Core Action Team Members
Tom Denzler
Tom Denzler is a native Northern Californian, growing up in the Bay Area and residing for the past 40 years in communities between Roseville and Soda Springs. Hiking has been part of his life, whether at the family cabin in Mendocino County, in East Bay parks, or along the many trails in Placer, Nevada, and Eldorado Counties. He retired in 2022 after a 40-year career with Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, and Keysight Technologies. He has served on the Meadow Vista Advisory Council, the Alta-Dutch Flat School Board, and the Placer County Charter Review Committee and is currently president of the San Francisco Schwaben Verein. He lives with his wife, Erlinda, in Lincoln and has three grown children.
Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht
Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht is forming the Sugar Bowl Historical Society as a consultant. The mission is to “preserve, present and promote Sugar Bowl’s 85-year history”. She proudly joined the board of the Donner Summit Association in July, 2024. Elissa is a self-proclaimed start-up junkie and has over twenty-five years of experience launching and operating both proprietary businesses and partnerships, 12 startups and counting! She has worked in the wine industry, hospitality, events, conference and restaurants, and most recently in the legal cannabis industry in California. Elissa graduated from UC Berkeley, lives in the village at Sugar Bowl with her husband and they have three grown children. She served on the board of the Sugar Bowl Ski Team and Academy Foundation and is a passionate skier aka “ski bum”.
Patricia Malberg
A resident of Lincoln since 1970, Pat was born in San Francisco, graduated from UC Berkeley, and received her MA in French from UCLA. She was raised half-time at Lake Mary where her parents purchased their ski and summer cabin in 1945, which resulted in Pat’s becoming a competitive skier. Her early professional career was as a teacher of high school and college French and mathematics. Pat ran almost successfully for U.S. Congress in the early 1990s and then established and administered a community mediation service for Placer County until her retirement in 2004. She has lived in Gstaad, Switzerland; Paris, France; and Conakry, Guinea. Pat has traveled extensively, especially during the early 2000’s, to several countries in Africa to train lawyers and judges in alternative dispute resolution. She was aide to Placer County 5th District Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery, 2010-2012. She serves currently as President of the Donner Summit Association and is an avid advocate for the area’s amazing history and natural beauty. She is blessed with a loving husband, Don, for over 56 years, and they are proud of their three daughters, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Bill Oudegeest
Bill Oudegeest is a former junior high and high school teacher, junior high assistant principal, and high school vice principal and principal. He has been enjoying Donner Summit for more than forty years and is one of the founders of the Donner Summit Historical Society. In that capacity he has written two books about Donner Summit. He is also the DSHS Heirloom newsletter editor of almost 200 issues, webmaster, publications editor, and author of the 20 Mile Museum signs. Bill is currently the vice president of the Donner Summit Association and has been working for almost two decades to improve the economic viability of Donner Summit.
Chris Parker
Chris Parker has been involved in the developed recreation business for 35 years. He has shepherded a multitude of resort, real estate, and recreation and restoration projects through the CEQA and NEPA process through community collaboration and stakeholder engagement. He has served on many advisory bodies with the U.S. Forest Service, Town of Truckee, Truckee Fire Protection District, Donner Summit Association, Placer County, Truckee Donner Land Trust, and the Truckee Trails Foundation. He lives with his wife, Kay, in Truckee and has three grown children.
Dick Simpson
Dick Simpson grew up in central New Hampshire, learning to ski on neighborhood hills where he groomed slopes by sidestepping uphill. He left the East after college and settled on the San Francisco Peninsula. He studied and worked at Stanford University for 50+ years where he helped explore the Solar System using radio and radar experiments. Dick is still working part time in the field, but mostly archiving space radio data at the SETI Institute in Mountain View. His first exposure to backcountry skiing was a trip to Peter Grubb Hut in 1970. By the early 1980s he was coordinating volunteer work at all four Sierra Club huts in the Tahoe/Donner region. In 2001 Dick and his wife bought a cabin in Serene Lakes. He served a year as Secretary of the Serene Lakes Property Owners Association and four years as a Board member for the Sierra Lakes County Water District. Both Dick and Ann are docents with the Truckee Donner Land Trust. He has been active with DSA since it was organized in 2017 and is currently DSA Secretary.
Mike Spain
Mike Spain was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California. After a 6-year run as a USFS firefighter, he attended and graduated from Cal State University San Bernardino with a BS in Environmental Science. He then spent the next 17 years as a YMCA Camp Director near Big Bear Lake, CA where he and his wife, Viki, raised their two children. Starting in 1985, a part-time role as a ski patroller at Bear Mountain Ski Resort in Big bear eventually led to the position he currently holds on Donner Summit with Boreal Ridge Corporation as the Director of Resort Operations at Soda Springs Ski Resort and as Director of Base Operations and development at both Soda Springs and Boreal ski resorts. Mike has served as a volunteer for the USFS, treasurer for the Barton Flats Camp Association, President of the Big Santa Anita Canyon Cabin Owners Association, section board member for the Southern California/Hawaii Section of the American Camp Association, and currently as a board member for Donner Summit Association. Mike and Viki currently make their home in Northwest Reno, NV.
John Svahn
John Svahn is Executive Director of the Truckee Donner Land Trust, is an active member of the trails community in Truckee and North Tahoe, and is involved in local trail planning commissions. John holds a BS in Agriculture and Natural Resources Management from the University of Maryland. He and his wife Heather have made Truckee their home since 1998 and are usually found running, skiing, or mountain biking on our local trails.
Beth Tanhoff
Originally from South Africa, Beth has been living on Donner Summit for the last 20 years. Here she embraces her love for the mountains and an overall active outdoor lifestyle with her husband and son. Beth specializes in Donner Summit real estate. She is passionate about meeting people, providing a hi-touch service and connecting them with their dream mountain homes. Beth is immersed in her community and you will find her in various roles on Donner Summit and giving back to local non-profit organizations. Her vast background includes running a small business, working in resort development at East West Partners, a paralegal at MOBO Law, and she is a certified Notary Public. She is the administrator for DSA and sits on the board of Directors. She also volunteers for the Donner Trail Elementary PTO, and Sugar Bowl Ski Team. Beth is kind and caring and strives to make a positive impact on the world around her. Beth is a true ambassador of Donner Summit and an advocate of all it has to offer.