Nicki Bailey, VP of People and Operations

Nicki (she/her) finds that bike travel brings together her greatest passions: new connections and places, tough obstacles to overcome, and silliness in the outdoors. As an outdoor industry professional since 2009, Nicki has had the opportunity to work in HR and Operations across the Núu-agha-tuvu-pu (Ute), Tekohá (Guarani), Mbya, Apsaalooké (Crow), Salish Kootenai (Flathead), Cheyenne, and native lands of many others (presently known as the US Mountain West and Latin America). Her zeal for just, equitable and creative workplaces make ACA a great fit for both Nicki’s work and time out on bikes. She is the Board Chair of the Forward Montana Foundation and always brings too many things on a bike tour.

David Barth, IT Specialist

David has been working at Adventure Cycling Association since 2013. He enjoys running and cycling with his friends in mountains and on the gravel roads of Montana and Idaho. If you are visiting the office in Missoula, he invites all to join him and his fellow co-workers in a spirited session of "hacky sack" in the court yard.

Sam Bockius, Digital Navigation Program Manager

Sam moved to Montana in 2012 to attend school at Montana State University. Since graduating, Sam has been instructing and leading outdoor education camps and courses throughout Montana and Colorado. More recently he has been coaching a local youth mountain bike team in Bozeman, as well as working for an online cycling retailer. In 2019, Sam biked the Olympic Peninsula and a section of the Pacific Coast where he fell in love with traveling by bike. He can’t wait to meet all the people passing through the office on their own adventures.

Josh Bowden, Experiences Operations Specialist

Josh Bowden (he/him) grew up in Tennessee but has fallen in love with living in Montana for the past year. Although he is a trail runner and backpacker at heart, he discovered the wonders of biking in 2020 when he served as a bike technician through the pandemic bike boom. While he devotes his competitive energy to ultrarunning, he loves to slow down with meandering, all-day bike rides with coffee stops and overnight getaways from town. Having received so many blessings from his time outside, he dedicates himself to helping people experience outdoor adventure and expand their limits above and beyond what they believe is possible. In his free time, you’ll find Josh climbing the steepest hills around, sipping cappuccinos, reading large novels and philosophy, or playing Dungeon & Dragons with friends.

Maxton Caplanides, VP of Community Engagement

Maxton’s introduction to bike travel happened when he decided to jump in headfirst and ride the TransAm and Oregon coast in the summer of 2015 — a trip that completely changed the course of his life. It was on that trip that he met his partner who was doing her own cross-country ride, and where he discovered his love for bike touring and the magic that comes along with it. He joined the ranks at Adventure Cycling the following summer. When he’s not at work, he prefers to be bushwhacking in the mountains with his son, or riding up steep gravel roads in search of the view just over the next hill.

Richard Darne, Database Administrator

Richard was born in Virginia and moved to the Missoula area at the age of three. He loves it here in Montana and has no plans of leaving. He started working for Adventure Cycling in May 2004 after doing similar jobs for the Forest Service for the previous four years. In his spare time he enjoys crossword puzzles, camping, riding his swing bike, and playing banjo while singing with his dad.

Michelle Estrella, VP of Finance and Technology

Michelle has extensive experience and training in finance and accounting leadership across a variety of industries, including eco-travel, technology, and higher education. Having lived all over the US and in Germany, Michelle now calls Boulder, CO home. She was an early adopter of the electric cargo bike movement, commuting across town with her twins but also enjoys cycling for recreation. Michelle is active in her community, currently serving as chair of the City of Boulder’s Open Space Board of Trustees where she advocates for conservation of the natural environment and responsible recreation.

Jake Flaherty, Staff Accountant

Jake grew up in Logan, Utah and spent time in Big Sky, Montana and Jackson Hole, Wyoming before attending school in Missoula, Montana. He studied finance at the University of Montana through 2017 and was a student employee for Adventure Cycling for more than half his time in school. He started out as a volunteer restocking bins used for guided tours. Next, he worked as a membership assistant through the university’s work-study program. In 2015 he became the accounting assistant and was married to his wife Amber in the same year. Jake officially became an employee with Adventure Cycling in 2017. Jake fell in love with long-distance bicycle travel after riding from Bozeman, Montana to Sacramento, California in 2006. Now Jake can be found cycling on the trails and logging roads surrounding Missoula.

