Member: Policy and Cultural Advisors
Matthew (he/him, Tucson, AZ) works as the Executive Director of the Arizona Trail Association, the nonprofit organization responsible for the protection and maintenance of the Arizona Trail – the only completed National Scenic Trail that welcomes mountain bikes. He has worked in the fields of natural and cultural resource management, environmental education, journalism and outdoor adventure. He lives in a remote off-the-grid homestead in the Sierrita Mountains southwest of Tucson, where hundreds of miles of roads and trails encourage bikepacking right out his front door.
Tom (he/him, Anchorage, AK) is an attorney and long-time mountain biker and backcountry skier with a passion for enjoying and protecting our public lands. He previously lived in Boise, ID where he worked for Outdoor Alliance, a national coalition advocating for public land conservation and access for mountain biking, climbing, paddling, and backcountry skiing, and he’s now working in Alaska as a law clerk. At Bikepacking Roots, he brings his direct experience advocating for outdoor recreation with the Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service, state governments, and the federal government.
Joe (he/him, Prescott, AZ) began racing mountain bikes in 1992, and soon learned that chasing people around in neon spandex wasn’t as fun as pushing your bike uphill on chunky jeep roads and sleeping out under the stars. He took his first bikepacking trip around 1995 before the word “bikepacking” existed. Since then, he’s tackled routes in the Appalachians, the Rocky Mountains, the Southwest, and Alaska. Joe is an expert on public lands management and policy and has worked in the natural resources management field since the late 1990s as an educator, guide, trail builder, forester, ecologist, and conservation advocate. He has worked with the Center for Biological Diversity, The Wilderness Society, Resource Legacy Fund, Save the Dells, Arizona Wilderness Coalition, and numerous other advocacy groups.
Renee (she/her, Fort Collins, CO) – Renee is from the Diné (Navajo) Tribe and is an advocate for public lands, public health and environmental issues, and land conservation. She holds a BA degree in Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the Colorado School of Public Health. She advocates for these issues by combining her culture’s rich oral tradition of storytelling with photography, film, writing, social media, and mixed media artwork. At the heart of her storytelling is her relationship with the sacred land because it is inseparable from the Diné way of life, culture, and identity. This is why mountain biking is more than a sport she’s passionate about, it is one of the ways she maintains this necessary connection. By sharing her stories she wants to encourage others to (re)connect with the land we all love to explore, and change the narratives surrounding land issues in ways that can lead to policy and cultural shifts across society.
Theo (he/him, San Francisco, CA) has been a passionate biker and advocate for the outdoors for the last 20 years. By trade, he is a cultural resources specialist and has worked throughout western North America, from the Yukon to California. His time spent in the wilderness instilled passion to expand an awareness of the depth of time and variety of human experience within these landscapes. He enjoys finding new ways to interact with the people and world around him, a direction which provides endless opportunities for advocacy. Bicycles provide a unique and immersive experience in all environments, opening up even greater opportunities for personal engagement and building stronger connections with cultural and natural landscapes, both past and present.
Kat (she/her, Orinda, CA) has 20 years of environmental consulting and project management experience. She leads and directs multi-disciplinary teams conducting environmental review and analysis for a variety of California Environmental Quality Act and National Environmental Policy Act projects. Her project experience includes a wide variety of projects, but of late has focused on urban infill. She has a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning with an emphasis in Environmental Planning from Portland State University (Oregon) and a Bachelor of University Studies with an emphasis in Physical Geography from the University of New Mexico. She is also a certified planner and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.