Board & Staff

Posted: April 17, 2010

Board

Nancy Bale
Board President
I grew up in central California, and from early childhood enjoyed the Sierra Nevada mountains with my family. In my early twenties I hiked the John Muir trail, spending six weeks in the roadless backcountry. On that trip, I learned to feel at home in wide-open spaces. Moving to Alaska was simply the next phase in that education for wilderness. Arriving at the entrance to the park just as the Parks Highway was opening, I witnessed the birth of the shuttle system and the decline of private vehicle access. At that time, about 50 people lived near the entrance of the park in winter. In the years since I arrived at Denali, the growth of tourism, spurred by improved road access and hotel development, has brought both benefits and challenges to the park and its environs, and made the work of DCC as important now as it ever was. As the Denali region changed over those years, my life did too. I went from local employee, working for over 20 summers at Camp Denali, to community nurse in Anchorage. I went from bush resident for over 20 winters on the Tonzona River, surrounded by those wide-open spaces I’d craved since the Muir trail, to a city life. DCC keeps me grounded in both my past joys and hopes for the future.

Jean Balay
I first came to Denali in 1987, immediately after graduating from college. I began my career here as a seasonal concessions worker, but for the past 10 years I’ve worked year round on the historic restoration crew for the National Park Service. I live in a cabin in the Panguingue Creek Subdivision. The Denali area will always feel like home to me, and I hope that, along with DCC, we can all work to keep it a place where we all love to live, work, and play.

Anne Beaulaurier
When I first arrived in Denali to work during the summer of 2003, I was awestruck and speechless. In fact, I don’t think I uttered much more than a necessary “yes” or “no” when asked by my coworkers if I was enjoying myself, or if I needed anything. Suddenly, in the vast, wild reaches of Denali, I had much more than I had ever dreamed of. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest under the tutelage of my parents who enjoyed sharing outdoor endeavors with the family. In college, while studying ecology at the University of California-Berkeley, I melded my interest in the natural world with academic studies and developed a fascination for the interconnectedness of every community. Here in Denali, I consider it a privilege to participate in the year-round community—to watch the stormy weather move in from the south, hear the hoot of an owl after dark, follow lynx tracks down the ski trail, share a ridgeline with caribou while hiking, and celebrate with neighbors the spring return of migratory birds. In this world, everything needs a voice in order to have its interests considered. I have always been thankful for DCC’s participation in important conversations as the voice of the land and of this Greater Denali Ecosystem, including its human inhabitants. It is a pleasure to be able to serve on the board and help to keep this voice heard. When not working on issues, you are likely to find me skiing, helping neighbors train their sled dogs, driving a bus on the park road, or leading hikes at Camp Denali in the summer.

Nan Eagleson
I have lived in the Denali area with my family, which includes a team of sled dogs, for over 20 years. I graduated from Colorado State University in Biology and soon afterwards headed to the Canadian far north, where I worked in tourism and wildlife for 7 years, before coming to Alaska. I live in Denali to experience the wilderness surroundings firsthand and explore my naturalist interests on a daily basis. I am involved with DCC because of concerns with the continuing struggle over proper uses of our natural heritage of wild places which I feel are continually threatened with development and exploited for economic opportunity at the expense of preservation. I am presently the chief naturalist and head instructor at the Denali Education Center and enjoyed many years working at Camp Denali, in the heart of Denali National Park. I am on the Middle Nenana Fish and Game Advisory Council, helped co-author the Birds of Denali, and if my son Jeff were still on the Healy Hockey team, would be a hockey mama for Obama!

Charlie Loeb
I arrived at Denali National Park and Preserve as a volunteer interpretive ranger in 1988, an experience which introduced me to the National Park Service, the life of a seasonal ranger, and Denali. I completed a graduate degree in regional planning at Cornell University while working seasonally at the park, and then spent 3 years employed as a professional economic development planner on California’s north coast. Denali called me back, and in 1996 I took a job as branch manager for the Alaska Natural History Association (now Alaska Geographic) at Denali, and then spent 6 years as a NPS planner and a year managing KTNA radio in Talkeetna. At present, I am spending much of my time chasing my 6-year-old daughter.

