The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Bringing energy and love to local trails
by Mark Reaman
Dave Ochs is stepping down as the executive director of the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce and stepping up as the executive director of the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association.
Ochs has been with the chamber for two years and been a long-time volunteer with CBMBA.
“It’s been an honor to serve in this position and to work alongside the business community. I think we have achieved great things together,” said Ochs. “The chamber, the business community, and the greater Crested Butte community will always be near and dear to me. Working with the Tourism Association, the towns, the county, Crested Butte Mountain Resort, businesses, non-profits, members and entities up and down the valley has been a tremendous experience and some of the best collaborations I’ve ever been a part of. My time here at the chamber has been the best professional experience of my life to date, and I’m grateful for the support of this board, the staff here, and the partnerships we have created.”
Chamber board president Nick Danni said Ochs brought a unique energy to the position. “His work elevated our organization, and the events we host, to the highest level,” he said. “Dave has an amazing ability to bring people together and communicate at lightning speed. We will miss him tremendously.”
Meanwhile, CBMBA board president John Chandler said it was becoming increasingly clear that a paid executive director was needed to keep CBMBA and its mission going. “We’ve seen the need for at least the last three years and the trail network just keeps growing,” he wrote to CBMBA supporters. “We need someone to take this club and our Master Trails Plan from the drawing board into the dirt. However, the reality of taking a club 30-plus years in the making and making a massive move forward is pretty hard. It needed the right person, to say the least. This new director would have to keep the heart and soul of CBMBA as priority number one, would have to have lots of energy, and above all, be a true spokesperson for the love of biking in this great valley. The Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association has found the right person. We are so very proud to present Dave Ochs as our new, first, and only executive director.”
Ochs feels the CBMBA job is a dream come true for him. “This is a truly a dream! Since the day I moved here in 2001, worked on Tony’s Trail the next day on National Trails Day, met and worked alongside the bike community and more so the amazing people who have made up CBMBA, I have been hooked! It changed my life for the best, and it has been something I have been so proud to be a part of,” Ochs said. “To witness what CBMBA has accomplished and collaborated upon in the last five years alone is enough to fulfill a lifetime. To be offered this opportunity by my peers, the people that I respect and admire more than anything—the CBMBA board—is truly a humbling experience. They have been very good to me. The mountain bike community has been very good to me. It will be my deepest honor and privilege to serve them, this community, the greater mountain bike community, and our bicycle heritage and livelihood to the utmost of my abilities. More than anything, I look forward to this team’s updated CBMBA Master Plan, and fulfilling our mission to ride, build, and maintain the absolutely greatest trail system on the planet.”
Danni said Ochs would stay in the chamber position until the middle of May. The idea is to hire a replacement who is local by May 1 so there could be a couple of weeks of overlap between Ochs and his replacement. Ochs hopes to be “full steam ahead” with the CBMBA job by June 1.
