Outdoor Recreation Advisory Group
Brady Robinson – Executive Director, The Access Fund
Brady Robinson is the Executive Director of the Access Fund, the national organization that keeps climbing areas open and conserves the climbing environment. A long time Outward Bound and NOLS instructor, he currently serves on the board of Outward Bound Peacebuilding and is a founding board member of the Outdoor Alliance. Brady started climbing in Minnesota in 1989 and has since climbed all over the world, with some of his biggest climbs in Pakistan and Patagonia. Brady believes that outdoor recreation, increased youth participation and a healthy outdoor economy are all critical to the future of the conservation movement; this was the theme of his 2012 TEDxBoulder talk. Brady lives in Boulder, CO with his wife Lucia and daughters Tessa and Cora.
Jenn Dice – VP of Business Development, People for Bikes
Jenn Dice is the VP Business Network at PeopleForBikes. PeopleForBikes unites millions of individuals, thou- sands of businesses and hundreds of communities to make bicycling better for everyone. Jenn’s team is working to organize bike businesses and the industry into an influential voice both locally and nationally. Before PeopleForBikes Jenn worked as the chief policy strategist for the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) and directed their national and local public lands policy and access advocacy efforts for more than a decade. Jenn was part of a team that secured $200 million in federal funding for singletrack trails and bike parks, landed partnership and bike access agreements with the National Park Service, and led IMBA’s work before Congress and many national coalition partners. In 2011, Jenn was recognized by Outside Magazine’s “power list” of the top 25 people that influence the world outside. She earned her masters in public administration from the University of Kansas and worked for the South Dakota, Kansas and Colorado state legislatures. Jenn is an avid endurance mountain biker who has completed the Leadville Trail 100 14 times and was the first woman to hike up, and mountain bike down Mount Kilimanjaro.
Auden Schendler – VP Sustainability, Aspen Ski Co
Auden Schendler is Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company where he focuses on big scale solutions to climate change, primarily clean energy and activism. Auden also serves as board chair of Protect Our Winters, a nonprofit mobilizing the snow sports community on climate change. Aspen Skiing Company pioneered the LEED green building standard nationally, played a role in passing Colorado’s clean energy and clean air standards, and developed utility scale solar, small hydro, and most recently, a 3 megawatt coal-mine-methane-to-electricity power plant in rural Colorado. Previously a corporate sustainability researcher at Rocky Mountain Institute, Auden was named a global warming innovator by Time magazine and a Climate Saver by the EPA. He has testified to Congress on the impacts of climate change, and wrote the book Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution. He previously served on Governor Owens’ Pollution Prevention Advisory Board. He lives in Basalt, Colorado with his wife Ellen and their children Willa and Elias.
Lauren Truitt – State Partnership Coordinator, CO Parks and Wildlife
As Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Statewide Partnership Coordinator, Lauren serves as the agency’s community and statewide liaison for outdoor and wildlife recreation outreach efforts. She assists in the coordination of efforts among partner organizations, businesses, educators and municipalities to expand awareness of, and interest in outdoor recreation statewide. As well as developing and maintaining corporate communication and partnerships on a large scale to promote cross-collaboration and investment in CPW’s outreach efforts. Prior to joining Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Lauren worked as the Marketing Manager for Cabela’s in Grand Junction, CO. Effectively establishing Cabela’s as a community leader in the outdoor industry and champion for education and outreach. She started her career on the Western Slope, specializing in pharmaceutical sales.
Lauren received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Colorado. As a Colorado native Lauren was raised with a deep-rooted respect for Colorado’s outdoors. While growing up a passion was ignited to help others see this beauty and understand their role in sustaining it. This has been a driving force in personal volunteerism, as well as her professional career.
Bruce Ward – Executive Director, Choose Outdoors (Forest Service)
Bruce Ward is the president and founder of Choose Outdoors, a nonprofit coalition of outdoor recreation interests, focused on increasing support for, and participation in, all forms of outdoor recreation in order to connect all Americans to the land. He also represents recreation interests on the Colorado Bark Beetle Cooperative. He has worked as a consultant for various companies focused on public/private partnerships and increasing support for outdoor recreation. He also served as the first National Coordinator of National Trails Day, laying the foundation of what is now one of the most successful celebrations of the outdoor experience coupled with a message of volunteerism.
Jason Bertolacci – Regional Director of Colorado and Wyoming, IMBA
Jason Bertolacci decided to combine a life-long love of cycling and the outdoors with his professional career when he came to International Mountain Bicycling Association in 2008. Bringing with him a background in technology business development, Jason serves as IMBA’s Colorado and Wyoming Region Director and the Colorado Mountain Bike Association’s Executive Director. He also helped found Outdoor Alliance Colorado–a statewide human-powered recreation partnership coordinating efforts to protect public lands, waters and snowscapes. He also helped launch the Bailey HUNDO 100-mile mountain bike race that donated $90,000 to Colorado charities in 2014.
