Jan Neal, Co-founder & Associate Executive Director

Jan Neal is currently retired – (yeah! don’t you believe it) and continues to serve Sierra Nevada Teen Ranch. This includes the position of treasurer, associate executive assistant, co-founder AND fire-putter-outer. Additionally, she serves as lay accountant, bookkeeper, fundraiser developer, and coordinator. She heads up the Ranch donor recognition program and plays a huge part as an organizer and strategist.

In her other life, she started working in 1982 for the State of Nevada primarily as fiscal grants manager, with a smattering of office administration duties at UNR and State Industrial Insurance System. She also served at Community Services Agency working with at-risk youth. Prior to that, she managed a motel, rooming house, apartments, and restaurant.

Jan’s commitment to Christ is unshakable. She is earthy, direct, a deep thinker, and not afraid of questions – the teens respond well to her. She has worked with “socially, economically disadvantaged youth” as a vocational instructor. She has earned a coveted certification from Elijah House Int. as a lay prayer ministry counselor. Youth under Jan’s influence excel in their endeavors.

Jan was born in Covina, which was then a small southern California town. She relocated to South Lake Tahoe, California at the age of 13 where she attended high school, married (and divorced), and attended college before moving to Reno in 1973. She met Marv in 1982, dated and married in 1991. Jan and Marv’s backgrounds, personalities, and life experiences are very different and in many ways, completely opposite. They make a perfect team!