Who is F.O.A.L.?
President: Hap Ridgway
Vice President: Ally McIver
Treasurer: John McGee
Secretary: Ron Blanchard
Executive Director: Heather Green
foal2005@outlook.com
Board Members: John McGee, Michaele Dimock, Marshall Dominick, Vicki Olson, Hap Ridgway, Jack Machen, Ally McIver, Scott Moore, Ron Blanchard, Virginia Schmidt
Advisory Board: Warren Murphy, Cindy Bennett, Nena Graham-Burke, Phyllis Preator, Frances Clymer, Buzzy Hassrick
Webmaster: Michaele Dimock
Top Left: Hap Ridgway (President), Mary Scuffham (Former President), Scott Moore (Board Member), Michaele Dimock (Board Member), Heather Green (Executive Director), Ron Blanchard (Secretary)
Bottom Left: John McGee (Treasurer), Buzzy Hassrick (Former Board Member), Marshall Dominick (Board Member), Francis Clymer (Former Vice President), Vicki Olson (Board Member)
Not pictured: Jack Machen (Board Member), Ally McIver (Vice President)
Heather Green
Heather Green (Executive Director) was born in Cheyenne and is a 5th generation Wyomingite. After graduating from high school, she attended both Northwest College, and the University of Wyoming where she completed a BS in Economics with a Minor in Spanish. After graduation, she moved to Bolivia where she served as a Peace Corps volunteer, and found her passion for nonprofit work. In 2001 she married her husband, Yehan, who is from Sri Lanka, and they moved to northern Colorado, where Heather spent the majority of her career working in nonprofit program management. In 2018 they relocated to Cody, where they purchased the childhood home of Heather’s mother, making them the third and fourth consecutive generations to live in the house. When not working for FOAL, Heather spends her time raising her three children, enjoying the beautiful outdoors that Wyoming offers, and keeping her 100-year-old house running.
Hap Ridgway
Hap Ridgway (President) was born and raised in Cody. He graduated from Cody High School and went on to Dartmouth College, followed by a two-year tour in the Army before completing a Masters in International Affairs at Columbia University. His parents purchased a homestead in Sunlight Valley and in 1957 started Elk Creek Ranch, a ranch and wilderness program for teenagers. Hap started out as the "kitchen boy" and worked his way up to manage the operation in the 1970's. He paired his summer ranch work with a career in schools--teaching, serving as the assistant headmaster at Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire, and finishing his career as the headmaster of Berwick Academy in Maine. His spouse Susan was equally passionate about ranch and school life and about working with teenagers. They ran Elk Creek together for two decades and then supported their nieces and later their four children as they took over the reins at the ranch handling the ranch correspondence and accounting and feeding horses during the winter. Hap now continues at the ranch enjoying the work with teenagers in the summer and the mountain country of Northwest Wyoming.
Virginia Schmidt
Virginia Schmidt (Board Member) was birthed and raised on the land of Cody, Wyoming. She grew up on the Double Doc Ranch – a horse facility east of Cody – where she learned to ride a horse before she could walk.
She also spent a good deal of her childhood and adult life on her family’s cattle ranch on Beaver Creek in Shell, Wyoming. The ranch land included grazing leases in the Bighorn Mountains as well as on BLM on Whistle and Dry Creek east of Cody. Thus, her family’s cows shared grazing land and rights with the McCullough Peaks Wild Horses before her family sold those leases in recent years.
A lifelong lover of horses, wilderness, and wildlife, and a passionate advocate for sustaining the land for future generations (of ALL species!), Virginia is thankful to join FOAL because she has ridden “both sides of the fence.” Through her own experiences and long-time relationships, she understands the ranching perspective.
Through her lifelong claim to the Bighorn Basin as “home” as well as through her extensive and far-flung world travels, she recognizes this land and its sacred creatures as some of the greatest treasures on our earth. May we work together to protect this shared treasure, and may we listen deeply so that we may speak for those who cannot speak; those with whom we share this wild home.
John McGee
John McGee (Treasurer) is a third generation Wyomingite and has lived in Cody his entire life. He was a general contractor for over 35 years and has been married to the same wonderful lady for almost 40 years. John and Maryann have two grown children who both live in Bozeman, Montana. He has been around horses since a very young age since his father and grandfather both shared their passion for horses with him. John says he is “interested in helping to preserve both the wild horses of the area and the environment in which they live. I think it is important to somehow manipulate the wild horse population and keep as few as possible in a confined situation.”
Ally McIver
Ally McIver (Vice President) grew up in Florida, was born horse crazy and started riding when she was
five (where she met Joe Tilden ... who knew?)
Fast forward: She graduated from Florida Southern College in the spring of 1972 and moved to Cody on Aug. 1, 1972, to teach at the rural, remote Valley Elementary School on the upper South Fork. This was a head-spinning introduction to Wyoming, which she had located on a map while taking a college geography class.
