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BAOC Service Award
The BAOC Service Award is given annually to a club member who has provided extraordinary service to the club and/or the sport of orienteering. The recipient is chosen by previous Service Award winners, and is traditionally presented at the club's winter social event.
The club thanks the special people listed below, and all our volunteers, for their contributions to the sport of orienteering. Our club wouldn't exist without our many volunteers!
2023: Stephanie & Derek Maclean
Over many years, the Macleans have volunteered as Event Director, Course Setter, and almost every other possible role involved in organizing and carrying out our events. In addition, Steph’s amazing creativity and artwork in both T-shirt design and ceramic awards have added a delightful element to many national events. She has been club Vice President since 2020, and was an active member of the Cal-O-Fest steering committee. Derek and Steph can always be counted on in a crisis, from acting as shuttle drivers during the 2019 Nationals to sorting out the confusion at the award medal ceremonies.
2022: Steve Gregg
Steve has developed fun courses at Point Pinole for 25 years, in both Event Director and Course Setter roles (sometimes both roles at an event). He has also set courses for national events, and frequently volunteers for control pickup and other tasks. Steve served on the club Board of Directors for several years as Training Director.
2021: Sharon Evans
Sharon will be stepping down after having served for eight years in this, her second stint, as BAOC Treasurer. This is an unsung, but entirely necessary, job that is required for the smooth operation of the club. Thorough and detail-oriented in her work, Sharon has kept the board well-informed about the financial status of the club. In the past few years, the job has been complicated further by the scheduling, postponement, re-scheduling, and re-postponement of Cal-O-Fest, which has required management of multiple bank accounts and a considerable volume of international payments and refunds. In addition to serving as Treasurer, Sharon has been the event director for several events in the South Bay at Big Basin, Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch, and Wilder Ranch.
2020: Steve Haas
Steve has served as Registration Director since 2011, performing his duties with cheerfulness and gusto. Registration is the first point of contact that most beginners have with the club, and Steve has worked hard to make the experience a positive one. Steve has also been one of the club’s most reliable event directors, in charge of events almost every year for more than ten years, including the 2016 U.S. Championships. From 2016–2020, he served as the club President, keeping the club focused on its mission to provide a wide variety of orienteering events.
2019: Marie-Josée Parayre
Marie-Josée is a long-time member of BAOC, and is an active, enthusiastic volunteer. Her many contributions include directing numerous local and national events; chaperone for BAOC teams at Junior Nationals; spearheading the design, ordering, and distribution of new club uniforms; serving on the Event Coordination Team for two years; and member of the Steering Committee for the 2020 California Orienteering Festival (http://cal-o-fest.com/), for which she serves as Volunteer Coordinator.
2018: Dennis Wildfogel
Among his many contributions to the club, Dennis organized the first-ever California Orienteering Week, a multi-day series of National Events in 2017, and then followed that up with another one in 2018; organized the BAOC 2017 Summer Series, to ensure that instead of facing a gap of several months between our usual spring and fall events, we had a bunch of fun events to keep us busy orienteering all summer long; has served as course setter or event director for multiple events, including two National Ranking Events; serves on the BAOC Board as our National Events Coordinator; and serves on the OUSA sanctioning committee.
2017: Vicki Woolworth
Vicki has served as Club Secretary for 8 years (and counting!), doing an outstanding job on this mostly behind the scenes, but very important, position. She has been one of our most reliable event directors, doing at least one event nearly every year, including having overall responsibility for the multi-day Sierra Summerfest in 2013. Vicki will also be the event director for the March 2018 California Orienteering Week (4 events at 3 venues over 5 days).
2016: Tapio Karras
Tapio's most visible service to the club has been his initiation and ongoing support of RouteGadget for our events. He has been doing that for 12 years, including more than 380 events! In addition, he has been course setter and/or event director at many events, including course setting for three National Events (aka A-meets). Tapio is always a cheerful, encouraging presence at events. (A photo of Tapio's award presentation is here (http://baoc.org/gallery/albums/2016-Golden-Goat/2016_BAOC_Service_Award.jpg).)
