Board of Directors

               Officers

Justin Knowles

President

Justin Knowles is a Senior Vice President in Oracle’s Customer Success Service organization where he leads product management and strategy.  He has 25+ years of experience in technology including roles at Hewlett Packard and Deloitte Consulting. Justin has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and BA and MA in Economics from Duke University. He lives in Hillsborough, CA and spends as much time as possible with his family in South Lake Tahoe, CA. 

Justin enjoys exploring Tahoe trails with his wife and two boys. He joined the 165 Mile Club in 2021. Justin also serves as a volunteer and board member with the San Mateo County Parks Foundation and the Pacific Skyline Council of Scouting USA.  In his spare time, he enjoys backpacking, trailrunning, and leading youth outdoors trips.    

Tricia Tong

Executive Vice-President

Tricia developed a love for hiking and exploring nature through a hobby called letterboxing, often with her family and her big old dog Teva. In 2016, with a whopping two nights of backpack camping experience, she participated in the TRTA thru-hike – not because she thought it would be “enjoyable” (she stalwartly dislikes being cold and eating outdoors), but because her mindset is to run at challenges rather than away from them. She also wanted to feel more confident outdoors. It was cold, cold and rainy, then cold and snowy. She fell in love with her 2oz silk bag liner, embraced the hygge, and had an amazing experience. As a guide and trail angel, her hope is to help others achieve their own goals on the trail and enjoy the marvel of who and what’s around her.

Larry Stites

Treasurer

A native of rural Illinois, Larry has been living in the Bay Area since 1976. Now retired, after serving as an officer in the US Army for some 35 years, he was a public accountant, a financial executive with a major transportation company, associated with a private equity firm, and, for the last 15 years of his career, a financial consultant to entrepreneurial, privately held, and start-up companies in a wide range of industries. He received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business, a BA from Knox College, Galesburg, IL, and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Since retiring, Larry has been an active volunteer with the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley, for several years as its Interim Executive Director and still as a member of its Board of Directors and Treasurer, with the Trail Center as a trail construction and maintenance volunteer and Treasurer, and as a member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the Ross McKee Foundation. He especially enjoys hiking, biking, gardening, and travel.   

Rebecca Cremeen

Secretary

Hailing originally from Santa Barbara, CA. Rebecca has spent over 20 years engaged in land use, recreation planning, and environmental conservation in the Sierra Nevada. She has experience both as a staff member and board member for non-profit organizations, including the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, the Tuolumne River Trust, and the Yosemite Employee Association. As a National Park Service planner at Yosemite, she contributed to the Wild and Scenic River plans- balancing recreation and visitation with conservation objectives and stewardship. She has also worked with youth as an environmental educator and naturalist and has a passion for planning events that bring together the community for a good cause. Since 2015, Rebecca has worked at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, focusing on environmental planning and sustainable transportation. Off the clock, she spends her days exploring and adventuring in the mountains, enjoying live music and all types of community events, and traveling by bicycle whenever possible.

Sharell Katibah

Trail Use Chair

Sharell was born and raised in San Francisco and was indeed a full-fledged city girl until her future husband introduced her to hiking, camping, and backpacking. She was immediately hooked! They settled in the Sacramento area in 1981 while frequently vacationing in the Lake Tahoe area. After retiring in 2013, she began to once again devote time to the activities that she truly loved. She hiked extensively throughout the west, in the Sierra (especially Tahoe, Desolation, and the eastern Sierra), and other parts of the world. In 2017, she became a participant in the TRTA Segment Hiking Program and promptly fell madly in love with the trail and the TRTA. She trained to become a volunteer guide in 2018, and it is not a stretch to say that guiding and volunteering for the TRTA quickly became her passion. She is fiercely committed to helping all trail users become stewards of this incredible resource. Her greatest hope as a guide, and now board member, is to pass her love for the outdoors, this trail, and this organization on to others through her enthusiasm and growing knowledge. When not on the trail, and usually when on-trail as well, you will probably find her behind a camera photographing the wonderful natural world that we are privileged to live in.

Jim Crompton

Trail Operations Chair

Jim Crompton has been actively involved with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association as a trail builder since 2012. Jim moved to Carson City from the Midwest in 1988. At that time Jim purchased his first mountain bike. He was a bicycle referee for both road and off-road for more than 30 years and a race organizer. After more than 35 years with the U.S. Geological Survey as a hydrologist, he retired in 2012. Jim has also been involved with trail building and maintenance with the Carson Valley Trails Association, and Friends of Nevada Wilderness. He has summited all 17 county high points in Nevada and joined the 165-mile club in 2023. In 2015, Jim joined the TRTA Board of Directors through 2019 and served as Vice President for a portion of that time. He has taken on the role of the Barker Pass to Tahoe City Segment Coordinator in addition to supporting trail projects around the entire TRT as a Volunteer Crew Leader. Jim is 325 volunteer hours away from having his name on the TRTA 5000-hour plaque. Jim is thrilled to rejoin the board and serve as the Chair of Trail Operations.