Don Riggle – Director of Operations, Trails Preservation Alliance
Don Riggle has been selected to represent the motorized (OHV) portion of the Colorado outdoor recreation council. This includes motorcycle trail riding, atv/utv users, snowmobiles, and 4WD full size vehicles. OHV recreation represents the 2nd most positive economic impact on the Colorado economy.
Don has been a resident of Colorado since 1980. Grew up in New Mexico He has a BS degree from the University of New Mexico, and a MBA from Boston University. He brings an extensive resume of off road recreation activities that have been ongoing since 1980. He is the founder and current Director of Operations for the Trails Preservation Alliance, a Colorado based 501c3 organization.
Nathan Fey – Director Colorado River Stewardship, American Whitewater
Nathan is the Colorado River Program Director for American Whitewater, the Nations oldest river conservation organization. A 6th generation Coloradoan, Nathan grew up in Weld and Boulder Counties and has a long career as an active whitewater paddler and recreation advocate throughout the West. Nathan has been a member of American Whitewater since 1990 and was hired by the organization in 2007 to oversee the organization’s Conservation, Access, and Safety Programs in Colorado. Nathan actively serves as the lead recreation representative in several high-level stakeholder efforts focused on the Colorado, Dolores, Yampa, Arkansas, and San Juan River basins, including State-led alternatives to federal management actions. Nathan is also a founding partner of Outdoor Alliance Colorado (OAC), and is serving as liaison for American Whitewater in OAC initiatives. Nathan’s interest and enthusiasm in serving on the Advisory Council is firmly rooted in his 15 year career as an advocate for Colorado’s recreational attributes and economic resiliency, and his firm commitment to aligning State policies to best reflect our State’s values.
Lise Aangeenbrug – Executive Director, Great Outdoors Colorado
Appointed GOCO’s executive director in 2009, Lise is leading the Board in a new 5 year strategic plan and the award of more than $300 million in grants: Protect Land for People and Wildlife, Connect Coloradans to Parks, Trails, and Open Spaces, and Inspire Colorado’s Kids to Get Outside. Under Lise’s leadership, GOCO recently co-convened Colorado’s first Outdoors Summit with the Governor, Department of Natural Resources, business, non-profit and community leaders. GOCO launched its new Inspire Initiative at the Summit to change how we collectively engage communities in getting kids and families outside for their well-being and the future of the state’s outdoor brand. Lise contributed to GOCO’s establishment and helped developed its grant programs in 1993. Lise began her career in natural resources as a field biologist in the Masai Mara Game Reserve, and has held positions with the Colorado Conservation Trust, California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Department of the Interior as a Presidential Management Fellow, the National Audubon Society and the National Association of State Foresters. She earned her master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and her bachelor’s from St. Lawrence University. She leads annual volunteer trips to Kenya with Global Dental Relief and serves as a mentor for City Year Denver. She serves on the Board for Global Dental Relief and the national Board of Directors of the Land Trust Alliance.
Peter Oneil – Executive Director, Colorado Outward Bound School
Peter O’Neil is the Executive Director of Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS), the first Outward Bound School in North America, founded in 1962 in Marble, Colorado. Peter has a long history with COBS, starting as a student on a winter ski mountaineering course as a college student. Peter joined COBS as its executive director in May 2012. He is a high-energy, serial entrepreneur with many years of start-up and turn-around experience, and he thrives on building and leading teams of high-performing individuals to grow businesses and accomplish common goals. Peter spent a decade with COBS as a course director, instructor, logistics coordinator and intern.
Peter is passionate about every enterprise he engages in whether it’s instructing students, working with clients, leading a sales team, or ski mountaineering in the Colorado backcountry. As a trustee of Denver Academy, an independent K-12 school for students with learning differences, as well as a life-long proponent of Outward Bound’s teaching philosophy, he is committed to changing the lives of students through non-traditional and experiential education. Peter received his BA in Psychology from Colorado College and his MBA from Stanford University. He is the proud father of three wonderful children who are the love of his life.
Cailin O’Brien-Feeney – Recreation Advocacy Manager; OIA
Cailin joined The Outdoor Industry Association in 2015 as Local Recreation Advocacy Manager. Previously he focused on backcountry ski advocacy at Winter Wildlands Alliance, ran the Idaho Outdoor Business Council, and participated in Outdoor Alliance.
Prior to graduate school – Natural Resource Management at University of Idaho – Cailin spent the better part of a decade working as an outdoor educator and guide across the West. His first job was at REI. Cailin’s outdoor passions include all manner of skiing, biking and whitewater boating.
