Jill Fredston, co-director of the Alaska Mountain Safety Center, is one of North Americas leading avalanche experts. She has spent twenty-five years predicting avalanches, triggering them with explosives, teaching potential victims how to stay alive, and leading rescue efforts in Alaska. Then, every summer, she climbs into an ocean-going rowing shell and heads out on long expeditions in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. With her husband, Doug Fesler, in a small boat of his own, she has rowed the equivalent of the circumference of the earthmore than 25,000 miles along the rugged coasts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Spitsbergen, and Norway. Jills most recent book, Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches is a brilliant look at the forces of human nature that lure us time and again into treacherous terrain. She is also the author of Rowing to Latitude: Journeys along the Arctics Edge, which won the 2002 National Outdoor Book Award. With Doug Fesler, she co-wrote the authoritative and internationally acclaimed Snow Sense: A Guide to Evaluating Snow Avalanche Hazard.

Taking advantage of her unique experience and a vast collection of photographic images, Jill has made a specialty of speaking about managing risks in high stakes environments, decision-making, and strategies for dealing with uncertainty and change. Bringing both credibility and humor to her talks, Jills keynote presentations explore the ways in which we filter information, often becoming so distracted by our own agendas that we take unnecessary risks or miss key opportunities. When we make assumptions that go unchecked or pay attention only to the data that tells us what we want to hear, she says, we are like the Texas sharpshooter who shoots the side of a barn and then draws bulls-eyes around the bullet holes. She outlines an approach for making objective decisions based on real bulls-eye data and details rules of engagement that help maximize our chances of success.

Environmental Policy, Authors, Environment, Climbing, Adventure, Writing