Executive Director

Liz Bergeron
(Sacramento, CA)
Phone: (916) 349-2109
E-mail Liz

On October 1, 2001, Liz Bergeron became the Executive Director of the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA). Although the position was new to her, the world of charitable, nonprofit organizations certainly was not. Quite the contrary, Liz brings more than ten years of nonprofit administration and fundraising experience to her PCTA post.

Prior to joining the PCTA, Liz served as Developmental Director for the Stanford Home for Children, Development Director for the American Red Cross, and Development Director as well as Interim Executive Director for the Sacramento Society for the Blind.

Liz earned a B.A. in Government from California State University Sacramento and an M.A. in Philanthropy and Development from St. Mary's University of Minnesota. Her credentials, however, don't end there - Liz is also a past board member and president of the California Capital Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Originally from Southern California, Liz moved to Sacramento in 1989 to pursue an internship with the California State Legislature. Along the way she fell in love with the area and decided to make it her permanent home.

Today, if you're looking for Liz you can expect to find her either out campaigning to protect, preserve and promote the Pacific Crest Trail, or hiking sections of it. Of course, if you don't happen to bump into Liz on the trail, feel free to drop her an email by clicking here, she'd love to hear from you.

Trail Operations Director

Mike Dawson
20130 - 87th Avenue SW
Vashon, WA 98070-6210
Phone: (206) 463-9087
E-mail Mike

As Trail Operations Director, Mike Dawson is responsible for implementing PCTA policies related to the management of the trail, managing the PCTA trail maintenance program, coordinating land protection activities, and providing public information.

Prior to joining the PCTA, Dawson served as Director of Trail Management and Protection for the Pacific Northwest Trail Association (PNTA) in Mount Vernon, Wash. The Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) runs for 1,200 miles from the Olympic coast to Glacier National Park in Montana. In June 2002, as a direct result of Dawson's efforts, the first section of the PNT was given official federal recognition as a National Recreation Trail.

"I am highly motivated to help make the PCT the best possible trail and the PCTA the best possible steward of this important resource," says Dawson; and with 21 years of experience as the Regional Representative, Central and Southwest Virginia, for the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC), Dawson certainly brings a wealth of relevant experience to the task. The ATC is the national non-profit resource organization that initially built, and continues to maintain and manage, the 2,100-mile, Georgia-to-Maine, Appalachian National Scenic Trail (AT). While at the ATC, Dawson was responsible for the management of 390 miles of AT and one regional office.

Dawson lives in Vashon, Wash., with his wife Tina. His interests include backpacking, canoeing and restoring old cars.

Northern California, Southern Oregon Regional Representative

Ian Nelson
(Ashland, OR)
Phone: (541) 778-3252
E-mail Ian

"I pride myself in getting to know the land on an intimate level," says Ian Nelson, the Pacific Crest Trail Association's Regional Representative for Northern California and Southern Oregon. "I can never know enough about the natural world."

As the PCTA's first-ever staff Regional Representative, Ian's keen sense of observation and passion for the landscape will serve him well. Operating out of Ashland, Oregon, Ian will foster relationships with land management agencies, PCTA members, trail maintenance volunteers, and others working and recreating along the trail in his region, which stretches about 500 miles from the southern border of Crater Lake National Park to the border of the Lassen National Forest and the Plumas National Forest.

Prior to joining the PCTA staff, Ian served as Associate Regional Representative in the Mid Atlantic Regional Office of the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC). The ATC is the national non-profit resource organization that initially built, and continues to maintain and manage, the 2,100-mile, Georgia-to-Maine, Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Over the years Ian has also been a trail crew leader for the Student Conservation Association and taught environmental education. It was during his years as a teacher in Southern California that he was first introduced to the PCT. Ian graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Forestry and Wildlife Resources with an emphasis on wildlife science. When not hiking or maintaining trails, Ian enjoys traveling both in the U.S. and abroad. He is an avid birder and an ultimate frisbee fanatic.

"Ian has experience working with a wide range of people from agency partners, to volunteers who maintain the trail, to students," says Liz Bergeron, PCTA Executive Director. "He also has practical trail building and restoration skills that he honed with the ATC and Student Conservation Association - all-in-all, a great fit."

Southern California Regional Representative

Suzanne Wilson
E-mail Suzanne

The Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) is proud to announce the addition of another Regional Representative staff member, this time in Southern California. Suzanne Wilson comes to us from Leadville, Colorado, where she has spent the last three years enjoying recreation and work opportunities in the Rockies. Although she was born and raised in Virginia, Suzanne's passion for the outdoors and her desire to work to preserve and protect the environment brought her west. Upon graduating from James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley with a degree in Geographic Sciences, Suzanne sought out an opportunity to work for the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI). CFI is a volunteer based non-profit organization and U.S. Forest Service's major partner in building and maintaining trails to Colorado's 14,000 ft. peaks.

During her time with CFI Suzanne played several roles and picked up a wide variety of skills including those necessary to lead both professional and volunteer crews, and the ability to design construction and restoration routes. Much of Suzanne's time spent with the CFI involved interfacing with the Forest Service in order to discuss and obtain approval of all designed routes, base camp locations, crew structures, and new volunteer projects. While leading volunteer projects for trail construction and trail design, Suzanne had the chance to educate members of the trail community in trail skills, highline tram operation, and wilderness ethics. Suzanne has important skills in GPS data collection and using geographic information systems for mapping, which she has honed in her work with CFI and as a Forest Service contractor.

Suzanne brings ambition and enthusiasm with her to Southern California where she hopes to create ever stronger relationships with volunteers and agency partners, and to start fresh programs to benefit the PCT. When Suzanne is not working, you might be able to find her at the local ski hill. If she is not there, look for her backpacking through the canyons as she has recently become an admirer of ancient Indian ruins.

