Meet the Board of Directors and Staff
Jon Totten, Secretary
Coeur d' Alene, ID
Jon moved west from a farm in Wisconsin in 1998 and immediately became enchanted with Idaho’s natural environment. He’s spent the last 20+ years working as an outdoor educator and guide in the river, mountain, and ocean environments. His most recent endeavor is the development of a nonprofit therapeutic sailing program called Dogsmile Adventures. Jon is a firm believer in the healing power of outdoor recreation and has dedicated his life to creating opportunities for people to get well by getting outside. In addition to running his nonprofit, Jon works as the Education Program Coordinator for the Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center as well as a Wilderness First Responder Instructor for Desert Mountain Medicine. Jon is a yogi, meditator, harmonica player, and teller of not-so-short stories with a passion for guiding and guides that has driven him to serve the Redside Foundation.
Nicole Owens, Vice President
Boise, ID
Nicole grew up in Utah and spent her childhood camping and fishing with her family on Henry’s Fork of the Snake. She went on her first rafting trip as a young child and boldly declared “I don’t like the white stuff” after going through her first rapid. Not one to quit – she returned to whitewater rafting as an adult. The outdoors and time on the river provide a respite from her work as a public defender. Nicole graduated from the University of Idaho College of Law in 2007 and began her career defending indigent clients. She believes that people are inherently good, and that poor people deserve the same opportunity and respect as the rich. She looks for the humanity in everyone and pursues compassion and dignity while defending her clients. She has worked for the Idaho State Appellate Public Defender, the Ada County Public Defender, and is currently the Executive Director of the Federal Defender Services of Idaho. Because of her work, she understands the importance of mental health support and preventative care. When she isn’t in the courtroom she spends her time skiing, hiking, and rafting.
Jenni Chaffin, President
Missoula, MT
Jenni grew up in Twin Falls and gained a love for the outdoors at an early age, thanks to her mom and dad. Many summers were spent camping in the Sawtooth Valley or fly-fishing at Henry’s Lake in Eastern Idaho. She graduated from the College of Natural Resources with a Conservation Social Science degree from the University of Idaho. While in college, she met Brian Chaffin who introduced her to whitewater rafting on Idaho’s rivers, truly the treasure of the Gem State. They married in July 2007 in Stanley, along the Salmon River. Jenni works as a purchaser for NRS, the Idaho-based manufacturer of whitewater rafts, equipment, and apparel, and lives in Missoula, MT with Brian and their two cats. She is a passionate photographer who sees the beauty in the natural world and the human relationship to it.
Sara Wert, Treasurer
Boise, ID
Sara was born and raised in the whitewater rafting community. Her parents, both from Alabama, “came out west” in the early 1970s to be river guides. Hailing from Cambridge, Idaho, she grew up rafting mostly in Hells Canyon and on the Lower Salmon in both the private and commercial settings. While Sara spent several summers swamping and as a warehouse manager, she quickly learned that guiding professionally was not her calling. She graduated with an accounting degree in 2012 from Boise State University. She is very proud and thankful to be part of the Idaho rafting community and has tried to support the Redside Foundation in whatever capacity possible. When the opportunity to serve on the board and use her accounting skills became available, she jumped at the opportunity. Sara lives in Boise with her husband Davey and works as an accountant.
Kelsey Helfrich
Salmon, ID
Kelsey grew up on the rivers of Oregon and Idaho as the daughter of a multi-generational river outfitting family. She was raised learning the whole business, both on the river and in the office. A fourth-generation river outfitter, her family legacy began in 1922 with her great granddad Prince on the McKenzie River. She is the managing owner, partnered with her dad of Helfrich River Outfitters, and works alongside her husband as they continue to grow and expand the family business running rivers including the Middle Fork of the Salmon and Lower Main Salmon rivers in Idaho along with the Rogue, McKenzie, and Owyhee rivers in Oregon.
Kelsey is involved with The Redside Foundation because she believes Redside serves an invaluable role in our guiding community and offers life-changing and life-saving opportunities to this great community. She is very proud to be a part of the Redside board and excited to do her part in supporting the work being done for Idaho guides.
