Gary Vernon

Passion & Hobbies: Mountain Biking, Motocross, Motorcycle Trials

Gary is a lifelong cycling enthusiast

Born in Joplin Missouri, he started with Walmart in 1984 in the local store building bicycles for the Christmas season. The began a 30 year career working his way through college, Operations and in 2003 moved to Bentonville Arkansas for an opportunity at the Walmart Corporate Office.

At Walmart he was a Director in the Environmental division working on recycling and sustainability programs before moving over to the Walton Family Foundation in 2015 supporting Steuart and Tom Walton leading their work focusing on cycling advocacy, events, mountain bike trail development and other outdoor recreation projects.

Gary is now a Senior Program officer for Steuart and Tom’s personal foundation and is considered one of the leading experts in developing mountain bike trail systems, overseeing design and construction of over 600 miles of world class mountain bike trails and growing. His work includes the Oz Trails region of Northwest Arkansas as well as the Arkansas State Parks Monument Trail projects. In 2019 he was the recipient of the American Trails Chairman award for advancing trail design and changing the landscape for trail systems.

Gary has traveled around the US, Europe as well as the UK sharing the knowledge of trail development innovation and programming, he has learned over the past 15 years.

He has been married to Aimee Vernon for 24 years and has 2 children, Grayson 16 and Abby 21 Hobbies include mountain biking, motocross, and motorcycle trials.

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