Board changes at WTA

Each year Washington Trails Association brings on a few new members and says goodbye to great friends who transition off the board. At our July board meeting we said goodbye to four trustees, welcomed three new, and elected new board leadership.

Healthy non-profit organizations take seriously the task of board development and transition, and far too many worthy missions suffer because of failure to manage these changes wisely. WTA has been blessed these past two years to have Craig McKibben as our board president, and he has brought a new level of professionalism to our board processes. Our July board meeting consisted of a great deal of board leadership work, and it was at this meeting that Craig officially handed the board president reigns over to Rob Shurtleff.

Everyone has tremendous respect and admiration for the professional, dedicated leadership Craig provided, and Rob knows he has big shoes to fill and he is excited to begin.

Other board leadership changes include Stephen Tan as chair of the Advocacy committee, Carole Bianquis as chair of the Fundraising committee, and Craig stepping into the role of Board Development chair. Doug Breckel will continue as our Finance committee chair, and Todd Dunfield continues as our Youth committee chair. 

In addition to changes in the board leadership, we have had turnover in membership as well. Some had to leave due to life changes, and some had run the full length of their terms and term limits keep them from continuing. Departing WTA in this official capacity were Kirk Clothier, Dave Egan, Michele Coad, David Schoenborn, and Chad Lewis. Every member of the WTA community should feel an enormous amount of gratitude for the leadership these folks have provided. We will miss them and their professional contributions in our meetings, and hope to see them around on the trail.

New to WTA are some outstanding individuals who will immediately benefit our mission: Peter Barrett, Karen Daubert and Jerry Keppler. You'll hear more about them in the time ahead, but know that we are tremendously excited to welcome their expertise and energy to our board. They all love to hike, and are passionate in their support of our mission. 

Our mission at WTA thrives today because of the great work of past board members, and we will thrive far into tomorrow with the work being done by this latest generation of volunteer stewards. If you ever meet one of them on the trail, be sure to thank them, because trails would suffer if they weren't doing their jobs well.

To read more about WTA's board of directors, go here.