Fred Wollman, President

I am Fred Wollman.  I grew up in South Dakota and received my BS at the University of South Dakota.  I met my wife Kathy on a blind date while working in Nashville, Tn.  We moved to California in 1980 and settled into Valley Center in 1993 so our young children could see the stars at night.

We started backpacking shortly after getting married and our kids, JC and Andrew, have both been packing since before their first birthdays.  We all love being outside watching the hawks, lizards and coyotes during the day and star gazing at night.  I am passionate about trails and preserving wild open spaces as a way for Valley Center to become of community of friends rather than merely a place to sleep before driving back to work the next day. 

Now that my children have left home (and no longer in soccer, karate and other sports) my best opportunity to meet people is to go for a walk.  Valley Center is a beautiful place.  The view from the ground on two feet while walking is very different from the view at 55 mph.  With the number of home being built, decline in agriculture and increased traffic, Valley Center is at risk of losing the attributes that drew many of us here.  Our sleepy country roads are no longer safe to walk or bicycle along.  The dirt road or large parcel that was available to ride my horse now is paved, covered with homes and surrounded by fences and gates.  If I am to go for a walk or ride a bicycle or horse safely, I must get into a car and drive to Hell Hole Canyon (in Valley Center), Wilderness Gardens (in Pala), Daley Ranch (in Escondido) or Palomar Mountain.

We need to follow the lead of other communities like Poway and Ramona, to develop our neighborhoods into friendly places where people leave the house to walk the dog, ride their horses and maybe even allow their kids to ride bikes to school and even talk to each other.

 Join us in making Valley Center a great place to live and not merely a pretty place to drive through.

Madeline Gartner, Secretary

and I especially appreciate the sense of place and community the residents share. I enjoy my hilltop Peaceful Hill Ranch with my horse, dogs, cats and ducks. I have paths and trails all around my five acres: through Manzanita, alongside boulders, winding under trees – they give character to the property, draw me out to experience it with my animals and they help to tell its story. I feel the same way about trails for our community – they help define our rural lifestyle and sensibility, and invite us to get out, share a walk and enjoy the neighborhood.

As a weekend life-cycle Celebrant, I create ritual and ceremony that speaks to our common life passages and that serves to build bridges among participants; and as a yoga and meditation teacher, I work with ways to live mindfully and in spirit. Personal sustenance rituals of walking, hiking, biking and riding are healthy whole body-mind activities too: good for us inside and out.

I love riding the southern California trails with my horse Cheeftan, and we would be thrilled to ride safely out along our own road and around our neighborhood. The Trails Association has worked diligently to lay out a wonderful network of trails throughout the Valley Center area. I joined up to help implement this visionary pathway system because I see trails as an asset for everyone to utilize and enjoy, and as a way to enrich and unify the community as it grows. What better symbol for community could there be than pathways that serve to connect us all! I look forward to having more local options for safely exercising and enjoying the beauty and diversity of our area while hiking, biking and riding out with Cheefie. Please contact one of the VCTA Board members if you would like to help out, too.

through the groves (with permission from the grove owners) into Pauma Valley. Now with new owners, more houses being built, and gates; we have lost access to the groves. We currently travel into Ramona, or Julian to ride, we desperately need open space preserves in North County to support our growing population. This became very apparent in 2020 when the County parks closed their staging & parking lots due to Covid-19.

I joined the VCTA Board as the Equestrian Liaison in 2021. I have been a member of the Valley Center Trails Association since 2010. I am currently trying to unite the equestrian community, so equestrians have a larger voice for multi-use trails, and other related issues that affect the equestrian community.

I am an advocate for multi-use trails, and open space preserves. I support Rancho Lilac and believe this ranch should be open to the public with staging for equestrians, and multi-use trails, it is a beautiful 902-acre ranch rich in history it also has many well-established trails. Rancho Lilac should be preserved for future generations to enjoy. I support finding a legal entrance and staging area into Daley Ranch from the Valley Center side.

Laury Flora, Board Member

I grew up on a farm in San Dimas, CA. about 100 miles north of Valley Center, and spent time working on the farm.  I still love the outdoors, farming, and now fruit trees.  I went to Cal Poly, Pomona, the local college, where earned a BS in Electronics Engineering.  After working a couple years as an engineer, I went to MIT and earned an MS in Solid State Physics.

 After that I worked as an engineer for 40+ years designing those little chips (integrated circuits) that power computers, cell phones, and just about everything else these days.  While working for Unisys, I also ran a horse boarding stable with my wife and another couple, planted just about every fruit tree I could get my hands on, and pursued music in several ways.  In fact, when I had to decide on a career, it was a toss-up between music and engineering.  Then I discovered that engineering made more money, so I decided that music would be a hobby.

I have been hiking since I was a little kid, exploring the dunes at campsites along the beach, hiking over Mt. Whitney as a teenager, around the back side of Kauai, etc.

 The area where I grew up is now developed.  When I had the opportunity to move to San Diego in 1989, I chose Valley Center because it is still rural.  I was delighted to discover that I seemed to have moved back in time into an area just like the one I grew up in.  I enjoy walking around Valley Center, for exercise, to see what is here, and to possibly meet interesting people.  Now I am interested in making sure trails are available to everyone who wants to enjoy the outdoors in Valley Center, which is why I support the Valley Center Trails Association.