Staff & Board Members
Clare Stumpf
Clare Stumpf grew up in Oakland, California. For reasons beyond her, she left the sunny West Coast and attended the University of Rochester in upstate New York where she earned a B.A. in psychology and philosophy. She moved to Jackson after graduation for “one fun summer” and has spent every summer in the valley since working as a raft guide.
After a few winter seasons globe-hopping, Clare decided to return to school and moved to Boulder, Colorado. She earned a M.S. in Environmental Policy from the University of Colorado, where she worked on municipalizing Boulder’s energy supply, registering young voters, and interning for a food justice non-profit.
Clare decided to stay one fall for a local grassroots organizing training program and has lived here full-time ever since working in the non-profit sector. She has traveled to Cheyenne to testify in support of housing mitigation, lobbied Town Councilors and County Commissioners to approve developing homes that locals can afford, and gathered grassroots support for a variety of causes in Jackson Hole.
Clare is thankful that she has the opportunity to live in this incredible valley while working on critical issues with great friends and colleagues. When Clare is not advocating for responsible planning at northern South Park or recruiting new ShelterJH members, she is probably on the water or daydreaming about post-COVID-19 international ventures.
Blanca Moye
Blanca was born in Mexico City and has worked in the Jackson area for over 23 years. She has completed different trainings for nutrition, parenting classes, child development, and community needs. She is also a parent educator for a national program called "Parents as Teachers and Abriendo Puertas."
Blanca is a Certified Medical Translator and a National and International CPR and First Aid Instructor of the American Heart Association. She worked for 13 years for the federal Early Head Start program as a health coordinator and home visitor for families in the program and was also the coordinator of events for the Consulate of Mexico and different programs of the Latino Resource Center.
Blanca started her own Innova Systems business in 2014 to provide support and resources to the Latinx community. In 2018, she was the coordinator of the Gear Up program at Central Wyoming College supporting high school students with college preparation.
At this moment Blanca continues running Opening Doors, a parenting class. She is also a part of the Voices JH team and a member of the Competitive Grants Committee for the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole and Education Foundation of Teton Valley.
Nikki Kaufman
Nikki moved to Jackson in 2015 for perhaps the same reason you did: to be a ski bum. Thinking she’d only be here for a year, she was soon drawn to the incredible community of the valley and the passionate advocacy work being done here. She has served on the Integrated Solid Waste and Recycling Board, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance Advisory Council, and is a trained Community Safety Network Advocate.
Six years (and seven moves) later, Nikki now works in Wyoming politics and community organizing with the goal of breaking down barriers to participation and helping create an informed and engaged citizenry. She believes it is imperative that the diverse working class currently keeping Teton County afloat can access one of the most basic human rights: secure and affordable housing.
When not bothering her friends to make public comment at Town Council and County Commission meetings, she can be found taking her dog Molly Parton on backcountry ski or mountain bike adventures.
Iván Jiménez
Originally from Puerto Rico, Iván grew up in Washington state before moving to Jackson in 2019 with the intention of one frivolous winter. Two years and seven moves later, his time in Jackson has consisted of operating the Tram, running No Cost Grocery Programs at Hole Food Rescue and community organizing.
In 2020, Iván worked as a member of Act Now JH to push the county to launch their "Task Force on Law Enforcement & Public Interaction" and served on the task force representing ANJH. He has been involved with several of ShelterJH’s initiatives including the Northern South Park process, Ordinance 473, the 2020 Candidate Election Forum, and the 2021 Story Slam.
He believes in multiracial, working-class politics to turn the tide on the housing crisis. When not reading the News&Guide, he can be found looking for a parking spot on Teton Pass or on his bike pedaling up Ferrins.
Whitney Oppenhuizen
At birth, Whitney‘s connection to the Jackson community was given to her, fortunate to have grandparents who first lived in the valley in the mid-1940s. Immediately her love for the place grew, and she followed in her grandfather’s footsteps attending and working for Teton Valley Ranch Camp, hoping to honor the version of Jackson she had heard in stories. She’s since lived in Jackson seasonally (like many) and moved to the valley full-time first in 2010.