Rishi Batra

Board Member

As an avid backpacker for over 20 years and someone who has personally hiked the full Tahoe Rim Trail in 2019 through the guided Thru-hike program, Rishi has developed a profound connection to the trail and the preservation of its natural beauty. Rishi has returned several times to volunteer with the TRTA and hike the trail, and he’s glad to join the Board to help serve the organization. His background is as a lawyer and law professor, and he hopes to use his knowledge of contract and property law to help the board receive and utilize the best legal advice possible. In addition, his work with several non-profit educational institutions has given him a familiarity with and interest in fundraising, especially through planned giving. Rishi’s academic work and community engagement is in dispute resolution, which equips him with unique skills that can benefit the Tahoe Rim Trail Association, particularly in strategic planning and community engagement. Joining the Board allows Rishi to contribute to ensuring that this treasured resource remains accessible and well-maintained for future generations, leveraging his expertise in negotiation and mediation to foster partnerships and resolve any conflicts that arise. 

Gina Barth

Board Member

Gina moved to Incline Village almost 20 years ago and has been enjoying Lake Tahoe ever since!   Prior to moving to Tahoe, Gina developed community benefit and corporate social responsibility programs at El Camino Health’s Foundation and the Entrepreneurs Foundation (now part of Silicon Valley Community Foundation).  She has spent the last two decades volunteering locally – serving on several non-profit boards and lending her expertise as a fundraising professional.   She looks forward to logging more miles on the TRT with friends and family.

Walid Khiari

Board Member

Walid discovered long-distance hiking in California and wants to encourage others to experience the beauty of Nature. A reformed urbanite (Paris, Tokyo, NYC) who still struggles with the altitude of Lake Tahoe at times, Walid walks the beautiful trails of his hometown of Woodside weekly. He is father to two outdoorswomen, both of whom are on the ski and snowboard teams at Sugar Bowl.  Walid is a graduate of the Sorbonne and the Wharton School, who recently concluded a 25-year career in investment banking. He enjoys speaking his native French to the family dog Nala, cooking Thai dishes and cutting weight from his through-hiking pack.

John McCall

Board Member

John and his late wife, Diane, both 165-milers, moved to Zephyr Cove, NV in 1999 where John still resides today. He has been a TRTA Crew Leader and board member since 2003 and has been the Board Treasurer until 2021. John was born in Michigan, grew up around Washington DC, and received a BA in Physics from MIT in 1959. He worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory until 1987, mainly developing information systems. Along the way, he received an MS in Physics from UC Berkeley and an MBA from St. Mary’s. After an early “retirement”, he and Diane formed their own consulting company. They also become part-time Tahoe residents in the mid-1980s and worked on the trail in the early days (1985 on). John’s interests, other than hiking and computers, include classical music, opera, and duplicate bridge. In addition to the TRTA, John has been active in other Tahoe activities. He was elected to the Lakeridge GID Board in 2000 and was Chairman until the was termed out at the end of 2014. He served on the Pathway 2007 Forum and was Treasurer of Nevada Opera where he served as a board member. He has recently joined the Board of the Reno Philharmonic Association.

Theresa Papandrea

Board Member

Theresa was born and raised in South San Francisco, CA then moved to Colorado to attend Regis University. Upon graduating with a BA and completing student teaching in Golden Colorado, she moved to Breckenridge to live the ski town life after learning and loving to snowboard and was able to work with youth to have consistent access to the outdoors. She linked up with a youth development mentoring non-profit and worked with the organization for 16 years. The organization focused on social-emotional learning, teaching life skills, and engaging youth in service learning while participating in outdoor adventures with positive adult mentors. Working with the community and local non-profits to help youth in the community to have positive experiences outdoors is so rewarding for Theresa. 

Theresa was introduced to TRTA in 2017 when she found out about the TRTA Youth Backcountry Camp Program. The backpacking trips were so well organized and made it fun and safe for youth to learn how to backpack/camp/hike in their own backyard making it extremely impactful. She is excited to share her love of the outdoors and experience working in the youth development field to support the mission of the Tahoe Rim Trail Association.

Faye Provenza

Board Member

Faye is a Nevada native and grew up in Las Vegas. Her first experience of Lake Tahoe was as a young teen. The view of the lake and surrounding mountains took her breath away. She knew she was destined to live in this place.  

She received her B.A. in Kinesiology and Health Promotion at the University of Texas in Austin then became the Director of Sports Facilities for the Prescott, Arizona YMCA, and also served as a board member for the local American Heart Association. Faye attended medical school in Reno and completed her residency training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Louisville in Kentucky in 2002 with National Board certification. Faye provided locum tenens medicine for 11 years and worked in 28 emergency room facilities throughout the country before taking a permanent clinical position in the Phoenix area in 2011. She was also adjunct clinical faculty at Midwestern University and the University of Arizona. She is presently a volunteer for ServNV.org and is on the Medical Reserve Corp. and has been involved in educating the public on the benefits of physical activity and nutrition.

She has been an avid rock climber for over 18 years. In addition to providing outdoor education and trail stewardship to the public, she intends to utilize her medical training experience to support the efforts of the TRTA. She can hardly wait to be a member of the 165-Mile Club. 

Robin Soran

Board Member

Robin is an avid hiker and explorer around the Tahoe Basin, completing the entire TRT with her two daughters. Robin has also hiked Machu Picchu, Zion, and Bryce to name a few other destinations, but the TRT remains her favorite trail. Robin has a BA from Duke University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She has extensive experience in the business world, working with Fortune 500 Companies, as well as starting multiple companies on her own. Robin volunteers on numerous boards in Reno and is excited for the opportunity to parlay her business and board experience with an organization that provides such an amazing service to the Northern Nevada/California community.