With the addition of Suzanne to the PCTA's staff we launch our second regional office (the first was opened a year ago in Ashland Oregon by Ian Nelson to serve Northern California and Southern Oregon). In the coming years, we hope to build a system of regional offices to help volunteers to expand and strengthen their efforts at a more local level and to serve as a resource and communications hub for volunteers and agency partners.

Central Oregon, Northern Oregon and Southern Washington Regional Representative

Dana Berthold

The Pacific Crest Trail Association has opened its first regional office for central and northern Oregon and southern Washington and has hired Dana Berthold to be Regional Representative for the area. Dana will serve as PCTA Regional Representative for 450 miles of the PCT from the northern boundary of Crater Lake National Park at Highway 138 in Oregon to White Pass at Highway 12 in central Washington.

Dana brings extraordinary experience in trail building and maintenance, crew leadership, youth programs, and environmental ethics to her new position. She has seven years of trail crew experience including more than five full seasons leading volunteer crews for the PCTA, Washington Trails Association, AmeriCorps and Landmark Volunteers, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, American Hiking Society, and Pacific Northwest Trail Association. Dana has a great deal of chainsaw experience, has completed Wilderness First Responder training, learned rigging and winch use from some of the best, and assisted with pack-ins using llamas and mules. During the summer of 2006, Dana trained AmeriCorps and Landmark Volunteers to build rock check dams, crib walls, and turnpikes along the PCT and led a week-long project in the Sierra Nevada for high school students. Her resume also includes five seasons as a camp counselor, naturalist, environmental educator, and backcountry youth trip leader; and she has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Oregon.

On a regional level, Dana has a deep familiarity with and appreciation for the Oregon and southern Washington portions of the PCT. She has solo-hiked much of the PCT through Oregon and taught college courses that focused, in part, on natural resource issues in the Pacific Northwest.

But most importantly, says Dana, "I love volunteer crews because wonderful things seem to happen when people of widely varying ages and backgrounds find themselves digging in the dirt together. It is great to see the satisfaction on people's faces when they have achieved something new. It is tangible, meaningful, and rewarding work and the fact that a national scenic trail can be maintained and supported largely through volunteer labor is one of the most magical aspects of the PCT experience."

Dana will be working with the PCTA's Mount Hood Chapter, the PCTA's High Cascade Forest Volunteers (formerly the PCTA's Mid-Oregon Steering Committee), and local land management agencies to plan and carry out trail projects and develop new volunteer relationships. "One of our top priorities for Dana will be the development of volunteer programs north of Mount Adams in Washington and in the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon," says PCTA Trail Operations Director, Mike Dawson. "The PCTA does not currently have a regional volunteer program in these areas and we'll be looking to Dana to fill in that gap. We're fortunate to have someone with such extensive experience working with trail volunteers and breadth of practical trail-building skills join our Trail Operations program."

As the new Central/N. Oregon and S. Washington PCTA Regional Representative, Dana will work out of Cascade Locks, Oregon. Contact Dana at dberthold@pcta.org, or PO Box 359, Cascade Locks, WA 97014

North-Central California, Regional Represenative

Justin Kooyman
E-mail Justin
Phone: (530) 414-3422

The PCTA is pleased to announce the hiring of Justin Kooyman as the first Regional Representative for North Central California. Justin most recently worked as the Seattle Program Manager for the Student Conservation Association (SCA), managing the Seattle Leadership Conservation Corps, and SCA’s National Conservation Crews in the State of Washington. Prior to that, Justin served as SCA’s Southwest Program Representative. Justin’s work history also includes time spent as a biological science technician for the U.S. Forest Service and as a teacher, naturalist and assistant director for Westminster Woods, an environmental education, residential program working with public schools in California. Justin holds a BA from University of California, Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies.

After leading SCA work crews for seven years, Justin brings a wealth of trail construction, reconstruction and maintenance skills to his new PCTA position. Specifically, in recent years, Justin coordinated and managed SCA’s Western Work Skills Training, designed (with a group of peers) SCA’s Crew Leader Training Curriculum, and annually served as a Work Skills Instructor for crew leaders.

“With the addition of this regional office in North Central California, we’re looking forward to providing a higher level of coordination and involvement to meet the needs of the trail and the trail community in the area,” says PCTA Trail Operations Director Mike Dawson. “From land management decisions, to trail protection issues, to the development of new volunteer resources, to enhanced support of our existing volunteer programs and associated organizations, Justin will be involved in it all.”

Justin began his work with the PCTA this past June. “I feel privileged to be joining a community comprised of many passionate and dedicated people,” says Justin. “And I look forward to connecting with my region and getting to know the trail and landscape on an intimate level. As for the Tahoe Basin specifically, I am thrilled to reconnect to that part of my region as I spent part of my youth living near Tahoe’s south shore. 

After only one month in my new role I have already learned a tremendous amount about the PCT, its needs and challenges.

Additionally, I have met wonderful and dedicated Forest Service partner employees and fellow PCTA staff, and I have seen some remarkable sections of trail.”

Joining Justin in their new home in Portola are his wife Tenaya, daughter Belle, and son Cedar. Outside of work, Justin loves being on the trail and spending time in the backcountry hiking and climbing. And, like fellow Regional Representative Ian Nelson, Justin is an avid birder who keeps a sharp eye out for new birds to add to his yard list. Justin also loves playing guitar and is a passionate home brewer and mead maker.   

To reach Justin, send and e-mail to jkooyman@pcta.org, call (530) 414-3422.