2015: Trinka Gillis
Trinka served BAOC for three years as E-punch director, three years as Club Secretary, and three years as Club President. She has been an event director several times, as well as an A-meet registrar. Also, she has been an active supporter of the club's Junior program, and is 2016 chair of the Junior Grants Committee. In all of these positions, Trinka has been conscientious and thorough, collaborative as a leader, and enthusiastic as a team member.
2014: Nick Corsano
Nick has been an active member of the club since 1981. While serving as club president from 2006 to 2010, he started the process of obtaining 501(c)(3) status (tax-exempt, charitable organization). He has been an event director and course setter for B- and A-meets. He has also served as Junior Director, and helped Jay Hann establish the COOL (California Outdoor Orienteering League) program. Nick has recently improved the working relationships with the rangers at Huddart County Park and Big Basin State Park. In the case of Huddart Park, Nick has enabled us to have off-trail courses; and for Big Basin he has gotten permission for events again after many years of denial. He is also active in promoting Trail-O, having presented courses at several events.
2013: Rex Winterbottom
After serving as the club's Social Director and Training Director, Rex has been the Event Coordinator for the past two years. In addition, over the years, he has directed and course set for many events (often doing both roles at small local events), and has created maps for several area parks. Rex has also contributed to the sport of orienteering in the Bay Area by putting on events under his company terraloco.
2012: Rosemary Johnson
Rosemary has been an active BAOC club member for many years. She served as Insurance Coordinator for several years, at a time when the insurance company was very difficult to work with. Currently, Rosemary is the E-Punch Coordinator. She and her tiny team ran E-Punch for 23 events in 2012, including a week of Ski-O World Cup events where E-Punch was outdoors in the snow and it was so cold the equipment froze. She managed to keep on top of all the problems that could go wrong, and avert them so that the international event ran smoothly.
2011: Kelly Wells
Kelly always has a positive attitude and a friendly disposition. He is most often seen nowadays running courses or doing control pickup with his dog Marley. In the past, he has worked as Event Director (ED) and Course Setter (CS) for many events, including ED for the Almaden Quicksilver A-meet in 2002, Co-ED/CS for the 2006 Joe Grant Astrogaine, Co-CS for 2000 Sunol, CS for 2001 Sunol, ED for 2007 Sunol, and Co-CS for 2010 Joe Grant. Kelly and his wife Julie ran the Scout-O starts for several years, where they brought vastly improved organization to what could have been described as chaos. Kelly serves wherever he sees a need — he has made awards, and has volunteered for control pickup at events sponsored by other clubs, such as LAOC. His interest in orienteering led him to join the Santa Clara County Search and Rescue team, and he also volunteers to lead search and rescue at A-meets. Kelly is currently on the BAOC Board of Directors, where he served as Membership director for four years and is currently Treasurer.
2010: Chuck Spalding
From among many highly-recommended and qualified nominees, the committee chose to grant the award this year to someone who tends to work behind the scenes in positions that are often unnoticed and unrecognized. For many years, Chuck has helped out at most meets that he attends, working starts and finishes and just pitching in wherever help is needed. For the past several years, he has been the primary website administrator—BAOC's first contact with the public. He is also an excellent ambassador for BAOC—including helping out at other clubs' events. He has also been responsible for sending out the monthly announcement, archiving registration forms, and sending Bulletins to first-time orienteers. We congratulate Chuck Spalding on being chosen as this year's BAOC Service Award recipient, and thank you for all the work you do for the club.
2009: Jay Hann
Jay has been the BAOC Junior Director for the past three and a half years. In that time, he has dramatically expanded youth programs. He created and directs the BAOC California Outdoor Orienteering League (COOL), the club's interscholastic orienteering league that is now in its third season. COOL has markedly increased the interest level and competitive skills of our young orienteers, while providing a welcoming social atmosphere for them. His "Juniors Tent" has become the social hub of BAOC A-meets. In addition, Jay has recruited and chaperoned BAOC teams to the U.S. Interscholastic Championships, initiated the Western Region Interscholastic Championships, and coordinated many local youth outreach activities.
2008: Mark Blair
Mark has been a BAOC member for 26 years, and for almost two decades has served on the Board of Directors as Equipment Director. He has kept the club current with the latest technology and equipment for which we are noted. He has repeatedly volunteered to serve as an event director, course setter (including rogaines), and has developed software for support of our mapping programs. He is currently working on a software program for on-line registration, which should assist in modernizing our administrative process.
