JOHN POIMIROO

A publicist of public lands and promoter of all things Californian, this El Dorado Hills resident is California’s ambassador to the outdoors. As editor of CaliforniaFallColor.com John Poimiroo chronicled fall color across the state introducing hundreds of thousands to California's most colorful season. As state tourism director in the '90s and an outdoor and travel writer/photographer thereafter, he has promoted every corner of California.  

The son of a Yosemite ski patroller, he followed in his father's tracks as Director of the Olympic Valley Ski Patrol where he oversaw patrolling at the last ski jump held on the Olympic jumping hill. He now directs the American River Bike Patrol (the nation’s best bike patrol) and is a ski patroller at Donner Ski Ranch. He has skied across the Sierra, bicycled the length of California, fished many of its streams and lakes, and trekked throughout Yosemite National Park and countless California State Parks. 

He's directed communications at Squaw Valley (now Palisades at Tahoe) and at operations serving Yosemite NP, Redwoods Nat'l and State Parks, Angel Island SP,  Lassen Volcanic NP, and Ski Lake Tahoe. Poimiroo was a founder of the California Roundtable on Recreation, Parks and Tourism, the Western States Tourism Policy Council, the National Parks Promotion Council and was a principal in establishing the California Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights.

Among his over 70 lifetime awards for writing and photography, he was twice named Writer of the Year by the Outdoor Writers Association of California, received an SATW Bill Muster Award for travel photography and an SATW Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award for his website, CaliforniaFallColor.com (the nation’s highest awards in travel and outdoor photography and writing).

He explains his passion for California's outdoors by saying, “I travel California’s byways and back roads, photographing and documenting glory previously unimagined in a journey to inform others about California’s wonders.”