Profile: Jay Whitacre

by Dawn Belloise

Jay Whitacre still remembers the moment he realized the world was bigger than Indiana. He was 18, sitting around a fire in southeastern Utah after a long day on an Outward Bound trip where he tells of 31 days of dust, sweat and learning how to exist without the usual noise of life. He always figured he’d go to college in his home state of Indiana when someone jokingly mentioned there were actually colleges out west as well. After finding and attending Western State College (now Western Colorado University, WCU) and falling in love with the Gunnison Valley, then leaving for more experiences and education, Jay has now been in the valley for 30 years, making Crested Butte his home. In January this year, he started his own business, Adventure Management, LLC, a high-end boutique home management and adventure concierge service and consultation.

Jay grew up mostly in Indianapolis and school was not his favorite thing, in fact, he admits, “I skipped a lot of school because I hated it.” He had a lot of obstacles to overcome like ADHD and dyslexia, but he not only graduated high school in 1995, he later went on to earn a PhD. After high school, Jay had no clear plan and assumed he’d follow in the footsteps of everyone else in his family, which was to get an education then a job. “But I realized quickly I did not have to follow that path,” he smiles.

Instead, he started searching for a place and school that could give him the lifestyle he wanted. “Three colleges made the cut, but only one place felt like it could give me what I wanted and that was Western State College.” He arrived in Gunnison in 1998. “I wanted to move to CB but I knew I’d never go to class,” he laughs. “So I did my college years in Gunnison.” Jay’s curriculum revolved around outdoor recreation and leadership. Coming to the valley, he skied for the first time in his life and decided, “There was no doubt in my mind that this was the place I wanted to be.”

After graduating in 2001, he stayed, moving to Crested Butte where he dedicated his winters to skiing. In the fall and spring, he’d travel to California to help conduct an experiential education program that took sixth through 12th graders out for a variety of different outdoor experiences. During the summers he was a raft guide on the Yampa and Green Rivers in Dinosaur National Monument. After several years of guiding, in 2003 Jay led a group of 30 high school students from a therapeutic boarding school in Eureka, Montana, down the Yampa. At the end of that trip the owners offered him a job to create a high-end adventure program for their boarding school. “These were kids who had gotten themselves into a lot of trouble. A lot of them didn’t have a positive male role model in their lives,” he explains. He worked with the school to get the students credit for the various activities they did. “I utilized my WSC education,” he says, and he remained with the school for several years.

Another idea had been growing for a while. “I felt the calling to teach,” he says, but he also realized that kind of higher education, earning a PhD, would take a lot of time and dedication because, “The only level I wanted to teach was college level.” In October 2006, he made the decision to leave his job, move back to Crested Butte and into a place above The Last Steep Bar & Grill with one of his besties, Kevin Hartigan. Jay was bartending and helped to manage the Steep as well. It was also where he met his now wife, Jenny Lorango. “She was always hanging out with our same friends,” he recalls. “I’d go to the Club at Crested Butte where she worked, and that’s where I first got to know her.” They married in July of 2011.

Around that same time, the Adaptive Sports Center approached him to reevaluate and run the whitewater rafting program. The work brought home the realization that if he wanted to teach at the level he envisioned, he needed to go back to school, so he and Jenny headed to Indiana University in Bloomington. They were both going for their master’s degree but stayed for seven years while Jay went on to earn his PhD in leisure behavior, with a focus on risk management and decision making in adventure recreation. During this time, Jay taught classes at the university, led rock climbing trips, guided whitewater courses and stood in front of lecture halls with more than 200 students. Summers were still sacred, he says, spending that time in Crested Butte and traveling to Southeast Asia, Italy, Costa Rica, Central America, exploring while they could. He finished his PhD in 2014, and they came home when they discovered Jenny was pregnant.

“We wanted to raise our kids here,” he says of returning to CB. Their first son Ryland was born in October 2014 and in 2018 Lukas was born. Jay became project manager for Jeff Scott’s Idea Lab, while picking up shifts at The Steep and beginning what he had always set out to do, which was to teach at WCU. “My main reason for getting my PhD was to teach at Western,” he says. “So, I always had my finger on the pulse, keeping in touch with my professors there.” So, from 2015 onward, he taught field-based courses, snow, water and land based as well as general classes, theory of recreation, senior capstones and was an advisor. He helped shape the Outdoor Industry MBA program, and built relationships that mirrored the ones that had once guided him.

In 2019, Jay stepped into a role with Irwin Guides as operations coordinator. When Covid hit, everything changed, but not in the way anyone expected. Demand surged. He then also became assistant lodge manager at the Taylor River Lodge. “That summer was five times busier than they had ever been because no one could travel internationally,” he tells.

By October of 2020, Jay was named general manager of Irwin Guides, a position he held until the fall of 2025. Then, after he had decades of experience under his belt from guiding, education, leadership and operations, he started his own business, Adventure Management, LLC.

Jay explains, “I don’t do short-term rentals,” and he manages his clients’ homes, “so that the owners can show up and the house is ready so they can enjoy Crested Butte at a maximum.” But it’s more than logistics and home management. “I want to create a business structure that feels like a trusted friend, and create experiences that are well beyond imagination. I want to approach every home with the owner’s best interest in mind so they don’t have to worry about anything when they’re home and especially when they’re here. Those best places aren’t always the same every year,” he says. “That’s the point.” His services are built on the culmination of everything he’s done, all his experience from guiding and teaching classes to every risk assessed.

Back home in CB South, in the house he and Jenny built in 2016, life has settled into something that feels intentional. He still sends his kids to Camp Palawopec in the summer, the same off-grid place that shaped him as a child, with its open-air cabins, no doors, no barriers between you and the outdoors. “It’s all about being part of Mother Nature,” he says and feels that in all his years here, Crested Butte hasn’t lost its magic.

“I’m 30 years in and out, and I still love CB. When you get to Round Mountain and get that view up valley, it’s that magical spot you fell in love with at the end of the road. There’s no better place. I can’t imagine anywhere else to raise kids or grow up. There’s no other place I’d rather have a family. But we’re always 10 years away from being a local,” he grins. “We all came here from somewhere, but at least we got here at the right time.”