Joe Tilden and Ally married Christmas 1972 and bought Castle Rock Ranch in June of 1973. Right. Every 22-year-old from Florida needs a dude ranch in Wyoming -- another head-spinning experience with lots of amazing guests, horses, cows, hunters, barley fields and beautiful river frontage.
When Joe and Ally divorced, she loaded up her favorite horse and moved to Lander where she worked at Noble Travel and the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). She returned to Cody in 2002 and was a broker/agent at Western Real Estate. The last nine years of her working life were spent managing the Bargain Box furniture and clothing stores.
Ally has watched FOAL grow and gain in influence over the last two decades, and believes FOAL truly does make a difference.
Boards generally seek members with deep pockets or a wealth of institutional wisdom about the entity said board governs. Ally has neither. That said, she is a quick learner, still horse crazy and a good worker bee.
Michaele Dimock
Michaele Dimock (Board Member & Webmaster) Growing up as a horse-crazy kid, Michaele is still living her dream decades later, surrounded by horses. She shares this passion with her husband Chris and together they stay busy caring for their Cody ranch and running their newest company - It's Elation Inc. which helps organizations change the way individuals live and work by empowering them to take control of their mindset. Michaele is a certified "Reach Out to Horses" trainer under international equine specialist Anna Twinney. She has fostered many mustangs from the BLM and hosted six "Untouched Horse" clinics, where students from all over the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa came to learn the art of gentling wild horses - which ultimately made it easier for them to be adopted. Michaele currently has nineteen adopted mustangs, seven from the McCullough Peaks and the rest from the Pryor Mountains, Adobe Town, Fifteen Mile, Divide Basin and Green Mountain HMA's.
Vicki Mann Olson
Vicki Mann Olson (Board Member) says she “impulsively” adopted a two-year-old mustang stallion from McCullough Peaks on her birthday about 14 years ago. Tate blended in well with her other horses and is still doing fine. Nine years ago she inherited/rescued a herd of over 70 Paso Finos, 30 of which she continues to care for and train as she works to find them loving homes. Vicki’s great grandparents homesteaded in Powell, Wyoming, where she and her husband, Bruce, raised their 6 children. She is a retired adjunct Northwest College (NWC) faculty member, has a degree in Photographic Communications from NWC, and is currently finishing up a degree in equine training from NWC. She is a partner in Open Range Images photo gallery in Cody, works part-time for Skywest Airlines at Yellowstone Regional Airport, enjoys volunteering in her community and photo excursions around Wyoming.
Marshall Dominick
Marshall Dominick (Board Member & Founder). You may recognize this name and face from his previous service to FOAL. We are glad to welcome Marshall Dominick back to the board. Northwest Wyoming has been Marshall’s home for all but a handful of his 74 years, making Marshall as close to being a Wyoming native as one can get without being born here. Marshall, his wife, Bettye Dominick, Ada Inbody and Ken Martin were founding members of FOAL in 2005. He continued to serve on the board for ten years. He took a brief hiatus from service in 2015 to recharge, returning with a “burning desire to do whatever I can to improve the conditions for the wild horses.” He says he “enjoys working with the members of this dynamic board.” Welcome back, Marshall!
Jack Machen
Jack Machen (Board Member) was welcomed as our tenth board member. Jack served previously on the board and has continued his involvement by serving as an advisor. A native of Baltimore, Jack has been a lifelong visitor to the Cody area since 1968 when he worked on the 7D Ranch at the age of sixteen. In 2000, Jack and his wife, Louise, purchased land in Cody and spent vacations in their seasonal yurt before moving into their newly constructed house in 2019. Jack was a commercial real estate attorney for the global law firm DLA Piper before retiring in 2012. He now works remotely as Special Chief Solicitor with the Baltimore City Law Department while he and Louise deepen their roots in Wyoming. Welcome to the board, Jack! Good to have you back!
Ron Blanchard
Ron Blanchard (Secretary)--Born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas, Ron came to Wyoming in the mid 1970’s as a rodeo cowboy after practicing his trade as a pipeline welder. As a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association, he rode bareback horses for fifteen years. In 1975, he worked on the Alaskan pipeline on the North Slope. The beauty and wildness of Wyoming called him to settle in Cody. Ron, his brother Rick and another friend started Wyoming River Trips in 1978. Ron has also worked for Wyoming Game and Fish Wolf Program tracking, monitoring and collaring Northwest Wyoming wolves. He is married to Cathy and has a grown son, Jake. His family enjoys horseback riding, snowshoeing, backcountry hiking and searching for desert rock art.
Scott Moore
Scott Moore (Board Member) joined the FOAL board in 2024. Born and raised in Cody Wyoming, Scott graduated from Cody high school in 1974. Scott went on to attend the University of Wyoming for his undergraduate work in animal science, and later to Kansas State University Veterinary School where he graduated in 1983 with a DMV. After school, Scott returned to Wyoming, where he has practiced veterinary medicine for the past 40 years. Scott is married to his first-grade sweetheart, has two grown children, and four grandchildren. In his spare time, Scott enjoys hunting and fishing in the great outdoors.