Mike Floyd, Cartographer/GIS Specialist

Mike’s childhood was all about biking, skiing, and exploring the trails and mountains of his Colorado hometown. His college years in Gunnison deepened his love for high desert singletrack. After college, he lived in Portland, Oregon, where his daily bike commutes turned into big adventures in the beautiful countryside. A few years later, he followed his heart back to Colorado, worked as a ski and bike patroller, and studied GIS to fuel his passion for maps. Now, Mike combines his love for bikes and maps in his job as a GIS Specialist and Cartographer at Adventure Cycling. Mike, his wife Ara, and their two kids live in Vail, Colorado. When he’s not mapping or riding, Mike enjoys listening to music, drawing, and reading.

Haydin Grotz, Project Manager

In 2013 Haydin biked cross country from Baltimore, MD to Seattle, WA with the 4K for Cancer – a program of the Ulman Foundation that raises funds and awareness for young adults with cancer. From her bike seat, she was able to see first-hand how beautiful things are and how generous people can be. After her trip, Haydin worked at a bike shop in her hometown of Lusby, MD for three years before moving to Missoula, MT. She loves everything Missoula has to offer including biking, hiking, fly fishing, and sour beer! She also loves meeting new people, volunteering, and snuggling with her cat, Arthur.

Corbett Hall, Experiences Program and Operations Manager

Corbett (he/him) was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana. He started cycling as a utility at Indiana University, and after graduating lived in North Carolina before cycling across the country for the affordable housing cause with Bike & Build in 2019. After this experience, he became committed to continuing the mission of "a lifetime of service." Since then, Corbett has been coaching high school swimming, guiding mountain bike trips, wrenching on bikes, building affordable housing, tutoring, and most recently leading another cross-country cycling trip with Bike & Build in 2022. Corbett believes that the speed of a bike is best way to see the world, and in the power of a new recipe or long book.

Jenn Hamelman, Director of Routes

Jenn grew up in Oregon, still loves the rain and is happy to be leading the Routes team from her corner of the Pacific Northwest. In 2017, she rode solo over 2000 miles from Portland, Maine, across Michigan on USBR 20 to Minnesota where her adventure ended on the Paul Bunyan Trail. Jenn spends part of the year in New Mexico with her extended family. In her free time you’ll find her reading, creating, cooking fab vegan meals, walking her neighborhood, planning her next bike adventure with her BFF, and petting her kitty Sophie.

Lauren Hudgins, Marketing Manager

Lauren is living proof that you can forget how to ride a bike and had to relearn at age 21. Originally from rural Maryland, she now lives car-free and bikes about the gloom of the rainy Pacific Northwest to keep her endorphins flowing. Lauren earned her MA in Publishing and her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Portland State University in 2014. She joined the ACA team in spring 2022, after a few years in the outdoor industry focused on hiking. Cycling is more of her wheelhouse.

Nicholas Hunt, Content Director

Nicholas Hunt grew up in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, where he learned to mountain bike, kayak, fly fish, and, surprisingly, ski. It’s also where he learned to write, a skill that’s taken him across the country as an award-winning journalist, editor, and content marketer. After graduating from the University of Tennessee with a BS in Communications, he slowly marched west. With a few years in every time zone in the Lower 48 under his belt, he feels safe in declaring that Mountain Time is the best time, and has settled down with his wife in the Mile High City.

Bryce Johnston, Tours Operations Specialist

Raised in the hills of Salt Lake City, Bryce studied at Utah State University. During his time there he became involved with sustainability efforts and began commuting by bike to reduce emissions. After spending summers across the West working at different nonprofits and exploring fire roads on two wheels, he moved to Missoula in 2022 and joined the local bike community. After working a myriad of jobs including commuter outreach and cobbling, Bryce started working at Adventure Cycling in late 2023. Outside of cycling, he spends his free time doing various crafts, camping and hanging out with his dog Maggie.

Michael McCollough, Customer Coordinator of Experiences

Since 2013, Michael has been navigating Missoula’s diverse bike trails, delving into gravel, cyclocross, mountain biking, and bikepacking amidst the scenic Montana environments. When not on two wheels, he’s with his magnificent dog or creating in his ceramics and leatherworking home studio. Cycling’s transformative essence fuels his mission to share its joy, witnessing its profound impact on personal growth and community bonds. Michael is dedicated to amplifying the biking experience, weaving threads of adventure and nature into our collective, every day journey.