Kristin Carpenter-Ogden – CEO Verde Brand Communications
Kristin Carpenter-Ogden is founder and CEO of Verde Brand Communications, one of the leading brand communications agencies in the active outdoor lifestyle markets of bike, outdoor, snow, endurance and travel. She also founded and is principle of LivingUber, a coaching and consulting business dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs in these markets as they grow their brand and business.
Kristin leads strategy for Verde and also develops new solutions for Verde’s clients to connect, engage and activate their audiences, fans, followers and customers. In her work with LivingUber.com, she helps business owners to build businesses that support an entrepreneurial lifestyle, ensuring that their lives and companies are passion-driven.
A competitive amateur cyclist, outdoor sport aficionado and sometimes mountaineer, she has built her dream lifestyle in the small Colorado mountain town of Durango. She’s a wife and mother of two active kids. Kristin produces a weekly Intrepid Entrepreneur podcast and newsletter as well, which can be accessed at here. Her first book will debut in 2016.
Kenji Haroutunian – Principal, NewNormal Consulting (California)
Kenji Haroutunian is a 30-year veteran of the human-powered outdoor industry, working for many years in specialty outdoor store management and teaching outdoor skills (including advanced climbing and wilderness navigation courses) during/after completing his degree at UCLA. In 1999 he began working for Outdoor Retailer, eventually becoming Vice President for Nielsen Expositions (now Emerald Expositions), in 2010. During his tenure leading the OR shows, he launched many innovative programs like Green Steps, Project OR design competition, Business of Backcountry Forums and even the Virtual Design Center (a live Online Event). Kenji left Emerald to launch his own national agency focused on core Outdoor in 2014, called Kenji Consults, in service to the greater outdoor ecosystem of brands, retailers, media, agencies and advocacy groups. Beyond his work life, he is a 2010 Access Fund ‘Sharp End’ awardee for his work leading Friends Of Joshua Tree in support of Search & Rescue services in the Park and the local-meets-global climbing community in Joshua Tree. Kenji currently serves as Vice-President on the Board of Directors of Access Fund and is a founding director of TeccSociety, a new events-industry technology organization. Kenji enjoys living with his family of five in Laguna Niguel, CA and enjoys rock climbing, trail running, skiing and performing in interesting musical situations.
Annelise Loevlie – CEO, Icelantic Skis
Annelise Loevlie is a Colorado native, co-founder and CEO of Denver based Icelantic Skis and an avid outdoors women. In addition to captaining Icelantic skis, Annelise volunteers her time to various industry Boards and community initiatives including the Board of Directors for the Snowsports Industries of America and other various boards and councils concerned with active lifestyle, economic development, and women in leadership. Icelantic was recognized as one of Colorado’s Companies to Watch in 2013 and was recently awarded the President’s “E” Award for Outstanding Export recognition from the US Department of Commerce. In her free time, Annelise travels the world to ski, climb and explore, loves to eat from her garden, write and sit in the sun.
Tony Lewis – Executive Director, Donnell-Kay Foundation
Tony currently serves as the Executive Director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation; a private family foundation established to enhance and improve education in Colorado (1999 – present). The Foundation has a focus on strengthening education in Colorado from early childhood through higher education, using policy research, analysis and critical thinking in ways to improve state and local policies. Over the last 20 years, Tony has led major climbing expeditions in Asia, South America, Africa, Europe and North America, and many foreign trekking and climbing trips, both privately and for the Colorado Outward Bound School. Tony earned his Bachelor’s degree in Forest Management Science from Colorado State University and his Master’s in International Studies from University of Denver. His interests include: climbing, foreign travel, beekeeping, blacksmithing, bike riding, art, farming.
Kim Miller – CEO, Scarpa North America
Kim was born in Seoul, Korea and was adopted as a baby by his American parents who moved them to Denver when he was very young. After a rough experience in high school, Kim ended up in an Outward Bound Course designed for at-risk youth. The Outward Bound course and the people he met there changed his life and pushed him towards a life in the outdoors. He decided to go to college and find a job in Outdoor Education and the Outdoor Recreation Industry. Since that time, outdoor sports have been Kim’s passion, life, and career. Kim had many jobs at Black Diamond Equipment over 18 years but his work was focused mostly in Product Development, Sales, Marketing and technical equipment production. The specific job title did not matter to him as long as it required that he ski and climb as part of his work. In 2005 SCARPA Italy decided to start a US based subsidiary and they asked Kim to be the CEO of the new business. He had worked for Scarpa through Black Diamond as their distributor for almost 25 years and was very familiar with SCARPA. In 2006, Kim set up and started Scarpa N.A. where he has worked as the CEO since. Kim is still an avid and skilled rock and alpine climber and backcountry skier. Kim is currently on the BoD of SIA and lives in Boulder, CO with his sons (10 and 15 years old).