Cass Ray
I first visited Denali in 1997—and told my daughter that when I eventually retired, after twenty years of teaching, I would return and live in the Denali area. As I type these words, I’m marking the fourth-and-a-half anniversary of my arrival in Denali as a permanent resident. The area immediately felt so right for me that as I switched off the car that late afternoon, I turned to the friend who had driven with me from Chicago and commented, “I’m home. I’m going to be here for a very long time.” And that was in a blinding Thanksgiving snowstorm! Maybe one of the reasons that blizzard and Alaska’s winter temperatures felt right was that I had just spent twenty-six years outside Buffalo, New York (which some consider the snowfall capital of the western world). And I know I must live within sight of majestic mountains. But the real reason that Denali and its environs felt so right, and continue to feel so right, has to do with the nearly twenty years that, nearly every summer, I spent weeks solo hiking and camping in Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and the two seasons that I volunteered there, leading hikes and tours. One couldn’t help but recognize how essential it is that we work to protect and preserve these very special places set aside by the citizens of this nation. That lesson has been only confirmed by my years in Denali; this is one of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet, and it is under increasing pressure from so many sources. Among so many other factors, the materialism and commercialism increasingly gripping so much of prosperous western society too often threaten the preservation of our natural wonders. One of the things that I like best about living in McKinley Village is that, through several months of the year, it’s hard to practice materialism, hard to spend even a dollar; one can’t help but focus on the things that truly matter—and this park and its environs matter.

Jared Zimmerman
I first came to Denali in 1999 to explore the park’s backcountry. I never forgot the awesome wildlife sightings along the park road and the sensation of feeling like the first person ever to explore the Wyoming Hills. I returned to Minnesota at the end of that summer to continue studying at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Years of traveling and studying in Latin America inspired me to move to Nicaragua. After graduating, I worked for two years as a volunteer with Witness for Peace, educating people from the United States about how international banking and trade policies from Washington, D.C. create a global economy that makes rich countries richer and keeps poor countries poor. In 2004, I answered the call of the wild and moved to Denali National Park to mush sled dogs. Now Bridget Borg and I live outside of Healy, spending as much time as we can exploring the park by dog team. I hope that people from all over the world will always have the opportunity to feel like they are discovering the park for the first time.

Hannah Ragland
Born and raised in Northern California, I moved to Alaska in 2006 after receiving a BS in Natural Resource Planning and Interpretation from Humboldt State University. I have worked as an interpretive ranger in Redwood and Denali National Parks, and currently spend the winter season working with kids at Tri-Valley School in Healy. I am a proud co-owner of some stellar sled dogs, and recreate with them out my front door in the Panguinge Creek subdivision. I have enjoyed many adventures in the Stampede area and look forward to many more. The Denali region is a beautiful place, and my goal is to see it remain that way.

Staff

Julia Potter
Community Organizer
As I grew up in north central New Jersey, many a day was spent tromping through the woods and nearby swamps and creeks. From when I was very young, my mother inspired a love of all things natural–birds, plants, and animals–as well as respect for the earth and our environment. Following high school I moved to Florida and continued my love for the outdoors, hiking, and birding throughout the state. After many years of being prompted by a friend that I really should come to Alaska, I made the decision to do it. So in September 2003, I packed my car and headed out across the country. Thirteen days and about 5,000 miles later I landed in Fairbanks. In 2005 I moved to Healy to handle sled dogs. I immediately fell in love with Denali. Wanting to do more than just handle dogs, I applied for the position of Community Organizer with DCC in the fall of 2006. My life hasn’t been the same since. I now live in Cantwell with my dog Scoobie and continue to spend time doing what I’ve always done–tromp through the woods, the creeks, and now the tundra. I hope that my work with DCC will inspire others to care about and protect Denali, and the surrounding wild places I love, for future generations.