2007: Tony Pinkham
Tony took over ski-O coordination after it was started by Mike Poulsen and Tom Jahn (both of whom have moved away). Tony expanded ski-O, introducing multi-day ski-O events. He brought the U.S. Ski-O Champs to the West Coast for the first time, with the 2007 U.S. Championships (the only 7-day ski-O event in North America), which he developed and coordinated. He is now working on a 4-day ski-O event in 2008. At the ski-O events he is so friendly, welcomes everyone, and seems to find so many enthusiastic volunteers. In addition to his passion for ski-O, Tony has directed an A-meet and various other events, made maps of Monte Bello and Tahoe Donner, plus upgraded all the ski-O maps. Tony's always willing to give beginner clinics and welcome people. He has been very creative in designing T-shirts and ads/fliers. Also, Tony has served as the Event Coordinator for the club.
2006: Jeff Lanam
The BAOC Service Award for 2006 goes to Jeff Lanam, a veteran and active member for over 17 years. Jeff has been orienteering with BAOC since 1989. He is a dedicated member who is always available to help out when needed. He has willingly volunteered as event director, course setter, beginner's clinic instructor, and a multitude of other tasks, including photographer and extensive duties with the e-punch cadre. He has served on the Board of Directors as the editor of the Bulletin for the past six years. In each of these roles Jeff has worked hard and made a significant contribution to the strength and growth of BAOC.
2005: Scott Aster
Scott has been on the BAOC board since 1997, two years as Event Coordinator, three as President, and has spent the last four as Outreach Director. As if that wasn't enough, Scott has been the Event Director at "A" meets, and directs one or more local events every year, often also setting the courses as well. Also, Scott volunteers to help at just about every event he attends.
2004: Steve Beuerman
Steve has been on the BAOC Board of Directors as membership director since 1995. He has also served as A-meet registrar for a similar period, and was instrumental in establishing on-line registration with active.com for A-meet registration. He has also been a course setter and vetter.
2003: Robert Lewis
Robert has been the Bulletin Editor, Outreach Director, and Epunch Director. In each of these roles he has worked hard and made a significant contribution to the strength and growth of BAOC. In addition, Robert has been event director and course setter at countless events, in addition to always being willing to offer a helping hand at events when necessary.
2002: Harold and Penny DeMoss
Always willing to volunteer to help at events, they are famous for their indefatigable efforts at control pick-up. They have put on numerous events as a team. Harold was recently Event Coordinator for three years, and Penny has designed many A-meet T-shirts.
2001: Gavin Wyatt-Mair
Founder and director of BAOC's annual Scout-O event. From humble beginnings in 1992, the Scout-O has grown into one of the largest single-day orienteering events in the country, with more than 500 youthful participants.
2000: George Minarik
Event Coordinator for 3 years; Treasurer for 3 years (as of 2000, and continues in that office); directed the 2000 USOF Convention at Northstar; course setter or director for numerous A-meets.
1999: Evan Custer
President for 3 years, during which he put the club in sound financial health; former Bulletin Editor; course setter or director for numerous A-meets, championships, and festivals. Spearheaded the introduction of e-punching in the U.S. and made BAOC the first club to use it regularly at local events. Evan also won the national USOF 2002 Silva Award (http://baoc.org/club/club_infoSilva.html).
1998: Joe Scarborough
Founder of BAOC and former President; current Technical Director. Has set and directed numerous Sprint meets, including the made-for-TV event for "Bay Area Backroads."
1997: Ev & Jean Beuerman
Registration Directors since 1993; have handled registration responsibilities for more than 100 BAOC events.
1996: Bob Cooley
Mapping Director since early days of the club. Responsible for producing nearly every BAOC map, as well as most GCO maps. Course setter for numerous A-meets.
1995: Gary Kraght
Event Coordinator for 3 years; President for 3 years; founded Gold Country Orienteers (GCO); directed 1993 USOF Convention at Sugar Bowl. More than doubled the number of orienteering days per year on the BAOC schedule.
1994: Nancy Lindeman
Publicity Director since 1990. Due to her hard work and effectiveness, BAOC more than doubled its membership and has become the second largest orienteering club in the U.S.