Here are short bios of your Ozark Trail Association board members.
All directors are members of the Advisory Board, which meets quarterly to establish OTA goals and direction.
Many of the directors are also members of the Executive Board, which meets monthly to coordinate the day-to-day activities of the Ozark Trail Association.
When I retired from the National Guard in 2000, I decided to take up backpacking and hiking. I first learned about the Ozark Trail Association from a sermon delivered by Robert Smith during a backpacking seminar that he and Danny McMurphy put on in 2003. Since then I have been regularly volunteering in the construction and maintenance activities of the OTA. I am interested in seeing the organization continue fulfill all aspects of its mission statement.
When not on the trail, I work for the City of St. Louis as a civil engineer. For the past ten years I have been the City's project manager for the public works projects in Forest Park that have been publicly funded or jointly funded by the City and Forest Park Forever. I thus have a great deal of experience in public/private partnerships. I believe I can offer some valuable in sights as the OTA moves forward with its mission.
I've never been one to say "No" and along with a heart for volunteering for worthy causes... so when a chance conversation with a friend about the OT, I ended up at an OTA construction outing on the Middle Fork in 2005 and I became hooked. When my girls were younger, we were involved with Girl Scouts, family camping trips, floating the creeks and rivers to hiking the trails in the parks we camped in. Not a stranger to any work or task, I retired from Wal-Mart after 20 years and currently work as an Adm. Asst. for an Alternative school, do part time retail sales with Bath & Body Works and in the summer months I am a seasonal naturalist for Trail of Tears State Park. Becoming involved with the OTA/OT has provided me opportunities to not only meet a very diverse group of volunteers from all over the state, but also through training to become a USFS certified sawyer and crew leader while sharing my passion for the outdoors with kids of all ages at events big and small. I haven't hiked or been on all of the OT but manage to be out on the trail as much as I can through maintenance and construction events that give me the opportunity to savor the diversity of OT. Living in Cape Girardeau MO with my husband Calvin; our two daughters Casey and Emily are also volunteers as well as boy friend Marcus, and husband Derek and our 2 1/2 yr old grandson Stratton. As a family, we also have adopted a 3.1 mile section of the Middle Fork - John Roth Memorial section. The Ozark Trail is an on going project for future generations and I hope that the opportunities we give volunteers and their families will help us see the completion of the Ozark Trail as we all strive to carry out the mission of the OTA.
Steve has always enjoyed the outdoors having hiked and floated in the Missouri Ozarks as a kid with his dad. He hiked the Ozark Trail for the first time in 2001. Steve began volunteering for the OTA in early 2003 when he attended his first board meeting. Since then, he became President in 2005 and Board Chairman in 2007. He is a professional civil engineer with experience in Transportation Planning, Roadway Design and Water Resources Engineering. One of his visions of the trail (among others): to become one of the nations foremost hiking trails, that showcases some of the most unique and beautiful landscapes on earth. He lives in Kirkwood with his wife, two daughters, golden retriever and two cats. He is a currently President of the OTA.
Description Coming Soon
Greg remembers his first hike at age 5. On a sunny winter day his dad took him hiking on the property of a friendly farmer ... where they saw rabbit and field mouse tracks in the snow and ate lunch by a warming campfire on the bank of a clear stream that was full to the brim with "snow melt". During a busy life raising three kids and working in the field of child welfare, Greg floated the entire Meramec River is stages and enjoyed day hiking when time was available. After the kids were raised, he took up backpacking at the urging of a Minnesota friend. Since then he has solo hiked all sections of the OT, except two, and enjoyed backpacking with friends on various long trails including Lake Superior (Minnesota), Wind Rivers (Wyoming), and Mount Elbert-Massive (Colorado), and Grand Canyon (Arizona). He deeply enjoys the beauty of Missouri's woods and streams, in all seasons, and looks forward to helping the Ozark Trail Association finish the dream ... a continuous hiking trail to the Arkansas border. Greg has four young grandkids that he hopes will follow in his footsteps (literally) as they progress through childhood. Professionally, he is Executive Director of Family Resource Center in St. Louis.
Jeff has been a member of the Ozark Trail Association since December 2002 and has served on the Board of Directors since January 2004. Before joining the OTA, Jeff did most of his hiking/backpacking with the Boy Scouts where he accumulated over 475 miles over a 10 year period that included a trip to the Philmont Scout Ranch and a 50 mile backcountry trip in the Grand Tetons. With the exception of the Marble Creek and Wappapello sections, Jeff has taken part on maintenance and/or construction events for all of the Ozark Trail Sections. Jeff currently serves as the Board Secretary, is an active Adopt-A-Trail volunteer, a former American Hiking Society Missouri Volunteer of the Year, and also has the Red Jacket Award.
Lisa is the co-owner of the Alpine Shop.
Jeff retired from the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service in 2011 with over 30 years of service in several locations around Missouri. His last assignment was at the Big Springs Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D) Project office in Van Buren. He worked with the Big Springs RC&D Council and other non-profit organizations and the communities from the counties of Carter, Ripley, Wayne, Butler, and Reynolds, and together worked on a variety of natural resource and economic development projects. Jeff has been an Ozark trail user for many years and is an active Adopt-A-Trail Volunteer and Section Coordinator for the Current River & Between The Rivers sections.
Born and raised in Southwest Missouri I have enjoyed riding Missouri Foxtrotter horses on the trails and traveling with them to a variety of other states. I’ve always needed the outdoors. I am a Leave No Trace Master Stock Trainer and believe that we must all work together to protect and preserve our trails and public lands. I’m a strong believer in the multi-use trail concept. I have been a USFS Certified Sawyer for five years. I have served on the Show-Me Missouri Backcountry Horsemen Board for five years and have served as the Chairman of the Board for two years. We have adopted a 7 mile section of the OT in the Karkaghne section. In my opinion, the OT is the best example of how a trail should be built and maintained. On a professional level, I am the co-owner of Rains and Martin School Buses and served in the US Army Reserves for 14 years and served in Desert Storm. I have been married to Tammie for 25 wonderful years and we have two great children.
I currently assist in operating the Bicycle Fun Club for Trailnet and was one of the founding board members for The Bicycle Fun Club. I have been building multi-use trails for 3 years with GORC including numerous work days as crew leader.
As a user, I had hiked around on trails in parks since my youth and, my trail riding experiences began in the early 1980's. In 1989 I helped mark the Lost Valley Trail in Weldon Spring. Now 16 years later, while revisiting the trail, I have seen how trail design has greatly evolved for the better. I want to repay those trail builders that came before us and incorporate modern multi-use trail standards to create a more sustainable trail system for future trail users.
I began building trails with my siblings through the Ozark woodlands on our family farm in southern Missouri. While in reality it was only a small acreage of woodlands, as a child it was an endless wilderness stretching the imagination for days of adventure. As I grew older, my desire for larger unfragmented landscapes increased. I have since had the opportunity to backpack around the globe, but my heart remains close to the rich diversity flowing throughout the Ozarks. I became hooked to the Ozark Trail Association on a small trail building outing in 2006. For me the Ozark Trail is more than a trail through the woods; it is an access that can unite people to their natural environment and instill an ethic for its conservation and protection.