Joe LaRiche, Store Manager

Born in the wilds of Ohio and raised in the Great Lake State of Michigan, Joe was introduced to bikes by his father at a young age. Wanderlust has been a theme throughout his life. After graduating high school, he spent a year in South Africa as an Exchange Student. After a few years back in The Mitten, he moved across the country to Salmon, Idaho to explore the wild backcountry on a single-speed Vassago. As winter set in he went seeking employment in Whitefish, MT. There he worked as a Snowboard Instructing during the winters and a bike mechanic in the summers. Living there is where his bikepacking knowledge really grew. Soon, The Wanderlust took over and he and his now-wife travelled the west in a box trailer they built out. Eventually they landed in Missoula in 2020.

Kay Lopez, Graphic Designer

Kay is a Northern California-based artist and graphic designer who blends her passions for creative expression and outdoor adventure, working with companies like NOLS and the American Packraft Association. Her entry into the cycling world began when she and friends launched a bike component company in the Bay Area, sparking her love for all things cycling. Despite not owning a bike initially, she dove into bikepacking with the company’s support and later won a grant that expanded her cycling horizons. Now, she embraces her “one bike to rule them all,” combining touring and mountain biking on her beloved steel bike. These experiences deepened her commitment to working with companies that remove barriers and create access to outdoor recreation. When she’s not designing, she’s packrafting local rivers or skating with her derby team. Always prepared, Kay is rarely without her waterproof bag, coffee, and sketchbook, capturing moments as they unfold.

Geoff McMillion, Membership/Development/Building Facilities Manager

Originally from Chapin, SC, Geoff was lured west by Glacier National Park where he spent two college summers. The lure became permanent when he transferred to the University of Montana graduating with a BS  in Recreation Management at the UM School of Forestry. Geoff joined the Adventure Cycling team in 2012 with Cyclosource. He then spent 5 years as Admin/Bookkeeping prior to joining Membership. Geoff enjoys exploring the trails, rivers, and backroads of Montana in his free time — and if you happen to hear the drone of bagpipes in the Missoula area, you may find Geoff there, piping his favorite tunes.

Jillian Millkey, Tour Leader Compliance Manager

We are all a collection of moments, experiences, emotions, and decisions. We are the smiles, the tears, laughs, grimaces, aches, pains, and changes we choose to enact and embrace. Who is Jillian? A writer, a pragmatic dreamer, an effervescent explorer looking for a way to make sustainable practices more mainstream and this world a better place. She has led a plethora of lives and seemingly unrelated but intertwined paths up Himalayan mountains and down dusty desert tracks to lead her to a spot at the ACA table. While most of the past few years have been spent running medical & safety teams for remote reality television shoots (yes… you read that right) in Alaska, she combats the AK darkness with a base in sunny SW CO. She believes that meals are best cooked together, vivacity is contagious, everyone has something to teach, and adventures are best when shared.

Jeffrey Mizell, VP of Programs

Jeffrey’s career in nonprofit management and leadership has seen him working in various roles around the globe, from a Rescue Diver and Divemaster in Okinawa, Japan, to directing all fundraising and programming operations in the Washington, DC, region for Rise Against Hunger. As the Director of Development at Adventure Cycling Association, Jeffrey brings firsthand development and leadership experience with donors throughout the giving spectrum, from first-time individual donors to major donors, corporate partners, foundations, and beyond. Jeffrey and his partner, River, have two beautiful sons, Jay and Kai, and a rescue border collie who all love to bike around town and play in their garden. You can find Jeffrey on the bike paths and trails near his home in Fort Collins, Colorado, or in used bookstores hunting for rare copies of his favorite book, Treasure Island. 

Melissa Moser, GIS Analyst/Cartographer

Before coming to Missoula in early 2012, Melissa studied GIS at the University of Wyoming. After completing an M.S. degree, she biked cross-country from Los Angeles to Boston to promote cycling as transportation. This experience introduced her to bicycle touring and Adventure Cycling, both of which she quickly came to love. Three years later she was able to combine her career (GIS/mapping) with her passion (bicycle touring) by joining the Routes & Mapping crew at Adventure Cycling. When not at work, Melissa can be found biking, hiking, gardening, traveling, and enjoying music.

