The founding director of the Park City-based Youth WinterSports Alliance has been let go by the group’s board of directors.

Park City resident Shelley Gillwald founded the non-profit organization more than seven years ago. Gillwald was fired by the board last week.

“I thought I was serving the organization well, and my strengths are definitely working with the community and working with people in our program,” Gillwald said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “My personal goals were to do everything we can to support the youth programs and to reach the youth in the community, and perhaps they were perceiving more time needed to be spent internally with the organization, focusing on the internal housekeeping. I’m sad that I’m not leading it. But I care so much about the organization I’ll certainly be here to continue to support it.”

In 2002, Gillwald said she formed the alliance, which supports about 13 youth winter sports organizations in the Park City area.

“From the Park City Ski Team to the Figure Skating Club of Park City to the luge club, the alliance raised money for those programs,” Gillwald said.

The annual Winter Welcome is the group’s most successful fund-raiser. The event in Park City last time raised about $250,000, Gillwald said.

“It was the biggest Winter Welcome ever,” she said.

Gillwald said she does not know why she was asked to leave her post at the Youth WinterSports Alliance.

“I am the founding director of that organization but all nonprofits are board driven. The organization is seven and a half years old and it was at a point where the board is doing some reflection on the direction the organization wants to go in the future,” she said. “I perceive they were feeling that wasn’t possible with the person who founded it, who was kind of set in one direction. That’s the best take I can have on it.”

Park City resident David Moore, a member of the board of directors for the Youth WinterSports Alliance, said he appreciates the work Gillwald did for the organization.

“Shelley is the one who brought the alliance to where it is today,” Moore said. “The board is grateful for all of the things she has done.”

But the organization is in transition, he said.

“We are still formulating the new direction,” Moore said. “With any organization there comes a time when you need a transition. You need to find a new person who can bring in fresh ideas and perspectives.”

Park City resident Meeche White will lead the Youth WinterSports Alliance in the interim until Gillwald’s replacement is named.

“We do not have a timeline at this point for when we will have someone on board,” Moore said.