Whitney’s background is in non-profit and corporate marketing, having held many management and project development roles over the last decade-plus. She was the Marketing and Development Director of Teton Valley Ranch Camp most recently before moving to the Marketing Director role at The Center for the Arts.
This valley has always been more home than any other place she‘s lived. Since moving back for the second time in 2018, the desire to ensure that Jackson remains accessible for all who wish to live in this beautiful place has taken the forefront in Whitney’s mind.
Her goal is to use her background in marketing and development to continue growing awareness of the housing crisis, share tools available to combat this issue, and create sustainable change to end housing insecurity in Jackson altogether.
In her free time, Whitney enjoys horseback riding, hiking, backcountry skiing, and the occasional board game with friends and family.
Kelsey Wotzka
Kelsey found her next step in the wilds of Jackson Hole in June 2021. Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, she developed a passion for housing issues at a young age, volunteering through local housing organizations for many years. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and she still has an abiding love for the Gophers, especially the hockey teams!
Her career truly began with interpretive guiding positions in Yellowstone and Denali National Parks, where she gained valuable skill in building meaningful relationships with visitors. Subsequently shifting into program management with the Minnesota parks, Kelsey built multiple programs that removed barriers and created opportunities for underserved communities to enjoy the bountiful natural resources in the area. This allowed her to develop a deep knowledge of accessibility issues and policy pitfalls that cause housing and equity issues in communities all over the country, including Jackson. Prior to joining the National Museum of Wildlife Art as the Development Coordinator, she worked in development at Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity and was able to fan the flames of her passion for housing issues and community building. As she struggled with finding housing to accommodate her own move to Jackson, Kelsey knew she had to find a way to use her skills and experience to work towards a solution to this issue.
Kelsey spends her time in the summer hiking, paddling, and camping, and she loves various snow sports and playing board games in the winter.
Kelsey Yarzab
Born and raised in Blairstown, New Jersey, Kelsey first found her way to Jackson thanks to an impulsive google search during final exam week of her first semester of college: “summer jobs Jackson WY." That summer, she worked as a reservationist for a rafting company, lived in a room without a door, and, of course, fell deeply in love with Jackson.
By the time she returned to DC to start her sophomore year, Jackson had already made its mark — emotionally, through the palpable sense of community, but also physically, via the chaco tan.
She returned to Jackson in the summer of 2020, following a serendipitous job opening, and enrolled in the Conservation Leadership Institute’s class of 2020 that fall while completing her final semester of undergraduate study online. While participating in CLI, Kelsey was part of a campaign team to repeal town ordinance 473, which spurred her interest in local housing policy as well as her engagement with ShelterJH.
In the two years since, Kelsey has moved 3 times, torn her ACL once, and worked in a handful of service positions while advocating for equitable housing policy as a ShelterJH member. She now works for a local affordable housing developer and looks forward to engaging more meaningfully on local housing issues as a member of the ShelterJH board.
Mary Erickson
Mary moved to Teton County from rural South Dakota in 2006 with her husband, Bruce, and two children, Adele and Oscar. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in English Literature, and later went on to get a Master of Divinity from Harvard University. Mary became an ordained Episcopal Priest in 2009.
Mary currently serves as an Associate Rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church. For three years, she was the Executive Director of Coombs Outdoors, and previously served as the Executive Director of One22. She is known in the community as a vocal advocate for social justice, seeking always to come from a foundation of love, respect, and compassion, combined with a healthy dose of righteous indignation. Mary studied community organizing with the Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago, founded by the father of community organizing, Saul Alinsky, and made famous again for launching the career of a young Barack Obama.
The Erickson family is blessed to own a home in East Jackson, and Mary never forgets what an extraordinary privilege housing security is in Jackson. While at One22, she came to understand that housing insecurity is the primary cause of crisis and instability for members of our community, so she helped to co-found Shelter JH with friends Jorge Moreno and Skye Schell. Shelter JH was founded with the traditional community organizing philosophy that real change can happen through focused, committed grassroots advocacy and organizing.
