Board Chair
Born in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dave spent most of his childhood outside. His father, a famous classical composer and close friend of Ansel Adams, helped foment a deep connection between the arts and nature from the day Dave was born. His first backpacking trip was with the Sierra Club at age 12, and soon after he was leading 40-50 mile trips with his friends through the Sierra Nevadas, Yosemite, and Big Sur. By the age of 18, he had traveled and climbed in Russia, Austria, France, Germany and Italy. During college at Syracuse University in NY, Dave made numerous road trips across the country, camping and mountaineering along the way, before spending his summers in Lake Tahoe. One summer, Dave and a friend just kept going…all the way to Panama. Dave came to Colorado in 1996, joined the National Ski Patrol at Berthoud Pass, and that was that…CO has been home ever since.
Flash forward 25 years and Dave has been to over 40 countries, and with his wife, Heather, they parent 3 adventure-seeking kids. Recent travels include trips to Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Tanzania, Switzerland, Japan, Greece, Australia, Alaska, SE Asia, and many places in between to ski, scuba dive, mountaineer and meet and learn from new people. He is heavily involved in the entrepreneurial community, is an angel investor, and started his long-standing staffing company in 2001. In 2016, after a hip replacement, he quickly turned the negative into a positive and organized a group of 25 to charity-climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Collectively, they raised over $103,000 for the O’Brien School for the Maasai, where Dave serves as a board member. In 2019, Dave was part of a team in a National Geographic adventure race, which is set to air in 2020. Dave also helped to start the Playing For Change Foundation, and was a long standing board member for the Entrepreneur’s Organization.
“We were taking our final steps to the top of Uhuru Peak, the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was my 2nd time on top, but this time I was alongside my 10 year old son and wife. Tears were freezing out of our eyes. Every step was heroic. The sun was rising and we could see the arc of our planet over the horizon. I have never felt so overwhelmingly proud, and I felt wholly aligned with purpose, parenting, and perseverance.”
Vice Chair & Secretary
Elizabeth is a leader, mentor, advisor, connector of good people, mom and speaker.
Having created two successful business ventures – a renowned, full-service branding agency, Revolver New York, and a beauty & luxury group, BESPOKE, as a sub-division of Publicis Groupe- she now travels the world in search of beautiful culture, art, community, history and food (of course!). As a Partner at Revolver New York, Elizabeth has built the agency to represent lifestyle and luxury Hospitality, Residential and Wellness brands in the U.S. and internationally. With the goal of bringing joy & inspiration to each project, she has successfully serviced clients across these select verticals including, hospitality, residential, office, wellness and lifestyle.
A proud connector of individuals and groups to create the best collective, Elizabeth is always hungry for a challenge, ambitious for success and eager to create change in the world. As an Advisor Board member for SAIRA Hospitality, a member of HeyMama, a co-founder of the non-profit, paper fox (to support No Kid Hungry), former co-chair of the LGBTQ+ Family Alliance at St. Luke’s, and a Guidance Committee Member for the Independent Lodging Congress (ILC), Elizabeth is committed to spreading inclusivity and diversity wherever she can.
A graduate of Georgetown University, with a certificate from Harvard Business School Online in “Sustainable Business Strategy”, Elizabeth currently resides in New York City with her husband and two children.
“The full power and potential of Stoke for me is embodied by watching others find their personal Stoke Moment. Things like watching my husband cross the finish line of the grueling UTMB race in Chamonix and complete his first triathlon, helping my daughter summit a via ferrata in Andermatt, and seeing my son dominate the local mountain bike park. It’s this thrill of helping others achieve their goals that has always filled me with Stoke. My personal Stoke is largely derived from food, which invites me to travel and meet diverse individuals and interact with communities and cultures across the globe. Connecting with humanity and celebrating what makes all of us unique yet interconnected is pure stoke for me!”
Treasurer
Born and raised in Northeastern Oregon, Zach is part of a long lineage of outdoor enthusiasts. Growing up Zach spent his freetime hunting, fishing, camping, backpacking, skiing and generally exploring any activity that kept him outside in the local Blue mountains or not so distant Rockies. Nature has since remained his primary source of mental, physical, and spiritual healing.
Zach’s adventurous upbringing and natural orientation towards the service to others led him to join the US Navy, serving from 1999-2007 primarily operating in Southeast Asia and the Middle East as part of Maritime Expeditionary Squadron Seven. After the Navy, Zach completed a degree in finance and economics from Columbia University and developed skills in business strategy, finance, and operations through his work with a San Francisco startup, and consulting for fortune 200 companies.
