[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 131 (Tuesday, November 16, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1999-E2000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TRIBUTE TO CHARLES S. ``CHARLEY'' SHIMANSKI

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 16, 2004

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to 
Charles ``Charley'' Shimanski, an accomplished mountain climber who 
served as Executive Director of the American Alpine Club from 1993 
until his retirement in October of this year.
  Charley grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and graduated from the 
University of Wisconsin in 1981 with a degree in Economics. He worked 
in the financial services sector for 12 years both in Europe and in 
Denver, including at Oppenheimer Funds, United Bank

[[Page E2000]]

and Darlington Asset Management of Geneva, Switzerland. But a big part 
of his heart was always in the mountains.
  Charley's love of climbing has taken him throughout Colorado's 
mountainous landscape, especially the backcountry peaks in Rocky 
Mountain National Park. He also climbed in the Swiss Alps and the 
Cascades along the Pacific Northwest.
  Raised with a belief that volunteer service is the price one pays for 
living on this planet, it did not take long before his love of the 
mountains and his passion to serve the community combined into an 
almost 20-year commitment to the mountain rescue community.
  In 1985, Charley joined the Alpine Rescue Team, a volunteer mountain 
rescue group that provides rescue services in portions of the Front 
Range and Summit County, including 4 of Colorado's Fourteeners (peaks 
with elevations over 14,000 feet, for those unfamiliar with the term). 
Within 4 years he was president of Alpine Rescue Team, and over the 
years he has served as the team's mission leader, public information 
officer and helicopter specialist.
  In 1997, Charley was honored by the Colorado Search and Rescue Board 
with the Hunter Holloway Spirit Award for his work developing 
Colorado's ``Avalanche Awareness Week.'' Avalanches are a serious issue 
in Colorado and other mountainous western states. Sadly, lives are lost 
every year to avalanches and western states frequently encounter road 
closures due to avalanches, which affects local economies and tourism. 
As a result, Charley's contributions here are very significant and 
worthy of such recognition.
  Eventually Charley's focus expanded from the Alpine Rescue Team and 
Colorado search and rescue activities to the national Mountain Rescue 
Association (MRA) and international rescue consulting. He has served as 
chair of the MRA's Rocky Mountain Region and continues to serve as 
chair of the organization's Education Committee. Charley is the author 
of several national MRA manuals, including ``Accidents in Mountain 
Rescue Operations,'' ``Search and Rescue for Outdoor Leaders,'' 
``Helicopters in Search and Rescue Operations,'' and ``Avalanche Rescue 
Operations.'' He is a frequent lecturer at meetings of the Wilderness 
Medical Society, the Mountain Rescue Association and the International 
Technical Rescue Symposium, and has consulted with government agencies 
and rescue groups throughout the world.
  Despite these awards and accomplishments, Charley's most personally 
rewarding search and rescue mission was the 1990 rescue of a lost hiker 
in which he served as incident commander. The hiker was found after 12 
hours, but, more importantly, the ``reporting party'' was a woman who 
later became Charley's wife. It was the only instance anyone in the 
mountain rescue community can recall in which a person who reported a 
search eventually married one of the rescuers.
  In May 1993, Charley left the corporate world to work full time on 
climbing and mountaineering issues as the executive director of the 
American Alpine Club (AAC), a national association of climbers and 
mountaineers dedicated to promoting climbing knowledge, conserving 
mountain environments and representing the American climbing community. 
At that time, the AAC had a membership base of 1,700 members, annual 
operating revenue of $300,000 and net assets of $2.8 million.
  Charley often remarked that the AAC's greatest asset was its 
potential. Over his 11-year tenure as executive director, he spurred 
the Club into action on a number of fronts. The AAC, in partnership 
with the Colorado Mountain Club, bought and renovated the historic (and 
then vacant) Junior High School building in Golden, Colorado at the 
foot of the Front Range, turning it from a public eyesore into the 
American Mountaineering Center, a facility housing several regional and 
national climbing organizations and hosting climbing-related 
conferences and events. He oversaw a transformation in the Club's 
library from an obscure collection of unorganized mountaineering books 
into arguably the finest mountaineering library in the world, fully 
cataloged and electronically searchable by any Internet user in the 
world. He expanded the AAC's advocacy efforts on behalf of climbers so 
that the Club was a leading voice on such issues as mountain rescue, 
climbing ethics, conservation of alpine regions, and management of 
climbing destinations both domestically and abroad. Charley was an 
enthusiastic advocate of the AAC Press, the Club's publishing arm, 
which documented world climbing and published award winning historical 
guidebooks to several climbing disciplines.
  In October, Charley resigned from the AAC and accepted a position as 
Executive Director of the Colorado Association of Nonprofit 
Organizations. When he left the AAC, it had grown to 7,500 members, an 
annual operating budget of $1.3 million and net assets of $7 million--
an almost four-fold increase in most categories. The organization's 
staff grew in both size and professional capability during his tenure. 
Though his leadership will be missed by American climbers, he looks 
forward to new challenges rallying the Colorado nonprofit community to 
similar gains.

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