Meet Us.

Building pathways to safely connect
people and communities.


Preble Trails is a Committee of the Preble County Youth Foundation focused on safe cycling and outdoor activity for all ages. The Preble County community is unique in its beauty and ruralness; we believes that cycling and outdoor activities in the county can be safer and more accessible through the good works of Preble Trials.

Preble Trails is a vision, a group, and the motivation behind creating a bike friendly culture and community in Preble County, Ohio.

We want to increase travel and tourism, and commerce to and through Preble County. We want to be host to bike friendly restaurants and shops. We want to connect our covered bridges with family friendly accessible bike routes. We want our students and children to be able to bike to school safely with designated bike lanes. We want to connect our parks, like Ft. St. Clair and Seven Mile. We want the residents of Preble County to feel comfortable biking to our downtown Farmer’s Market. We want cyclists to feel safe biking to work.

Cycling shouldn’t be scary. Cycling is and should be FUN!

meet our committee

Dan Schmidt

Dan (committee chair) is a lifelong Preble County resident. He and his wife live outside of Eaton where they raise their five children on the family farm. Dan also owns Catron's Glass, Inc. in Richmond, Indiana. He, along with his dad Keith and brother Jeff are volunteer Group Cycling Instructors at the Preble County YMCA. Cycling is a passion that is a family affair and Dan enjoys riding through the beautiful Preble County countryside anytime he gets a chance.

Anna Fomin

Anna Fomin (treasurer) is a returned Peace Corps volunteer, teacher, and mother of two. She has always enjoyed being active outdoors and began mountain biking in high school. Anna joined this group to promote healthy outdoor activity in Preble County and hopes that YOU will get involved to make our pathways safe and fun.

Heidi Bortel

Heidi (grants) was born and raised (most of the time) in Preble County and attended EHS and Miami University. She loves travel, reading, movies, coffee, pets, country life, and shopping on amazon. But most of all, she loves walking, running, and cycling alone and with her family and friends. She believes that affordable, healthy transportation modes should be supported and encouraged in all communities, with the belief that cyclists should feel safe and respected on roadways.

Holly Steele

Holistically minded, creatively charged. Holly enjoys encouraging all thing fun, imaginative and creative that brings play and possibly joy to your life. A program dear to her heart is the Youth for Public Art (YPA) Program that provides at risk teens a creative outlet within the community. Her drive in supporting Preble Trails is safety. All persons on a bike deserve, and have the right to feel safe within their own community while riding their bicycle.

Erin Abney

Erin (marketing) is an artist, web developer and cyclist. She grew up split between Preble and Darke counties and has an appreciation for the area, it's people and making it better. Growing up she spent most of her time riding her bike around New Madison, Ohio and recently started biking again with her husband, spending weekends on Wayne County's Cardinal Greenway. Erin is committed to helping Preble Trails create a more active community for safe cycling and outdoor enjoyment.

Gary Hawkins

Gary (outreach) lives in Lewisburg these days, but has always lived in Ohio. He has a degree from Otterbein University and is now retired from a long career in sales and marketing.

Gary is a widower with two adult sons and loves all thing automotive and bike related and has recently gotten into modern tricycling. Gary is active in his church, the Lions Club and more recently Preble Trails.

Karla McMahan

Karla (press) is a wife, mother and retired teacher who loves spending time with family, friends, and nature. She has a strong passion for teaching and a creative part of her life includes exploration and adventure outdoors. She finds happiness in opening ways for others to explore. Together with Preble Trails and the community, one day, we may be able to safely explore on newly created bike trails.


Bios Coming for Members:

Joe DuLuca

Kieth Schmidt

Jim Shank


Interesting in getting involved?

Email us at info@prebletrails.org
for more details.