The Highpointers Foundation:
- Supports public and private efforts to maintain the integrity of and safe access to state highpoints
- Aids in the conservation of the highpoints and their environs
- Provides a forum for education about the 50 US state highpoints
- Maintains positive relationships with owners of highpoints on private property
- Assists in the care and maintenance of highpoints
Our History
The predecessor of the Highpointers Foundation was the Good Guys & Gals Fund for the Highpointers Club. From 2000 to 2006, the Club members researched the possibility of transforming the Club into a 501(c)(3) organization. Numerous avenues were explored but it became apparent that the Club would be best served as a 501(c)(7) not-for-profit entity due to its nature as a social club.
In 2006, the Highpointers Club voted to approve the formation of a separate non-profit sister organization, which became the 501(c)(3), the Highpointers Foundation. The two organizations stay in close contact, with liaisons helping discuss relevant highpoint concerns and projects. Though the Directors are spread across the country and have a varying number of completed highpoints, they are all dedicated to the best interests of some of our nation’s most cherished mountains – through education, access, maintenance, and more. Intensive collaboration on projects is achieved through annual meetings both in person and via Zoom.
Highpointers Foundation operations are centered in Colorado, where it is registered as a Colorado non profit corporation. Gift acknowledgements are sent from Washington. The Tax and Financial operations function from North Carolina and New Hampshire. Legal Counsel is based in Massachusetts. Legacy Planning occurs in California. Website maintenance is primarily in Colorado and Utah.
Find information for all directors listed below.
Board of Directors
Dave Covill
President
Evergreen, CO
davecovill@gmail.com
Dave has been involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2000; and worked with the Highpointers Club Board of Directors to proceed with plans to form the Foundation officially shortly thereafter. Dave oversees day-to-day Foundation operations, and is very involved with many projects.
Dave has been highpointing since 1981, and has 50 state highpoints, with attempts on Denali in 2007, 2010, and a successful summit in 2012. Dave worked in the natural resources industry, and has a BS in Geology and an MBA in Finance. He is shown at left (in the brown shirt) with Jim Whittaker – the first American to climb Mount Everest. The Colorado Mountain Club recognized Dave as the Volunteer of the Year in 2011.
Roy Wallen
Treasurer
Brookline, NH
newenglandhiker@yahoo.com
Roy has been involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2005, performing most accounting and banking functions. He oversees banking operations, and advises on taxation and auditing.
Roy was a member of the Highpointers Club from 1990 through 2016, and has ascended 38 state highpoints. He is also active in “collecting” county highpoints, has completed the New England 4000-footers, has visited numerous firetowers, as well as pursuing other peakbagging lists. Roy works in healthcare technology, has been finance director of several charities, and serves as advisor and mentor to startup businesses.
Carol Radford
Legacy Giving Director
San Diego, CA
clrsteggi@yahoo.com
Carol, along with her husband Keith, have been attending the Highpointers Foundation meetings at the Konventions since 2010. She was invited to join the Board of Directors in 2013 and has taken up the task of helping with Legacy Gift Giving.
Carol started highpointing in 1972 on Mount Whitney, and climbed it three more times before moving on to other states. She has been in the Highpointers Club since 2003 and has reached 38 state highpoints. She has also visited 34 state tri-points. Carol is a retired science educator, holding a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s in education. She is also active in the San Diego Hiking Club, local Boy Scout troop, and loves “chasing” steam engines.
Stony Burk
Projects Director
Apple Springs, TX
stonyburk1@yahoo.com
Stony served as Project Liaison with the Highpointers Club for state highpoints promoting continued access and improvement working closely with the Highpointers Foundation for several years before becoming a Director in 2011. Stony’s career path had been in management as a training director in human resource and project manager in design, sign fabrication and graphics and is recently retired.
Stony has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 1992 with 49 states completed and an attempt on Denali. He had served the Club in various capacities as a Director and State Liaison Chair and continues to promote highpointing and establish relationships with owners and caretakers. He also continues to revisit most of the state highpoints to stay current with the changes made over the years and address the needs and concerns of owners and managers and their future projects.
Jim Hawkins
Gift Acknowledgements Director
Seattle, WA
hawkjd1@comcast.net
Jim, along with his wife Donna, has been attending the Highpointers Foundation meetings while at the Konventions since 2010. He was invited to join the Board of Directors in 2013 and has taken up the task of coordinating gift acknowledgements. Jim has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 1998 and had completed 5 highpoints before he even knew there was a club. He now has 41 state highpoints.