Miranda Navarro, Development Coordinator

Miranda grew up in Pocatello, Idaho, surrounded by nature’s wonders. Skiing down pristine slopes in the town of Sun Valley, navigating challenging mountain bike trails in the Tetons, and conquering rock faces in her hometown have not only been recreational pursuits but integral parts of her growth as a person. Miranda is passionate about fostering BIPOC representation in outdoor spaces, recognizing the transformative impact nature can have on individuals from all walks of life. She believes that creating inclusive environments within the outdoor community is not only a moral imperative but also essential for the growth and sustainability of the industry. You can usually find her outside with her dog Zeus, bopping around town and on the trails.

Jennifer O’Dell, Executive Director

Jennifer joined Adventure Cycling in 2021 after 23 years of working in consumer-packaged goods, ecommerce, and fitness and apparel industries. She is excited to combine her marketing skills and passion for the outdoors to help people create lasting memories from their own adventures and travels by bike. Originally from Oregon and Alaska, BK (Before Kids), Jennifer spent her free time traveling having epic adventures as often as possible. After earning her MBA, she started adventure racing, backpacked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, went bike touring through Vermont, and scuba diving in Belize. AK (After Kids), she now spends her free time instilling a love of adventure in her kids and exploring the outdoors with her family. When she’s not hiking, mountain biking, or driving kids to various sporting events, she loves cooking, watching live music, photography, and reading books.

Reed Sallans, Director of Experiences

Reed’s interest in a car-free lifestyle began in college where he worked as a bike mechanic and outdoor guide. After graduating from Texas Tech University he worked as a mule-packer on the Pacific Crest Trail and toured around the American West on his bike until landing back in Austin, TX, where he was born and raised. The allure of the open road stayed strong, so he chose to spend the better half of 2020 on a loaded bike, pedaling from Oregon to Texas. When not on two wheels, he enjoys throwing pottery, photography, gardening, and fly-fishing.

Kym Verhovshek, Development Director

Kym Verhovshek (she/her) is a Chicago native whose enthusiasm for the outdoors landed her in the beautiful mountains of Asheville, NC. She loves global travel, and has visited 41 states in the U.S. and 10 countries. Kym enjoys tennis, hiking, biking, and horseback riding, and taking adventures with her husband (a devout cyclist), son (a budding cyclist), and their Cattle Dog/Corgi mix. In her work with corporate and non-profit businesses, Kym has 20+ years of experience building strategic partnerships, enhancing member and donor engagement, and assisting organizations to sustainably scale their impact.

Amy Wally, Cartography Program Manager

Amy grew up in Northern California and moved to Missoula in 2013 to fulfill a lifelong dream of living in Western Montana. She earned her master’s degree in Geography from UM in spring of 2015 and began working at Adventure Cycling in fall of 2015. Amy loves to spend the weekends in the mountains, exploring the beautiful wildness that Montana has to offer with her husband Garin. When not escaping into the wilderness, Amy can be found biking around town, hanging out at the Top Hat, or snuggling up with a good book and her two precious cats, Sugar and Spice.

Ellie Zachary, Innovation Program Development Manager

Ellie grew up in Fruita, Colorado, where the love of bikes runs deep within the community. In 2019, she moved to Boulder, Colorado, and graduated from CU with a BA in Environmental Studies. Her passion for outdoor equity and adventure drove her to break barriers, advocating for everyone to experience the transformative power of the outdoors. Sharing her love for the outdoors with her dog, Sunny, is her absolute favorite part of life. Now venturing into the world of adventure cycling, she is all about the raw joy of biking and the simple wonders of nature.

Jessica Zephyrs, VP of Marketing and Communications

Jessica, born and raised in Oklahoma under the sign of the scissor-tail flycatcher to a long lineage of Oklahomans, took flight in 2007 and landed in Missoula, Montana. With a background in nonprofit marketing, she joined Adventure Cycling in 2018. Her job is to make new online visitors comfortable, promptly giving them whatever they might be looking for, fluffing their pillows in the hopes they’ll stay awhile and get to know the adventure cycling community. Jessica has a couple of degrees, but more importantly, she has a beautiful 1970s Gitane mixte that she recently converted into a single speed for her daily commute. Look for her on the local trails, running downhill as fast as her legs will carry her and encouraging others to do the same.