, he works with our sponsors to come up with creative ways to help the Center. Jason’s goal is to make sure all of our sponsors receive the greatest public recognition at events and on our website.
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a major in Psychology and Business, he moved out west and worked as a wilderness Instructor in Montana. Then migrated to San Francisco where he managed the Athlete and Expedition Department for The North Face. With the Sierras in his backyard, he focused all of his free time rock/alpine climbing and backcountry snowboarding. Eventually, he moved on to larger terrain giving up his job to travel and climb internationally. Highlights include Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Thailand, Costa Rica and Canada.
Jason currently resides in Truckee, CA where he manages operations for an internet provider. |
|
Jeremy Jacobson Director  |
Jeremy Jacobson resides in Truckee, CA and is employed as the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association’s Leisure Sales Manager in Tahoe City. Originally from Los Angeles, he first discovered Lake Tahoe on a high school ski trip and dreamed of making it his home, which it has been for the past nine years. Jeremy is a “lake-wide” expert, having worked for many years as Kirkwood Mountain Resort’s Sales Manager before moving north in 2006 to work for NLTRA representing all of the ski resorts in North Lake Tahoe. After years of viewing snow advisories on the SAC site, Jeremy volunteered his time and became a Marketing Advisor to the Board of Directors in 2006. In 2008, Jeremy was nominated onto the Board of Directors. He is elated to have the ability to help fellow backcountry enthusiasts stay safe by assisting SAC with ski resort, community and industry donations. Jeremy “lives” to snowboard. All of his free time is spent riding the Tahoe resorts and the amazing and extensive surrounding backcountry. |
|
Larry Heywood Director  |
Larry Heywood's contributions to SAC include providing direction and oversight to the Board’s activities, technical guidance and direction to SAC’s Avalanche Forecasters, developing and implementing fundraising and marketing efforts, acting as a liaison with the local ski area community and working with SAC’s partner the United States Forest Service. Mr. Heywood has a long professional career in the ski industry and has extensive experience in avalanche hazard evaluation, control and education. He currently is an independent snow and ski safety consultant. When not tracking down the “white beast” he can usually be found fly fishing somewhere in the western states. |
|
David Beck Director |
|
|
Bob Moore Director  |
Bob recently retired from the US Forest Service after 37+ years. He spent the last 25 years as the Winter Sports Specialist on the Truckee Ranger District. Among his duties was the administration of the permits of the local ski areas (Alpine Meadows, Squaw Valley, Boreal, Donner Ski Ranch, Royal Gorge) on National Forest lands and the avalanche forecasting program (as it was known at that time). He coordinated the military artillery used in avalanche control for Region 5 of the Forest Service (California). He usually spent much of the summer months managing large fires as an Operations Section Chief or Safety Officer across the west. Professionally Bob was one of the early members of the American Avalanche Association, served two terms as a Director with Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue and was one of the founding members of the Avalanche Artillery Users Committee of North America. He was nominated and elected to the B-77 ANSI committee for tramways representing recreation within the Forest Service. Bob was the advisor to the Forest Service Regional Office in explosive and artillery use for avalanche control and winter sports. In 2005 he put together the concept of the Sierra Avalanche Center which stared with Brandon as a volunteer forecaster to assist him in the forecasting duties. Previous to that Bob was a one person shop putting out avalanche advisories when the hazard was HIGH or above for 20 years. He served as the Forest Service advisor/representative to the board in the early years ensuring that Forest Service support and resources were available. He was the supervisor of the forecasters until his retirement setting the direction of the program. He has been married for 33 years, has two grown children and 1 Golden Retriever Dog who travels with him in the backcountry. He has lived in the Truckee/Tahoe area for 38 years. |