Jim and Donna have used highpointing as an excuse to do a lot of sightseeing in each of the states they visit. Jim was a junior high school math and science teacher for 11 years before he began working for the U.S. Postal Service in 1988.
Gerry Roach
Communications Director
Montrose, CO
gerryroach@me.com
Gerry has been climbing mountains since he was a lad in the mid 1950s. He climbed Denali for the first time in 1963 at age 19. He finished climbing all of Colorado’s Fourteeners in 1975, summited Everest in 1983, and became the second person to climb the Seven Continent Summits in 1985. He summited the Karakorum’s Gasherbrum II without supplemental oxygen in 1997. He went on to become the first person to climb the ten highest peaks in North America in 2000, then added three more to be the first to climb every major peak in North America over 16,000 feet, finishing in 2003. Gerry finished the 50 US State Highpoints in 2006, and has been active in the highpointing community since then. Gerry has visited all the county highpoints of five western states.
Gerry has math degrees, pursued a long career as a software engineer, and ran the original Highpointers Foundation website for many years. Gerry completed a CFRE fundraising course in 2015, and helped to sharpen the Foundation’s focus onto more easily fundable projects. Gerry maintained the Foundation Website for a decade.
Fallon Rowe
Website Director
Saint George, UT
rowe.fallon@gmail.com
Fallon has been highpointing since 2011 and is based in Utah. Taking only a few years to do so, she completed 49 state highpoints by age 17, and is part of the first mother-daughter team to highpoint the Lower 48 states. Fallon has a bachelors degree in geology from Utah State University and has worked as an earth science teacher. She is a sponsored rock climber, owns a climbing coaching business, and travels often to push herself in climbing. She can be found on Instagram at @fallonclimbs. Her love for writing, social media, and highpointing come together as she assists the Highpointers Foundation with the new website and social media.
Jim Glaze
Projects Director
Beaumont, TX
glaze1885@aol.com
Jim has been involved with the Highpointers Foundation since 2013. He will use his expertise as a retired Project Engineer from Exxon-Mobil to help the Foundation with projects throughout America, focusing on those close to his home state of Texas.
Jim has 40 state highpoints, and along with wife Debbie (27, and daughters Kaely (12) and Erin (14) enjoys road trips to each of our beloved highpoints.
Tonya Hancock
Communications Director
Nashville, TN
tonyajhancock@aol.com
Tonya has been involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2001, and was a former Director of gift activities including performing all gift acknowledgement functions. She moved to Europe with her husband and toddler and was an Associate Director. She returned to the US to Tennessee, and has resumed activities with the Foundation, focusing on Donor Relations. Photo at Magazine Mountain the AR Highpoint, with husband Rob.
Tonya has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 2000, and has 33 state highpoints. Tonya has been active in charities and/or non-profits since 1990, supporting the YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the American Cancer Society through volunteer work and fundraising. Tonya has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Statistics, and a Master’s in Business Administration. Her background is with Texas Instruments in the Education Technology division.
Jane Bertrand
Secretary
New Orleans, LA
janebertrand@yahoo.com
Jane Bertrand is a relative newcomer to Highpointing, having stumbled onto this pastime in 2010. She recounts her decade-long quest in a book published in 2018 entitled “You Started WHAT after 60?” – Highpointing across America. Jane has reached 46 of the 50 highpoints (or 47 if we’re counting Washington DC).
A native of Maine, Jane has climbed Katahdin at least 20 times. She has lived in New Orleans for almost 50 years and laments the lack of climbing opportunities within a day’s drive. She is a professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and travels regularly to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in connection with her international family planning work.
Robyn Watson
Donor Relations Director
Cincinnati, OH
robyncaleen@gmail.com
Robyn has been involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2019. As a Director with the foundation, she will promote continued access to highpoints and other related functions.
Robyn’s love of highpointing started as a natural extension of her passion for backpacking and birding. She has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 2016 and has completed 32 state highpoints. She is the stay at home mother of 2 budding highpointers and has a background in Wildlife Management. She is also active in Wilderness Women, Cincinnati Bird Club, the Cincinnati Audubon Society, and the Sheltowee Trace Association.
