A sustainability professional with a big passion for rivers. He was a founding Board Member for Rivers for Change. He has guided rafting trips in the US, Nepal, Kenya, and on the White Nile in Uganda, and has previously worked as an environmental educator for Save the Bay. When conditions allow, he still squeezes into a twenty year-old baby-blue Perception Dancer and kayak commutes to work across the San Francisco Bay from his home in Oakland.
While going to college in Montana he fell in love with anything in nature as well as sharing his passion with others. After college Kyle became a Wilderness and California state EMT. This and his outdoorsy side led him to guiding and ski patrolling. Since then he has been a safety coordinator for several races including the California-100, Gorge Downwind champs and the California Gold Rush. Kyle currently is a Tour Operations Manager/ Backpacking Guide for Just Rough in it Adventure Company and while he stares at the Colorado river from shore more than from behind oars these days he has seen the importance of preserving endangered rivers and believes that the best way to protect them are to let people compete on/against them. Safely of course.
Sue is a long time river enthusiast, starting at the tender age of 2.5 on family canoe trips in the Ozarks. In addition to a lifetime of recreational pursuits on rivers, she was also a member of several US whitewater kayaking and rafting teams, competing on rivers all over the world. Her accomplishments include winning the National Whitewater Kayak Slalom Championships in 1982, and several world championships as a member of the US Women’s Whitewater Rafting Team. In 2016, Sue retired from a 27 year career as a hydrologist with the US Forest Service, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. During her career, she and her staff completed numerous watershed, stream channel, and meadow restoration projects throughout the Tahoe Basin (including the Upper and Middle Truckee River) in collaboration with a wide variety of state and local partners. She currently lives in Truckee, CA with her partner Lisa and her seven year old son Seth.
Emily always loved paddling, but mostly did it at camps growing up then vacation rentals. When she got on a standup paddle board in 2012, she was hooked. Less than six months after first getting on a paddle board, she completed a 13-mile race from Ft Baker to San Rafael and has since completed the race across Lake Tahoe, the Cal 100 and the Yukon River Quest. Emily’s love for paddling has led her to her work as a volunteer for environmental nonprofits as well as a SUP instructor to help others get on water.
Kiki was raised on the desert rivers of the southwest. Growing up in a harsh desert environment where water is sacred and rivers are often dammed for conservation, the power of free-flowing rivers and healthy riparian ecosystems have motivated her both academically and professionally. In 2011 she graduated with a bachelors of science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona. Currently, Kiki works as a river guide in the Grand Canyon and Idaho and spends her free time chasing rivers internationally, teaching yoga, and instructing Wilderness First Aid courses with NOLS.
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