I am the race director for the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run.
Athletic Life:
Running: I’ve been running since 7th grade (1977). I played basketball and football in high school along with running cross country and track. I eventually ran year-round my senior year. My high school times included 4:33 for the mile and 9:46 for 2 miles (3200). After high school I ran one year at the University of Oregon but I was in way over my head and stopped running competitively after the first year. I took up running again when my wife and I moved to Arizona in 1988. I focused on the roads and ran 32:07 for 10k (1991 Phoenix New Times 10K), 1:10 for half-marathon (Las Vegas), and 2:33 for the marathon (1991 CIM).
I eventually tired of pounding the pavement and took up trail ultramarathoning when we moved back to Eugene in 1996. Since then I’ve run a handful of ultras a year. My bests include 3:34 for 50k (Autumn Leaves 1998), 6:27 for 50 miles (LeGrizz 1997), and 18:25 for 100 miles (Western States 100).
My goals in running include getting a 10 year buckle at The Western States 100 mile. I’m currently at nine finishes (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2017). In 2019 I want to run UTMB and finish the Euchre Bar Massacre in the North Fork of the American River canyon.
Climbing: I’ve been climbing rock since 1986. I started with traditional climbing and eventually got into the steeper stuff and sport climbing in the early 90s. Some of my climbing accomplishments include doing The Nose of El Capitan with my brother in 1998, and redpointing my first and only 5.13, Churning in The Wake, at Smith Rock in 1999. I still climb regularly today.
Old Man Looking Sharp in Yosemite
Family Life:
I have been happily married to my wife, Laurie, since 1986. We have no kids, but several cats. The current count is one, both adopted us. We moved from Eugene, OR to Auburn, CA in 2013.
Rocky
Volunteer Life:
Ski Patrol: Although now an alumni, I was an active member of the Willamette Pass Ski Patrol, a National Ski Patrol volunteer organization, for 15 years beginning with the ’99-00 season. I served a four-year term as Patrol Director of WPSP and then a four-year term as the Oregon Region Director.
Waldo 100k: I’m a co-founder and former race director of Waldo 100km Trail Run (formerly Where’s Waldo 100k) held at Willamette Pass Resort each August. The race was first run in 2002. In 2007 the race was the USATF masters 100k trail championship, in 2008 and 2009 it was the open and masters 100k trail championship. It was in the Montrail Ultra Cup from 2009 to 2012. The challenging course is unique in the amount of single track and the outstanding views of Waldo Lake.
Trail Work: Working with the High Cascades Forest Volunteers and the Pacific Crest Trail Association, I clear about 30-40 miles of trail, including the PCT from Willamette Pass to Charlton Lake, in the Middle Fork District of the Willamette National Forest and the Bend/Ft Rock District of the Deschutes National Forest. In addition to bucking the blowdown each year, my trail running friends and I have re-opened some abandoned trails and built several bridges. Between the mountain bike, horseback riding, trail running, and other user groups, the Middle Fork is able to maintain over 500 miles of trail each season. It is very satisfying working on public trails that we all use.
Professional Life:
Education: BS (’86), MS (’88) Computer and Information Science, University of Oregon. For my masters project I implemented a parallel logic programming virtual machine and compiler.
Employment: After graduating in ’88 I was hired by Motorola as a software engineer and worked in a small artificial intelligence research group in Scottsdale, AZ. I primarily worked on defense related projects using C and Prolog.
I was employed at the University of Oregon from 1997-2012 and have worked as a system administrator and instructor. I was originally hired as a Unix system administrator for the Computational Science Institute. I’ve also been an instructor for the Computer Science Department, teaching databases, business applications, and X window programming. My most recent position was a system administrator for the Geophysics Group in the Geological Sciences Department. We had a small computing environment based on Mac OS X. Hardware included 11 Xserves, 10 of which were in a compute cluster.
I began a professional career as race director in January 2013.