Ron McKay who started climbing as a teenager and has worked for multiple climbing gear companies before going back to school to be a Math Professor at Salt Lake Community College. Ron has loads of great stories and was present for many pivotal moments in outdoor climbing's progression.
Ronald McKay grew up outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In high school, Ron's school had an outdoor program class, which took students to the Shawangunks in New York to top-rope. After a few years, Ron began to lead climb at the Gunks and continue to boulder there and in PA with his friends on the borrowed high schools' gear. After one year of college, Ron took a climbing road trip out West and eventually settled in Bend, OR, for about 6 years in the early 1990s. During that time, Ron worked at Entre-Prises (EP Climbing) and Metolius. Ron moved to Salt Lake City in 1996 and worked at Black Diamond Equipment and Snowbird before going back to school at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) and the University of Utah for a math degree. After completing his Master's degree in Math, Ron started teaching math at SLCC. Ron recounts how Salt Lake has treated him well holistically through the last 26 years.
View Ron McKay's Oral History in the Marriott Digital Library