2022 Leadership Update
From our former Board President, Ben Ciavola:
"After six years in the role I’m pleased to announce that I’ve officially stepped back from the Presidency of the Copper Harbor Trails Club. We’ve elected a fresh new leadership team, with Adam Yeoman and Casey Krueger as our new President and Vice President, Caleb Wendel as Treasurer, and Lena Wilson as Secretary. I’ll be sticking around, but plan to focus my efforts on specific initiatives while Adam and Casey handle the big picture.
Now is the right time to pass the torch. We have the perfect team in place to take our organization to the next level and it’s important for them to put their own spin on how we get there. The future of mountain biking and human-powered recreation in Copper Harbor is exciting and our current land access, trail building, partners, and events are stronger than ever.
Over the past six years our organization has had a lot of success thanks to the work of a great team. We’ve managed to secure almost $1 million in grants, invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into trail building, constructed the premier backcountry adventure singletrack in the midwest, grown our events, hired our second executive director, and helped launch the Keweenaw Outdoor Recreation Coalition. We’ve collectively built CHTC into a resource for our community that is able to put brand new trail on the ground every single year while updating and maintaining existing trails to the highest standard. To this end we all owe a huge thank-you to (CHTC’s first President) Aaron Rogers and everyone at Rock Solid Trail Contracting for being excellent partners, for establishing East Bluff, and for designing and building the best trails in the country. The trails also wouldn’t be the same without the help of the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge and their investment in beginner trails, permanent land access, and outdoor adventure recreation.
We’ve also been lucky to steward a thriving set of events, including two of the hottest skills clinics in the country, and built our summer-bookend Memorial Day and Labor Day races into weekend-long destination events. Our Women’s Weekend Clinic in particular has been an incredible success, empowering hundreds of ladies to step up their riding game. We’ve partnered with regional organizations including the Singletrack Flyers youth mountain biking group and the Keweenaw Nordic Ski Club’s winter singletrack program to help them achieve their visions, which make our entire region stronger and a better place to live.
The future of the CHTC is extremely bright. We have great new event partners like the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, big plans for new trail development, a fledgling Bike Patrol program, and exciting possibilities for protecting the Keweenaw landscape we all play on. Our Board of Directors is top notch, our Executive Director is locked-in on the mission and killing it every day, our volunteers never fail to step up, and our community is one-of-a-kind.
For my own part, thank you to my wife Lianna, to current and former executive directors Nathan Miller and Lori Hauswirth, our current and past board members, regular members, donors, riders, racers, super volunteers, regular volunteers, landowners, our awesome insurance agent Scott Chapin, the Michigan DNR, the Michigan Trails Advisory Council, Portage Health Foundation, Keweenaw Community Foundation, Keweenaw County, Grant Township, the residents of Copper Harbor, IMBA, and KORC for all the help and energy they’ve provided to get us to where we are today.
See you on the trails!"
