Save The Colorado’s mission is to protect and restore the Colorado River and its tributaries from the source to the sea. Save The Colorado focuses on fighting irresponsible water projects, supporting alternatives to proposed dams and diversions, fighting and adapting to climate change, supporting river and fish species restoration, and removing deadbeat dams. Save The Colorado has thousands of supporters throughout the Southwest U.S. from Denver to Los Angeles and beyond.
Save The Colorado started as a philanthropic project of New Belgium Brewing with support from Patagonia and Clif Bar. After 5 years and due to our success, Save The Colorado spun off in 2015 to be a free-standing 501c3 non-profit organization. We are a small, grassroots, and very pro-active river-saving organization that strives to make a consequential difference in the protection and restoration of the Colorado River and its tributaries. In addition, we do it will soul, passion, and fun!
Gary Wockner, PhD, is Executive Director, Co-Founder, Boardmember.
Gary has been active in environmental protection most of his adult life. Over the past decade, Gary has spearheaded the protection and restoration of his local watershed in Fort Collins, CO, and has played an increasing role around Colorado River protection throughout the Southwest U.S.. In 2010 Gary co-founded and launched the Save The Colorado River Campaign with New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins (makers of Fat Tire Beer). With financial support from New Belgium, Patagonia, and Clif Bar, from 2010 – 2014 Save The Colorado was a small philanthropy that donated funds to non-profit environmental organizations throughout the Colorado River basin. Due to its success, in 2015 Save The Colorado spun off to be a free-standing 501(c)3 with the mission above. Gary is an award-winning environmental activist and writer — he has been named a “River Hero,” an “Eco-Rockstar Impacting the Planet,” and a “Renowned Environmental Leader” by environmental publications. Contact: Gary[at]SaveTheColorado[dot]org. Phone: 970-218-8310
Boardmembers:
Mark Easter is a plant ecologist who works at Colorado State University developing greenhouse gas inventory methods for land use, forestry and agriculture. Mark has professional experience calculating greenhouse gas emissions of dam construction projects as well as hydropower reservoir emissions. Mark is an avid backpacker, back country skier, reader, fisherman and kayaker. He values wild rivers and wild places, good government, and healthy, functioning ecosystems. He is committed to wild rivers and wild places and their protection. Mark lives near the Cache la Poudre River in Laramie County, Colorado, and is also a co-founder of Save The Poudre: Poudre Waterkeeper.
Daniel P. Beard has been a forceful advocate for water policy reform for nearly four decades. He has extensive experience working in the government and private sector. His positions have included Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives, Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Staff Director, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Natural Resources and the Subcommittee on Water and Power. Dan is the author of the 2015 book, Deadbeat Dams: Why we Should Abolish the Bureau of Reclamation and Tear Down Glen Canyon Dam. Dan received his undergraduate degree from Western Washington University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington. He and his wife Dana have been married 49 years have three grown children, a daughter-in-law, a son-in-law, as well as two grandchildren.
Sara Aminzadeh seizes every opportunity to paddle, float and otherwise spend time in and on the water. Sara is the Executive Director of California Coastkeeper Alliance (CCKA), a fifteen-year old network of Waterkeeper organizations fighting for clean water in California. Ms. Aminzadeh directs CCKA initiatives to protect and defend California’s ocean, bays, and rivers, including CCKA’s work to make permanent changes to the way water supplies are managed and to protect and restore instream flows for California rivers and fish. Ms. Aminzadeh has been working on climate change and human rights issues for more than fifteen years, including work at the Center for International Environmental Law and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She received her JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and holds a BA in Environmental Studies and Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
John Fielder is a nationally renowned photographer, publisher, teacher, and environmentalist. He hikes and skis hundreds of miles in Colorado alone each year — and drives thousands — in order to record on film its most sublime natural places. For the last 40 years, no one has traveled Colorado like John Fielder, from its rolling plains to the soaring Rocky Mountains and the Western Slope’s remote plateaus and river canyons. John Fielder has also worked tirelessly to promote the protection of Colorado’s open space and wildlands. His photography has influenced people and legislation earning him recognition including the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award in 1993, and in 2011 the Aldo Leopold Foundation’s first Achievement Award given to an individual. He was an original governor-appointed member of the lottery-related Board of Great Outdoors Colorado, and speaks to thousands of people each year to rally support for timely land use and environmental issues.
Mark Dubois became famous in 1979 when he chained himself to a rock as the Army Corps of Engineers was flooding California’s Stanislaus River behind a huge new dam. In the years after, Mark co-founded California’s river protection organization, Friends of the River, and co-founded the international river advocacy organization, International Rivers Network. Mark was the international coordinator for Earth Day in 1990 and 2000, and has continued to press for environmental protection in various professional roles since then. Mark joined us on our Green River trip last year, and now, as a member of our board, he will help us paddle into the future.