Lisa ‘Whizzy’ Whisnant
McCall, ID
Lisa Whisnant (aka ”Whizzy”) currently works as a river guide for Canyons River Company on the Middle Fork and Main Salmon Rivers and has been part of “Team Canyons” since 1987. In the offseason, she owns and runs the Blue Moon Yurt in McCall, ID. Her path to guiding was literally a fluke. In 1980, encouraged by a friend to walk into an interview for a guiding job, Whizzy asked, “What’s a river guide?” The friend said, “Just go.” Well, the story is much like all of ours who fall into the life of rivers. She jumped in, submerged herself, and continues to absorb all that the river offers. Rivers also led her to a career in archaeology in Grand Canyon National Park and projects along the shores of the Middle Fork and Main Salmon. As an instigator, she is passionate about people, rivers, and the unforgettable experiences we promote and soak up as guides. She believes in paying it forward and giving back to the river community she so dearly loves…always and forever grateful for that one special moment in 1980, that introduced her “to the river life.”
Clay Moorhead
Jackson, WY
While growing up in New York City, Clay traveled with his family to ski and fish throughout the Rocky Mountain West. After receiving a B.A. from Middlebury College and a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School, Clay worked in tax and estate planning in NYC before moving to Jackson with his wife and children full-time in 2008. Since then, he has followed his passions, enjoying summers as a fishing guide and winters as a ski instructor. Around the same time, Clay embarked on a winding path toward recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, culminating in five years of continuous sobriety. Clay dedicates much of his free time to volunteer charitable work. He spent seven years on the board of the Snake River Fund and is on the board of the Curran Seeley Foundation. He is also on the advisory board of Trout Unlimited’s Snake River Headwaters initiative, the Northern Rockies River Council of American Rivers, and the Resource Council of the Grand Teton National Park Foundation. As a 13-year fishing guide and lifetime angler, rivers and guiding have played a pivotal role in Clay’s personal addiction recovery and helped shape his desire to become involved with the critical mission of the Redside Foundation.
Matt Yost
McCall, ID
Born in Gooding, Matt grew up on a farm north of Rupert, ID, and still maintains a love for agriculture and operates a small timber sales business. After university, he fled to Saskatchewan to tackle a family potato growing operation. However, after two years of long Canadian winters, he decided that rafts and rivers were more interesting than tractors. His most cherished friendships, experiences, and life events have come from guiding. Sharing nature with strangers has offered Matt the experience of being a whitewater, fishing, and hunting guide in the U. S., New Zealand, and China. Matt guided alongside Telly Evans. After Telly’s passing, with an unexplainable feeling of loss and fear mixed with encouragement from Brian & Jenni Chaffin and Jane Evan’s blessing The Redside Foundation was born.
Julia Hatch
Salmon, ID
After making the move west from upstate New York, Julia found her forever home in Idaho. Her passion for the outdoors and affinity for small towns led her to settle in the Salmon Valley with her partner, Skip. Julia is a registered nurse and currently serves the rural
community as a home health nurse. In the winter you can usually find her skiing the Montana/Idaho border at Lost Trail Ski Area where she is a ski patroller. In the summer you'll find Julia elbow deep in river coolers, food prep, and guest communications as she serves as
the office manager (and wearer of many hats) for Idaho River Journeys on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. Julia began guiding in 2010 and considers the guiding community a fundamental part of her life.
Serving on the Redside board offers her the opportunity to give back to the community who made her who she is today and has supported her every step of the way.
Sheri Hughes, Advisor
Challis, ID
Sheri Hughes is a past Board President and currently works as the Forest Service permit and lotteries coordinator/specialist for Recreation One Stop, known to most as recreation.gov. Sheri works virtually from her Central Idaho home in Challis, where she has deep 4th generation family roots. Sheri worked on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River for the Forest Service from 1980 until 2007 and had acting river manager duties on the Main Salmon for 7 years. As a result of her years working in and around Idaho’s guiding community and being an extreme extrovert, she has an extensive friend network of current and retired guides throughout the country. She is married to retired 25-year river guide, Melvin Hughes. Her great uncle guided Ernest Hemingway on game hunts in the Pahsimeroi, and her mother worked for several years as a guide at Twin Peaks Ranch. Even without this family connection, her passion for the welfare of Idaho’s guides is a priority as they make up a large portion of people she considers extended family.
