Continuing this year’s interviews with leaders from within Little Cottonwood, your correspondent sat down with Jen Clancy, our town clerk. Well, it might be a mischaracterization. She suggested a walk and chat which turned into a two-hour tour of the entire Grizzly Gulch. And a bit of mountain goating…
Canyon Blog, who’d already hiked up Peruvian Gulch for a ski run that morning, put on a brave face and did their best to take notes while walking and talking.
Jen is a long-time member of the Alta community and it seems somehow fitting that as we approach the nation’s 250th year, she should hail from Freedom, New Hampshire. Like many a story Canyon Blog has encountered during his interviews, she arrived in town with a climbing partner during the 01-02 season. Fell in love (with Alta not the partner) and hired on the next year at the Alta Lodge, which required a four-year degree for employment at the time.
Then came the 05 season. “I blew out my knee and couldn’t work in the dining room anymore.”
Not to worry, Friends of Alta (another wonderful contributor to our tiny community) was looking for someone to function as their executive assistant.
“One week later, I hired on and was the first W-2 employee we ever had,” she says with a smile.
She spent the next four years helping FOA until they realized how capable she was and so in 09 she became the executive director, a job she held until 2018.
“When the town deputy clerk position came open I made the switch.”
When the clerk position finally opened in 2021 she was the natural selection, and the town has never looked back. She brings a quiet competence and commitment that members of the staff and town council admire and have come to rely on.
So, what does she like best about Alta?
“I love the small town feel and how you know everybody. It’s a place you can spend years and still be surprised by pockets you have never discovered. Or geta new sense”
You can often find her on her cross-country skis in winter somewhere along the rope tow or summer road.
“I love getting on my XC skis at five pm when the town has emptied out on a winter’s day and making a lap. It’s quiet and magical.”
Yes, it is. Thanks for all you do for the town and Alta community Jen!