Member
Spotlight:
Bob Telepak
From the September 2004 Issue of Trail Tales
by: Joan Wolf
I
caught up with Bob Telepak in Fairplay at the SW4WDA Summer Quarterly event.
Although now semi-retired, Bob is on-the-go more than ever. He travels to his
Moab home at least monthly and has expanded his four-wheeling explorations from
Utah and Colorado to include ghost towns in Nevada and Arizona. He’s made four
trips to Death Valley in recent years and led a 500-mile trip all-on-dirt-roads
from Page AZ to Moab. His all-time favorite trail is Hole in the Rock because
it’s tough, scenic, and of historical significance.
Dr. Bob (he’s an M.D. and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Nuclear Medicine, and Radiology) is originally from Cleveland, Ohio. He grew up near steel mills and refineries, where the pollution was bad. After graduating from college in 1964 with B.S. and M.S. degrees in Physics, he worked at NASA Lewis Research Center as an Aerospace Engineer. He married, moved to California, and worked as a Product Development Engineer. He then applied to two medical schools: UNM and Colorado. The University of Colorado-Denver was the first to accept him so that’s where he went. It didn’t take long to fall in love with Colorado and begin traveling the state at every opportunity.
During his senior year of medical school, Bob joined the Army Medical Corps—and spent the next 20 years in the Corps. After completing his last assignment at Brooke Army Medical Center near San Antonio, Bob moved to New Mexico. He joined the UNM Medical School faculty as Professor of Radiology. He mostly teaches Radiology Residents one-on-one and is justifiably proud that the UNM Radiology Department ranks in the top 10% of schools nationwide.
Four years ago Bob was diagnosed with heart disease and underwent several procedures. He recovered and feels fine now, but decided it was time to work less and play more. His halftime schedule at UNM, two weeks on and two weeks off, allows time to keep up with family, other interests, and four-wheeling.
Bob’s three adult children are all moving to Texas (Corpus Christi and Austin), so he anticipates many trips to those areas. His son Damon is 33, Justin is 31, and daughter Lauren is 28. They all like four-wheeling, but not quite to the extent Dad does. His granddaughter Raven, age 1-1/2, has no opinion at this time.
The four-wheeling bug bit in 1972 when Bob was hiking the Needles District of Canyonlands. At an overlook he saw a road far below with a Jeep and exclaimed, “I want to do that!” It took a few years (career and children became priorities), but in 1986 Dr. Bob bought his first Jeep, a 1981 CJ5. The CJ resides in his garage at Moab and still sees action. A 1998 purple Cherokee and a 1975 Scout round out his fleet.
A
sobering incident happened in January 2004 with the Scout. Bob and Damon went
for a Saturday drive on a moderate trail, Martinez Canyon, near Phoenix. Rather
than go the traditional direction, Bob decided to run it backwards. He was
going the “wrong way” on a bypass around an obstacle named “The Luge” when the
Scout stalled. He lost the power brakes and power steering and tried starting
the vehicle as it rolled backwards down the hill. Near the bottom of the hill,
he turned the wheel to keep from going into “The Luge”. At that point the Scout
did a three-quarter roll and all the loose stuff (toolbox, jack, cooler, etc.)
went flying all over the cab.
Luckily Bob and Damon weren’t hurt and other Jeeps in the area helped them recover. Bob says, “The scariest thing was how fast it happened and how quickly I had to make the best of five bad choices of what to do.” He now has a bed net and tie-downs for everything in the cab. His children, especially Damon, are encouraging Dad to get the Scout back on the road. Bob vows to return to Martinez Canyon and run it “the right way”.
Bob spends a lot of time on another favorite hobby, amateur radio (his call is K7WC). In fact, Dr. Bob learned about NM4W from fellow radio hams Bob Norton and Arnie Gjerning (the tres amigos joined NM4W in the mid 1990’s). Bob has been a licensed radio operator for 44 years and is a DXer, long-distance caller. He’s enjoyed talking to people in 211 countries via mobile radio and 300-plus countries via fixed radio. Another favorite hobby is finding ancient Indian ruins, pictographs, and petroglyphs.
A major focus of Bob’s life is fighting for public access to public lands. “I like to be a thorn in the sides of public agencies such as the Forest Service and BLM. I want to keep government honest.” Bob believes that the government should manage the land for the people and that agency employees should not push their own agendas. Bob is concerned that government tends to look for a simplistic solution, which is to close the land, rather than negotiate with all sides.
The Adopt-A-Trail program holds great promise, Bob believes, because then the four-wheeling community becomes part of the government. The government knows that self-policing by interest groups works. Public involvement takes a great deal of time and energy, but Bob feels it’s worth the effort, “You lose some and you win some; but if you don’t fight you will lose it all.”
It’s ironic that Bob belongs to NM4W because he doesn’t like group events. He admits that his favorite thing is to be 40 miles from pavement in way-out places. As much as he loves remoteness, he attends group events to show support. He was a trail leader and tailgunner at Fairplay and has helped with the Moab Easter Jeep Safari for the past seven years. “NM4W is a great club. I like the camaraderie, family orientation, and the willingness to help fix a vehicle,” says Bob.
Bob is a great advocate of public access and we’re lucky to have such a well-spoken representative in our midst. He does his homework and has probably visited more backcountry in Utah and other states than any government employee ever will. As former Environmental Chair of NM4W, Bob continues to keep the club aware of the big picture and notes, “The fighting front is in Utah.” Bob’s not sure how long he’ll remain working and living in New Mexico. But no matter what the future holds, Dr. Bob will continue lending his voice of reason to public lands issues.