Trail Design Biography

I’ve had the amazing good fortune to have participated in seven Winter Olympic Games as an athlete, a coach, the U.S. Biathlon Team Leader, or most recently at Salt Lake, as Chief of Course for the Biathlon events. I've attended scores of National Championships, World Championships, Biathlon World Cup competitions, and the World University Games.

I grew up in Walpole, NH and skied four events, (slalom, downhill, jumping and cross country), for Tilton School, in Tilton, NH. During four years on the Middlebury College ski team, my aptitude for cross country emerged, first as Eastern Intercollegiate Champion in 1966 and ‘68, then as runner up in the 1968 NCAA Championships.

Following college, a four year assignment to the U.S. Biathlon Training Center at Fort Richardson, Alaska was interupted by a tour of duty in South Vietnam as a mobile advisory team leader. Upon release from active service in 1972, I taught high school English and coached running and skiing in Anchorage. In the autumn of 1978 he was named head coach of men’s skiing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH.

After eleven years as Head Coach of Men’s Skiing at Dartmouth, in 1989 I gave up that position to write DON’T LOOK BACK, a comprehensive guide to cross-country ski racing, and to begin designing Nordic ski trails.

During the past 15 years, I've developed trails for private landowners, for municipalities and schools, as well as competition venues for major international events like the World University Games and Biathlon World Cups. I have designed trails throughout northern New England, and in Wisconsin, Michigan, Utah, Alaska and South Korea. In the spring of 2002 I was part of an international team of consultants asked to assist with the planning of the new Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands.

Although my expertise is in Nordic skiing, I've also designed trails for cross country running, mountain biking, and equestrian sports, including therapeutic riding.

When not trashing through the forest laying out trails, I write about sports for several publications, and serve as a commentator for Vermont Public Radio. I still competes in cross country skiing and distance running. My family and I make our home at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by ski trails in Thetford, VT.