Ariel Kazunas
Ariel Kazunas was born in Chicago, IL, went to high school in Madison, WI, and spent summers in Walla Walla, WA. At 18, she moved to Portland, OR, for college. After graduation, she worked a variety of nonprofit, editorial and service industry jobs in the PNW in an attempt to discover what she wanted to be when she grew up.
All she knew at that point was that she loved spending time outdoors, urban or otherwise, because it connected her with people, place and planet in a way that invested her in their respective and combined health, resiliency and futures. That, and that being outside, especially while at play, brought her the kind of joy she needed to remain hopeful and capable of continuing to challenge the status quo as an activist and proverbial pot-stirrer.
In 2011, Ariel stumbled into the role of trip leader for an active travel company and spent the next eight years living out of suitcase, working everywhere from Glacier National Park in Montana to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Argentina.
Somewhere in there, coworkers introduced her to a little town called Jackson, WY. After an initial month-long “temporary” stint on a Maple Way couch, she has now found herself calling the greater Wydaho region home for nearly a decade.
When she’s not advocating for livable communities, you can find Ariel volunteering as a Backcountry Ambassador on Teton Pass, curating her dirt unibrow on mountain bike rides, trying to convince tomatoes to grow in zones they were never meant to grow in, and perfecting her sourdough recipe.
She still does not know what she wants to be when she grows up.
AK
AK grew up in Washington state and moved to Jackson in 2017. A tale as old as time: came for one winter to ski, and couldn‘t leave. She has worn many hats while living in the Tetons ranging from Nick Wilson’s, Elevated Grounds, and Cutty’s to Mountain Operations, landscaping, and physical therapy tech, and the list goes on. Currently, her main work focus is in Adaptive Recreation, where she works with the local disability community as a ski and bike guide. However, she holds at least 3 jobs at any given time to survive in Jackson.
She has transitioned from seasonal transplant to community advocate in her time here, less out of want and more out of a feeling of necessity from seeing systemic oppression so strongly contrasting from the wealthy, picturesque town that is Jackson. She has served on the START board, organizes with local climate justice group Sunrise JH, and works towards disability and marginalized identities’ access to recreation. She also is involved with local politics and has campaigned for various town and county electeds.
AK believes societal issues are complex and multifaceted, but are also intersectional from the same root. A huge way to bring equity, resources, and solutions to communities is through policy change with all populations well-represented with a seat and voice at the table.
When not working and community organizing, she loves to ski, bike, and bury herself in a good book.
Shila Morillon
As a proud native of Jackson Hole, Shila navigated the community’s landscape from a young age, and her journey has been marked by a diverse range of experiences that have shaped her professional trajectory.
Subsequently, her career path led to Teton County Government, where she contributed skills as a Public Works Administrative Assistant. During this time, Shila honed organizational and administrative capabilities, gaining valuable insights into the workings of local government. Her passion for community service deepened as she transitioned to the Jackson/Teton County Affordable Housing Department, assuming the role of Compliance Specialist from December 2021 to December 2023. In this capacity, Shila played a crucial role in ensuring compliance with regulations, working towards creating accessible housing solutions for the community.
Currently, Shila’s commitment extends to various nonprofit initiatives, including Voices Jackson Hole, where she served as a Community Organizer, Organizer Liaison, and Fundraiser Personnel. Most recently, she dedicated efforts to Habitat for Humanity, serving on the Community Homeownership Selection Committee, she approaches each endeavor with a dedication to making a positive impact. Alongside Shila’s professional commitments, She is currently advancing her education in project management, underscoring her commitment to ongoing professional development. Fluent in English and Spanish, She brings a bilingual perspective to her interactions, fostering inclusivity and understanding. As she continues to evolve in her journey, she remains steadfast in her commitment to community service, leveraging my skills and experiences to contribute meaningfully to the growth and well-being of Jackson Hole and its diverse residents.
