Melissa Latorre

Melissa is Brent’s younger sister! Obviously, she has been a part of the Wild and Free adventure from the beginning. She has visited Alaska 5 times including a longer stay in May of 2009 through September. She had just graduated college from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and Brent asked if she’d like to come up to AK and help take care of some puppies that summer. It was a no brainer and a week later she was on a plane with her college roommate to live in Alaska with an expiration date TBD. That summer she spent living in one of Brent’s dry cabins just outside of Fairbanks, taking care of dogs and all the new puppies that were arriving! Her and her roommate, Metta, also ran an exhibit at the Yukon Quest office in downtown Fairbanks. It was called “Puppies to Pullers…Yukon Quest”. They had a blast setting up displays about Wild and Free and the Yukon Quest for tourists to come and learn about the sport of mushing! Puppies of course were a main attraction. When September came and the exhibit was over Melissa made the decision to head back to the lower 48, this might have been influenced by her now husband, Mario 🙂

Since then, Melissa has been involved in the Wild and Free production on and off in various ways. Starting in May of 2021 she took on a much larger role and is now what we like to call the “All Around Manager” of Wild and Free. She works closely with Brent on many aspects of the operation including social media, website maintenance, sponsorships, communication, the list goes on! Melissa could not be more excited to be a part of the team!