Todd Walton has served Winter Wildlands Alliance for more than three years as Executive Director, keeping us upright and on track through some spicy sections

The Winter Wildlands Alliance Board of Directors wishes a heartfelt farewell and strong backcountry fist-bump to Todd Walton. Over the last three years as Executive Director, Todd has helped our organization manage the most variable terrain we have encountered in our history (COVID-19) while shaping a range of important strategic initiatives that will shape our decade ahead.

During his time, Todd oversaw the launch of our membership department — highlighting the very people who power our work across the nation, in public lands policy, SnowSchool, backcountry film and stewardship. He helped us build out a critical new platform, Ski Kind, which established best practices for backcountry behavior and seeks harmonious outcomes between human beings, wildlife, and flora… in all their interactions.

Todd also took our non-profit into a new stage of technological growth. He rose to the challenge of leading a mission-driven organization in the era of Zoom, helping us migrate key systems into the cloud, refining our web and social presence, bringing Backcountry Film Festival into the live-stream marketplace, and generally developing an operating environment that will help us place our living, breathing staff on the ground (in real life) where it matters most to the mission.

Those accomplishments, and our gratitude for them, are underpinned by core mission activity. During Todd’s tenure we have been deeply proud of the entire team’s work to protect NEPA, complete several forest service planning projects, establish multiple new SnowSchool locations, resist the development of Ambler Road in Alaska, protect the airspace above the Centennial Mountains, and push back on corporate ski area expansions into public lands with active backcountry use.

In short, we know the opportunities ahead for Todd are inspiring and we wish him well in those pursuits. We will miss him — and seek to model his gracious team-focused approach — which we know the backcountry needs in the future.

Keeping Winter Wild,

The Winter Wildlands Alliance Board of Directors

Hal Hallstein, President
Megan Birzell
Jennifer Bock
Tony Ferlisi
Michael Fiebig
Robin Harms
Erik Lambert
Rich Meyer
Jennifer Miller
Jaime Musnicki
Jason Pouncy
Denis Tuzinovic
Scott White
Laura Yale