Jane Evans, Advisor
Boise, ID
Jane Evans is the mother of Telly Scott Evans, who we honor through the Redside Foundation and Scholarship Fund. She is a native of Minnesota but has spent most of her lifetime in Idaho. Jane loves the Idaho outdoors and enjoys fly-fishing, skiing, biking, and spending time on rivers camping, and rafting with her son Kobe. She is an avid hiker of Idaho’s mountains especially in the Boise foothills where she resides. Jane has a Masters in Education and after ending her teaching career at Boise State University, in 1998, has owned and operated Eastgate Management.
Megan Hughes
Lolo, MT
Megan grew up splitting time between Manhattan, MT and Cambridge, ID thanks to the seasonal nature of her father’s work. Her father, Mike, was an Idaho river guide and Montana teacher through the 1990s while she was growing up. This meant many outdoor Idaho experiences in her youth and the blossoming of her love for wild places. While Megan attended (and graduated from) Montana State University - Billings and Lewis & Clark State College, she spent summers in Stanley, ID working for the Stanley Baking Company and River One. With degrees in Dental Hygiene and Healthcare Administration, she is a Dental Hygienist yet also assists in operating the family’s Idaho and Montana based rafting and fly-fishing outfitter business, Hughes River Expeditions, Inc.
Brian Chaffin, Advisor
Missoula, MT
Although born in Cincinnati, OH, Brian is an Idaho boy at heart. He grew up dreaming of mountains and rivers, so in the fall of 2000, he packed up and moved West to pursue a degree in natural resources from the University of Idaho. He was quickly introduced to river guiding by a good friend from Salmon, and so he started guiding trips on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in 2001. Since then, Brian graduated from UI, worked for NRS as a sales rep for the Southeast US and the Intermountain West, and worked as a river ranger for the USDA Forest Service on the Main Salmon River–all while continuing to guide at least a few trips each summer to stay connected to the community he loves. In July 2007, he married the love of his life, Jenni, along the banks of the Salmon River in Stanley, ID. In 2014, Brian completed a Ph.D. in Geography at Oregon State University and is now a professor at the University of Montana.
Brhe Zolber, LCPC, Mental Health Program Manager
Boise, ID
Born and raised in Northern Idaho, Brhe went on her first whitewater rafting trip at age 7. Falling in love with the river, Brhe dreamed of being a guide on Idaho's rivers. Brhe started guiding on the Salmon River in 2000 after her first year of college. Brhe met her now-husband Jamie at a guide party that same summer. Brhe and Jamie were married in June 2013 on a sandy Salmon River beach and now have a son, Fisher. Continuing to guide throughout college Brhe completed her Bachelor's Degree at Boise State University and later her Master's Degree in Clinical Counseling from Northwest Nazarene University. Currently, Brhe is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor working in the Boise area. In addition to her counseling practice, Brhe is the case manager for the Redside Foundation Guide Helpline.
Daniel Brown, Executive Director
Hailey, ID
A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, Daniel’s path to river guiding began with a desire to explore the vastness of the western US and started with a response to a newspaper ad. In the heart of the guide community, he forged deep connections over 19 seasons and his time as a guide provided not just a job but a way of life. During these seasons, Daniel passionately pursued leadership roles dedicated to serving nonprofit organizations. His impactful contributions extended to director-level positions, where he played a pivotal role in establishing equitable access to outdoor recreation for individuals with disabilities. He is dedicated to enhancing the well-being and strength of guides, embodying a spirit of excitement and personal care in his service to the Redside Foundation mission. You will cross paths with Daniel on the rivers, trails and snow-covered hills surrounding his home in Hailey, ID.