Raina Rusnak
Projects Director
Springfield, VA
49summits@gmail.com
Raina has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 2013 shortly after her passion to reach the summit of each state began. She has since reached the top of 48 state highpoints with family and friends, including 20 with her daughter. As a resident of the DC metropolitan area, Raina spearheaded the 2019 design, placement, and fabrication of two signs at DC’s highpoint, Fort Reno, in partnership with the National Park Service and the Highpointers Foundation.
Raina earned her undergrad at Gettysburg College and a Masters in Public Policy from American University, with a career in Consumer Insights. When not hiking, Raina enjoys boxing to crosstrain for her next mountain adventure.
Olivier Kozlowski
Compliance Director
Mansfield, MA
kozesq@gmail.com
Olivier lives in Mansfield, MA with his family and is a practicing attorney with extensive real estate experience. A longstanding member and former board member of the Highpointers Club, Olivier received the Frank Ashley award in 2014. He has helped with several projects over the years, including the Jack’s Glade memorial in MO and the ND easement, and has now joined the Highpointers Foundation board.
Olivier’s highpointing journey began in 1995 with an ill-prepared but successful ascent of Katahdin. He racked up 34 states before taking a bit of a break when his children were younger. Now that his son Aleks has caught the highpointing bug, they have enjoyed revisiting multiple highpoints to bring Aleks up to speed. They are pictured together on Kings Peak, UT – a new one for both! Now up to 42 highpoints, Olivier looks forward to helping the Highpointers Foundation ensure permanent access for everyone to our nation’s highpoints.
Associate Directors
Mark Styczynski
Projects Director
Clifton Park, NY
pumaconcolor2012@gmail.com
Mark has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 2001. Mark is a three time winner of the Highpointers Foundation Silent Auction and is our newest Associate Director. He looks forward to getting his hands dirty with Foundation projects after completing his duties as host of the 2024 Highpointers Konvention in Rapid City, South Dakota. Mark became the 270th documented 50 state completer atop Denali in June 2015 and is a longtime peakbagger who has completed many regional lists in the Northeastern United States. He is a happily married father of three and a retired New York State Trooper, currently working as a Corporate Security Senior Analyst in upstate New York.
Lucy Westlake
Outreach Director
Los Angeles, CA
lucyiwestlake@gmail.com
Lucy is a student-athlete (track/xc) at the University of Southern California studying public policy and social entrepreneurship. She began Highpointing at age 7, at 12 she became a 48-Finisher, and at 17, she began the youngest female 50-Completer. Her passion for mountaineering has led her to mountains in Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Switzerland, Russia, Nepal and Pakistan. In May 2022, she set the American record as the youngest American woman to summit Mount Everest. To date, she has climbed 5 of the 7 Seven Summits in her pursuit to complete the Explorers Grand Slam. Recognized for her mountaineering achievements and dedication to helping close the gender gap in the sport of mountaineering, Lucy was honored at the 2022 ESPYS as a Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award recipient. Lucy is excited to bring her passion for inspiring young people to pursue Highpointing and mountaineering to the Highpointers Foundation.
Al Dempsey
Projects Director
Palm Desert, CA
aldempsey@earthlink.net
Al has been involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2007 with both fundraising and projects, including on Eagle Peak in his home state of MN.
Al has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 2006 and has 38 state highpoints. He retired from the business world in Minneapolis in 1997, moved to California, and discovered hiking in the beautiful Coachella Valley near Palm Springs. He has been on the Executive Committee of the Coachella Valley Hiking Club since 2001. Al has a BA from Yale University and MBA from Harvard Business School.
Fred Lobdell
Taxation Director
Macon, NC
Fred has been preparing tax returns for the Highpointers Foundation since 2006, and has been a Director since 2009. He advises the Foundation on all financial matters and oversees all external audit functions. He has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 1992, but actually started highpointing in 1962. He has 45 state highpoints to his credit.
Fred recently retired as manager of an H & R Block office, but continues to do tax returns. Before that he taught college-level Geology for 15 years, and his PhD is in Geology.
Matt Moniz
Associate Director
Matt Moniz is one of Colorado’s most accomplished young alpinists, achieving back-to-back summits of Cho Oyu and Makalu in 2014, and both Everest and Lhotse in 2018. By age 12, he had climbed five of the Seven Summits and set a world speed record for the 50 US State Highpoints. An Eagle Scout and recognized adventurer, he has raised significant funds for various causes. Matt graduated from Dartmouth College in 2020 and Georgetown University in 2022. He competed in the Eco Challenge Fiji in 2020 with Team Eagle Scouts, finishing in 43rd place. Currently, he is an F35 Fighter Pilot Trainee with the Vermont Air National Guard. As an Associate Director he advises the Foundation on projects at the Highpoints, as well as on long term direction. Photo is with twin sister Kaylee in a trainer plane.
