The executive director of the Yukon Quest International Association (Canada) cited personal reasons for resigning.

The Quest's board of directors announced Thursday that Georgina Leslie is stepping down after starting with the 1,000 mile international sled dog race last April.

"It's an amazing place to work, it's a wonderful job, it's exciting and challenging,” Leslie told the Star today.

"I'm really sorry to be leaving. It's just circumstances are making me make this choice.”

The Quest will be seeking four new directors at its annual general meeting in the boardroom of Canada's Best Value Inn at the corner of Wood Street and First Avenue at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Leslie worked for Parks Canada in the Yukon and on Cape Breton Island at the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site before taking the job with the Yukon Quest.

Born and raised in the Yukon, her only previous experience with the Quest was as a spectator.

She noted, however, that she was the secretary-treasurer for the Yukon Dog Mushers Association back in the '70s.

She jumped at the chance to work with the Quest upon returning from her four-year stint in Nova Scotia, replacing then executive director Wendy Morrison.

"This job was available, and I looked at it and thought, ‘Oh my goodness.' It is what

I thought it would be,” Leslie said, adding that the position offers exciting challenges and opportunities.

"For someone else coming on, it's all those wonderful things. If they're looking for an exciting job – this is it.”

She added that she "absolutely” wants to be involved with the Quest in the future.

"I will be here volunteering, and someday I may come back and sit on the board, if that works and I get voted in. But at this moment I'm not walking away from it; I just can't do it full time.”

Board president Al Doherty hopes she stays on at some capacity.

Doherty said completely losing a person of Leslie's caliber would be a shame.

"The job as executive director of the Quest is a fairly stressful job. She did great work – there's no issue there. Primarily for personal reasons she decided she wanted to move on. But she will be coming back to the Quest as a volunteer and may even take on a board member position, so we're not going to lose her. She's assured me of that.”

The 2011 installment began in Whitehorse on Feb. 4 and ended in Fairbanks on Feb. 18. The 2012 Quest will start in Fairbanks on Feb. 4.

Doherty said the biggest challenges of the 2011 Quest were weather-related, which is clearly out of the hands of the organizers.

Leslie controlled what she could as executive director, he added.

"I think Georgina has done an excellent job, and we're sorry to see her leave.

"Unanimously, the board of directors are disappointed that she's not going to be

around.

"Hopefully we can find someone who is as competent as she was.”

Financial management, budget and cost control, and public relations are key to the position, Doherty explained.

"But you still have to deal with the mushers, the race itself, the race contractors, and you have this issue of an international race that has boards in two separate countries, that have two separate legislative authorities and different ways of approaching things. It's a fine dance to keep those two boards working in unison,” Doherty said.

"The Alaskan and the Yukon boards are working very well together right now, and that's partly Georgina's (doing). I can tell you frankly that the members on the Alaskan board who know Georgina are equally regretful that she's stepped away.”

Added Doherty:

"I can say confidently that the whole board of directors would really have liked it if she'd stayed on, because she's done a great job.

"She's done a lot of good things for the Quest in the year she was here.”