In early 2016, Zach joined Wend Collective, a social impact fund that enables him to combine his career skills and desire to serve with his personal passion for the outdoors. Wend is in continued service to a variety of causes, including initiatives and partners that provide access to the healing power of nature and explore ways to rebuild more meaningful and regenerative relationships between people and the land on which we live.
“While my time in the Navy gave me plenty of experience on the water, it wasn’t until after the Navy that I fell in love with sailing. On one adventure, my friends and I sailed from Antigua to St. Barth’s, which is about a 90-mile singcros. The day we made sail was the first time my co-skipper and I sailed through high sustained winds with swells that dwarfed our small boat and prevented us from seeing the horizon. The dark skies and sheer force of wind and water were physically and emotionally challenging to a couple of inexperienced sailors, but also intensely awe-inspiring and beautiful. Nothing is more capable of making me feel small and insignificant in my life than the ocean…in all the right ways.”
Kristin was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, and spent summers in Grand Teton National Park. Her parents were heavily involved in the origins of adventure travel; international experiences and foreign culture are a part of Kristin’s blood. Her childhood memories are filled with bucket list trips. Her father was both a mountaineer and instrumental in setting up companies that could support expeditionary travel. He directed Mountain Travel Nepal, helped to start Himalayan River Exploration, Nepal’s first river rafting company, was an early guide with Exum Mountain Guides in Grand Teton National Park and was Vice President at Geographic Expeditions.
Kristen was raised trekking the Himalayas, riding elephants and tracking tigers in the jungles of southern Nepal, spending her summers with many of climbing’s legends based out of a tented cabin near the shores of Jenny Lake. These combined intercultural experiences and upbringing translated into a passion for travel, diverse culture and getting outside. With a background in education and fluent in Spanish, Kristen’s travels have taken her all over the world with a common theme of a passion for rivers, water and the outdoors. Now based in Bozeman, Montana, Kristen represents Cuba, Costa Rica and Guatemala as a booking agent for fly fishing adventures with Yellow Dog Flyfishing.
“In 2000 I completed the first guided raft descent of the Rio Baker in Chile, which splits the northern and southern Patagonian ice caps. During that summer, I lived a six hour drive on a single-lane dirt road, the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway) from the nearest airport, good restaurant and grocery store. We ventured into town once a month to resupply and as I adapted to Chilean farm, including a propensity to carry a sharp knife in the back of my pants, gaucho style, and a love of wool as the only material to keep you warm for days in the often inclement weather of Patagonia. I also learned how to kayak that summer, which led me to spend additional time in the Futaleufu River watershed working with a nonprofit, FutaFriends, to protect the river from a potential dam. The more time I spend in Patagonia, the more I fall in love with it.”
Clark was introduced to backpacking, rock climbing and whitewater kayaking in the early 90s, and he never looked back. After receiving a BA in Adventure Education and Latin American Studies from the nation’s premier outdoor leadership program, Prescott College in Arizona, Clark spent 10 years in Cusco, Peru working as a head guide and operations manager for several local and international tour operators.
As a guide, his whitewater exploits include numerous first commercial descents of far flung river drainages in the Andes and Amazon. During his decade in Peru, Clark met and married his wife Jacqueline, a dentist from Scotland. Together they founded the non-profit organization “Dental Project Peru” which provides free emergency dental care to impoverished indigenous communities of the Peruvian Andes.
In 2007 Clark moved to the Bay Area and joined the award-winning tour operator, Geographic Expeditions. As Managing Director for Latin America, he led the company’s Central and Southern America division. Clark was recognized, three years consecutively, by Condé Nast Traveler as the world’s top travel specialist for Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.
Clark now runs his own marketing and consulting company (info), which assists small, independently run lodges in Latin America realize their potential in the marketplace. The lodges he works with are deeply committed to conservation, sustainability and community tourism. He resides in beautiful Marin County, California, and together with his wife and two boys can be found surfing, mountain biking, hiking and kiteboarding almost every day.
“Just recently, I taught my 10 year old son to kiteboard here on the San Francisco Bay. One day, about 3 months in, while still learning to make safe decisions and polish skills, he said to me; ‘Dad, I want to set up my kite, rig my lines, launch, go out and ride, come in and land my kite all by myself without you being involved…’. He nailed it ALL that day, it was the moment everything came together, and the look on his face of pride and stoke was just utterly infectious. Apart from the pride of a father, I was just so stoked to think of what adventures lay ahead for him in learning this outdoor pursuit so young. The places it would take him around the world, the people and cultures he will meet and the adventures and misadventures that are all sure to come. Being able to pass along a passion for great outdoor sports was the most rewarding, stoke filled moment of my parenthood experience so far.”
