Serving New Mexico, Texas, & Colorado

Gary has been very active in a large number of community and political activities.He was very active with Boy Scouts, having been the founder or co-founder of a Cub Scout Pack, a Boy Scout Troop, and a Venture Crew. He was the Scoutmaster of the troop until March, 2009. He has also served as District Chairman of the Anasazi District and on the Great Southwest Council Board. He received the District Award of Merit for his work for Scouting in the local area.

He was a member of Jaycees while living in Texas. He is a past member of the Board of Directors for Navajo Ministries; which, among other things, operates the Four Corners Home for Children, a home for displaced Navajo children. He helped bring USTA tennis to Farmington, and participated in organizing both adult and junior leagues in that sport. He was a certified tennis official, having been to the USTA’s National Chair school in Florida, and was certified to call lines at professional level matches.

He is currently an active member of the San Juan Rotary Club, and is a past president of the Club. Risley previously served as the chair of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce Telecommunications and Transportation Committee. During the period of his chairmanship, the committee was actively focusing on two key issues: 1) Preservation of scheduled air service in rural communities, particularly Farmington, NM, and 2) improvement of high-speed data access in San Juan County. The TNT committee was the key advocate of a plan that recently resulted in the creation of a redundant fiber optic loop which will avoid outages with line cuts in San Juan County. The committee also drove the effort with the local telephone and cable providers to make DSL or cable modems more accessible throughout the county. Regional Aviation Partners, a rural air service advocacy group, named Gary to their Board of Directors where he assisted with planning for actions before the Department of Transportation.

He is very active in his church as a Bible Study leader and deacon, has been recognized in the past as one of “New Mexico’s Top 100 Power Brokers” by New Mexico Business Weekly, and in 2004 was featured in the Four Corners Business Journal as a leader in the Four Corners Region.

He has served as the president of the San Juan County Rotary Club, which named him its “Vocational Member of the Year for 2003”, and on its Board of Directors throughout the years. He also served on the Rotary’s Club foundation board of directors.

Gary is married to Annette Layman Risley, and they have three children and eight grandchildren. He has more hobbies than he has time, but his favorites are flying and cycling. He also enjoys mountain biking, camping, and he is a licensed ham radio operator. He continues to serve from time to time on various charitable boards.