Mark Staples, new Director of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center

I’m excited by the choice of Mark Staples as the new Director of the Forest Service side of the Utah Avalanche Center. (The UAC is a Forest Service – nonprofit partnership.) Mark will replace me as Director; I retired from the Forest Service August28th and Mark was selected in mid August from a field of very qualified candidates. And yes, I was very relieved to not be on the selection committee since I know all of the top candidates quite well.

Mark comes to us by way of Bozeman, Montana. The Utah Avalanche Center has a long history of Directors from Bozeman who graduated from the outstanding Montana State University Snow Science Program, starting with Duain Bowles who founded the UAC in 1980, followed shortly by a youngster named Bruce Tremper in 1986. Mark Staples was a professional ski patroller at Big Sky Ski Area in Montana before he earned a MS in Engineering at Montana State University as part of the MSU Snow Science Program. He did his thesis on the energy balance at the snow surface and weak layer formation. He has worked for the past eight seasons as a backcountry avalanche forecaster for the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center in Bozeman. He is an avid skier, snowmobiler, and ice climber. He recently delivered a well-received talk on educating snowmobilers at the International Snow Science Workshop in Banff, Canada in the fall of 2014

I’ve always been impressed by Mark, watching him through the years as a rising, young star in the avalanche world and working with him on two or three national committees. He’s a no-ego kind of guy who spends most of his time listening carefully, but when he speaks, people listen. I think he’s going to do a great job and I’m really excited to see what the next generation can do with the Utah Avalanche Center with fresh ideas and a different perspective. Let’s all help to welcome Mark. You can meet him at the Black Diamond fundraiser on September 10th.

Bruce Tremper