The Nominations are In!
Get to know the candidates running for the MORE Board of Directors (2024-2026). Elections will take place from December 9 to 18. All current MORE members will receive an email with a link to vote on December 9.
--
President
Casey Anderson
MORE is a healthy, effective organization with a strong track record of success, and Ernie Rodriguez will be a tough act to follow. MORE's main challenge over the next few years is to get more people on mountain bikes, more mountain bikers to join MORE, and more members to get more involved in the organization.
COVID gave a lot of folks a new appreciation for trails and helped boost MORE's membership numbers, but we need to focus on retaining these members and attracting new ones if we are going to sustain our successes. This means demonstrating the value of membership by building trails and building community, and it means redoubling our efforts to help novice riders feel welcome and find opportunities to give mountain biking a try. It also means pressing forward with advocacy plans throughout the region, giving everyone in the DMV easy access to high-quality trails and the joy they bring to our lives.
After sitting in on board meetings and talking with board members individually, it's clear that our club has never been stronger, and we are lucky to have a skilled and dedicated executive director in Jali Fernando. As president, I would see my role as supporting her, the board, and our trail liaisons in streamlining administrative processes, raising money, and building on our successful efforts in trail maintenance and construction, advocacy, group rides and social events, and of course the MoCo Epic.
I served as chair of the Park and Planning Commission in Montgomery County for several years, where I spent more time in meetings about trails than riding them. It was worth it because we succeeded in getting dozens of miles of new trails built and dozens more opened to mountain bikes. I persuaded the County Council to add hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to the trail budget, funding two full-time crews of professional trailbuilders, and I led the Parks Department's capital budget strategy to add funding for the South Germantown bike park, the Fairland skills area, and the new Carroll Knolls pump track.
I can't promise that we will be able to persuade every jurisdiction in the region to match Montgomery County's commitment of resources, but I believe I can help MORE get land managers and their elected bosses to take trails and mountain biking seriously as a low-cost, healthy way to improve the quality of life in their communities. I would be honored to have the opportunity to help bring the joy of mountain biking to more people, and I ask for your vote for President of MORE.
Maryland Advocacy Director
Dave Magill
Hi, I’m Dave Magill, and I am running for MD Advocacy Director again for the 2024-25 term. I have been serving in this role for 10 years and have been a MORE member and trail liaison for 30 years. Yeah, that makes me old, but hopefully a bit wiser as well. I see my role as helping all our MD trail liaisons (including myself at Schaeffer Farm) improve the trail riding options in their parks. We, the MORE liaison team, have had a lot of successes; whole new trail systems being developed at places like Patuxent, Windy Ridge, Rivers Edge, Waterworks and Kent Island; advocating at budget hearings in Montgomery county which now has a full time trail building crew; applying for, winning and drawing down on well over $400,000 of trail building grants from both government and private sources; putting power tools for clearing vegetation in the trails in the hands of at least 30 volunteers; and making MORE a trusted partner to a dozen land managers.
Many of you may have met me over the years, but as background I am now retired from my career, and able to devote lots of time to our trails and our liaisons. I am married with two daughters and four grandchildren, with whom I share the joy of being outdoors, hiking, biking, playing, exploring. We love the DMV area and have no plans to live anywhere else.
MORE has a broad-based membership, we have beginners, serious shredders, XC racers, casual riders like myself, people who love jumps, people who love rocks, people who love flowy smooth trails, people who mostly love the chance to hang with their friends. Luckily MD offers lands where we can make all kinds of trails, from the gravity challenges in the watershed, to the gnarly hillsides in Patapsco and Gunpowder, bike parks and downhill trails, and the flowy clay and gravel trails of MoCo and further east. My job as MD Advocacy director is to try to line up the resources (people, land, approvals, money) to build and maintain all kinds of trails and bike amenities. Our strength as a club is our diversity of interests and skills, and the willingness of so many volunteers to give their time and effort to make things better for the MTB community as a whole. I hope you will vote for me to continue doing my part to keep growing our liaison team and improving our local MD riding options.
Virginia/DC Advocacy Director
Michael Ullmann
My name is Michael Ullmann; I have lived in Woodbridge, Virginia since 2013. My wife Andrea is a Fairfax County School teacher and we have two children; our daughter Hannah is 7 years old and participates in SMORE's rides and our son Alex is not yet 2 but has been on a balance bike since he started walking. I have been an avid/obsessed mountain bike rider since 2020, however I was first introduced to trail riding in 2012 when I moved to Virginia.
I am a Mortgage Lender/Branch Leader by profession and I serve on various boards. I serve on the Virginia Mortgage Bankers Association as a local chapter President, the Vice President of fundraising for the Springwoods elementary school PTA, as well as the President of a condo association in Ocean City. I ride over 1k miles per year specifically on MORE Trails and have decided to run for the position as I want to play a bigger role in the mountain biking community locally. If elected I am looking forward to working closely with the trail liaisons to make sure they have the support needed to maintain and improve the trails they represent. I am also excited to build on existing relationships with local, state and federal entities so that we can build additional trails. I believe that we have a great opportunity to improve the trail options in Prince William and Loudoun counties and I plan to focus on both areas in addition to Fairfax County which already has a great network of trails. Personally I would like to see a paved Pump Track in Northern Virginia and will advocate strongly for this.
My favorite local trail is Locust Shade, my favorite Maryland trail is a tie between Fairland/River's Edge, my Favorite Virginia trail is Pocahontas State Park and my favorite Bike Park is Bryce.