Bill Gamber – Co Founder and President of Big Agnes/Honey Stinger
Bill Gamber grew up in Pennsylvania and learned to fish and enjoy the outdoors at an early age. A family owned honey business served as an entrepreneurial education for him and a catalyst for he and his Dad to visit beekeepers around the West and hone their fly fishing skills. Shortly after college at Lock Haven University, he bolted for Colorado and set up a small retail store and private label cut and sew brand called BAP!.
Bill co-founded Big Agnes and Honey Stinger and serves as president of both Steamboat Springs-based companies which boast a combined staff of over 90 employees. As one of the larger private sector employers in NW Colorado, Bill understands the benefits and costs of operating global brands from Routt County. With this in mind, he is particularly interested in programs that can help recruit or retain outdoor industry companies and jobs in Colorado.
Gamber loves to ski, climb peaks, ride mountain and road bikes, and fish with his Dad and three sons whenever possible. He has finished many Ironman distance triathlons and other races and climbed rock around the West but now recreates closer to home.
Irene Vilar – Founder, Americas Latino Eco Festival
Irene Vilar is and award winning author and Guggenheim fellow, publisher, and founder of the Colorado non profit Americas for Conservation + the Arts 501(c)(3). AFC+A is the mother organization of the annual Americas Latino Eco Festival, leveraging latino leadership for conservation gains; Vilar Creative Agency, the first nonprofit literary agency in the US dedicated to the dissemination of minority literature of the Americas; and Mandel Vilar Press, advancing diversity and conservation in publishing. Vilar founded The Americas book series published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Vilar was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Her memoir, The Ladies’ Gallery, was a Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit Free Press Notable Book of the Year and was a finalist for the 1999 Mind Book of the Year Award. Her latest memoir, Impossible Motherhood, has been published in Italy, France and Germany, and won the 2010 IPPY Gold Medal for Best Memoir/Autobiography and the 12th Latino Book 2nd Place Award for Best Women’s Issues. Both memoirs explore generational and national trauma. Vilar gave the keynote at the 2010 National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators on Latino mental health, “Severe Depressive Disorder: Overcoming Adversity and Stigma”. Vilar is also a member of the Oxford Union Debate Society, debating on reproductive health and women rights.
Scott Braden – Wilderness Advocate, Conservation Colorado
Scott Braden has worked to protect public lands for over a decade as both an outdoor educator and wilderness advocate. He has worked on both legislative wilderness campaigns as well as administrative protection efforts, including the recent passage of the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act and Browns Canyon National Monument. Before working at Conservation Colorado, Scott worked at the Colorado Mountain Club, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Colorado Outward Bound School. He lives in Denver with his wife Karen and yellow lab Charley, but spends as much time as possible recreating on western public lands and rivers.
Wilderness Advocate, since May 2013: B.A., University of Georgia, 1998. Conservation Director, Colorado Mountain Club, 2011-2013. Associate Director and Wilderness Advocate, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 2007-2011. Instructor, Colorado Outward Bound School, 1999–2006.
Rick Cable – VP Natural Resources and Conservation, Vail Resorts
Rick has enjoyed a 35+ year career in the Forest Service. His vision and energy leading the five-state Rocky Mountain Region (2001-2011) led to nationally significant partnership with municipal water providers and recreation interests. Rick also enjoyed a unique mid-career experience when he was U.S. Department of Agriculture’s choice to attend the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA. (1989-1990). Rick was recruited to direct the merger of two state agencies, Colorado State Parks and the Colorado Division of Wildlife in 2011. As the first Director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Rick was applauded for his leadership in effectively merging two proud, and highly respected agencies, into a new organization.
Rick embarked on his “third” career in August 2013. As Vice President for Natural Resources and Conservation, Rick oversees Vail Resort’s industry leading conservation and sustainability efforts. Rick’s work in natural resources and conservation is primarily accomplished through longstanding partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service, state wildlife agencies, and non-profit conservation organizations. Vail operates mountain resorts in the Lake Tahoe region, in Park City, Utah, four resorts in Colorado, the Grand Teton Lodge in Wyoming, two mid-western resorts in Michigan and Minnesota, and Perisher Resort in Australia — providing our guests an “Experience of a Lifetime.”
Margaret Taylor – Assistant Director of Parks and Outdoor Recreation, Colorado Parks and Wildlife
Margaret Taylor is the Assistant Director of Parks and Outdoor Recreation for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. She has worked for Colorado Parks and Wildlife (and the former Colorado Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation) since 1998, starting as a seasonal employee to her current position. She began her permanent career as a Park Ranger at Cherry Creek and Castlewood Canyon State Parks, was the Senior Ranger at St. Vrain State Park and the Park Manager of Roxborough State Park. From there she served as a Deputy Regional Manager in the Northeast Region. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Biological Science from Colorado State University. Margaret is a fourth generation Colorado native. In her spare time she enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband Ryan and two daughters, Madeline and Avery.