Mackenzie Scurka
Associate Director
Mackenzie Scurka is a nature lover and long-time supporter of the highpointing community with over 35 state highpoints to her credit, including several of the difficult ones. As an Associate Director, she will combine her passion for highpointing and her social media skills to strengthen the Highpointers Foundation’s online presence, with a grand goal of uniting highpointers worldwide. In addition, Mackenzie narrated and helped produce the film American Highpoints, the first film about highpointing. Along with the outdoors, Mackenzie loves animals, biology, and philanthropy. She is also a member of Dartmouth College’s Class of 2019.
Former Directors
Jean Trousdale
Jean coordinated project development for the Highpointers Foundation from 2004 until her death in 2016. She was the point person for many Foundation projects. She was passionate about the maintenance and improvement of the state highpoints and their surrounds, as well as public education about highpoints and highpointing.
Jean was a member of the Highpointers Club from 1997 on, leading a number of special projects for the Club in addition to operating the Highpointers Mercantile (the Club store) and frequently assisting in the preparation and running of the annual conventions. Jean reached 44 state highpoints. Professionally she was in private practice as a psychologist for 35 years. Jean closed her practice in 2005 and worked as a psychological consultant for a public mental health clinic. Jean held a PhD in clinical psychology. Jean is deeply missed by the highpointing community.
Karen O’Brien
Karen was involved in the Highpointers Foundation from 2006 until 2010, and performed gift acknowledgement and donor relations functions for the Foundation. She was instrumental in getting the Foundation’s fundraising efforts started. Karen has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 2005 and has 2 state highpoints. Karen has worked in accounting, finance, and consulting with extensive experience in the non-profit industry. Karen has a Bachelor’s degree in Finance, an MBA, and is a Certified Public Accountant. When family duties took priority, she retired from the Foundation Board.
Dick Bourne
Dick was involved with the Highpointers Foundation since 2011. He was a big supporter of Foundation efforts to raise funds and enthusiastically participated in almost all of our Auctions. Dick used his expertise to help the Foundation with projects throughout America, focusing on those close to his home state of North Dakota. Dick had 31 state highpoints and attended numerous conventions. Dick is deeply missed by the highpointing community.
Alan Scherer
Alan has been involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2006, and advised the Directors on charitable giving and other related functions. Alan has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 2005, and has 23 state highpoints. His background is with Merrill Lynch, and he has been retired from the corporate world for a few years.
Mary Groeneveld
Mary was inspired by the Mission Statement of the Highpointers Foundation. When she was a newcomer to highpointing, she found out that Mount Arvon was sold to a logging corporation based in WA, so she contacted the new owners. Mary was instrumental in getting a new culvert and road repair created to make safer travel to Mount Arvon. She uses her energy and expertise on projects across America. Mary worked hard with the people of Baraga County MI to make the MI-19 Konvention a success for the Club.
Mary retired from the Michigan State Police where she worked for 25 years as a State Trooper. She has 29 state highpoints and attempted Boundary Peak in Nevada in 2017 for Cops on Top, an organization that honors the memories of those heroes who lost their lives in the line of duty protecting others; she supports their families through highpointing. She cherishes the new friendships that she and husband Terry have made through their attendance at HP Club Conventions. When Mary took over the Mercantile for the Club, she retired from the Foundation board.
Gary White
Gary has been involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2006, and assisted with project development. Gary has been a member of the Highpointers Club since 1996, and has 43 state highpoints. He is a charter member of the Sipsey Wilderness Hiking Club. Gary is a licensed professional land surveyor in the state of Alabama and has a degree in mining engineering.
Paul Pontiff
Paul was involved in the Highpointers Foundation since 2005, and was instrumental in the application process for 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. He reviewed legal and taxation issues. Paul was a member of the Highpointers Club since 1991, and completed 14 state highpoints. Paul was in private practice as an attorney for many years, specializing in tax, corporate law, and non-profit foundations. Sadly, Paul passed away in the fall of 2021. He will be missed by many.