MISSION: 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, supporting Rights of Nature for Rivers, adapting to climate change, removing deadbeat dams including Glen Canyon Dam, and Telling The Dam Truth about how dams and reservoirs make climate change worse. Save The Colorado has thousands of supporters throughout the Southwest U.S. from Denver to Los Angeles and beyond.

HISTORY: 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!

STAFF AND BOARD: 

Gary Wockner, PhD, is Executive Director, Co-Founder, and 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 international 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.  More info at GaryWockner.com.

Contact: Gary[at]SaveTheColorado[dot]org. Phone: 970-218-8310

Mark Easter, Secretary, 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, PhD, Treasurer, 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.

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.

Teresa Odendahl, PhD, Chair, is the former President and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund. Terry has spent more than 30 years working to bridge the gap between our natural and human worlds. Prior to joining Global Greengrants in 2009, Terry helmed the National Network of Grantmakers for over a decade, and later the New Mexico Association of Grantmakers. She also worked to protect public lands in the western United States, as a program officer at the Wyss Foundation. An anthropologist by training, she has held faculty positions at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute; the University of California, San Diego; and Yale University. Terry’s background in anthropology and philanthropy is complemented by her expertise in gender studies. She is the co-author or editor of four books: Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest Among the Philanthropic Elite; America’s Wealthy and the Future of Foundations; Women and Power in the Nonprofit Sector; and Career Patterns in Philanthropy, as well as numerous articles on a variety of topics. Terry is co-founder of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and the Institute for Collaborative Change in New Mexico. Terry led Global Greengrants’ to expand its support for women-led solutions to environmental issues. When she’s not traveling the world, Terry enjoys spending time with her two adult daughters and gardening at her home in Lyons, Colorado.

Rob Harding is a planetary health activist who cares deeply about protecting life on Earth, and doing so in a loving and intentional manner. His superpower is serving as a connector to help accelerate the pace of progress. A graduate of Santa Clara University with a B.S. in Accounting, Rob is committed to creating a more just and sustainable world with competence, conscience, and compassion. To that end, Rob serves on the board of The Rewilding Institute and as a trustee of the WILD Foundation.

Meg Sheehan is a public interest environmental lawyer with over 30 years experience. She worked as an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and as a Staff Attorney at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority on the Boston Harbor cleanup.  She is a graduate of Colgate University and Boston College Law School. She co-founded several campaigns, including the Watershed Action Alliance of Southeastern Massachusetts, the Taunton River Campaign, and Cape Cod Bay Watch. Meg is currently the coordinator for the North American Megadams Resistance Alliance.

Emily B. Hite, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist who is passionate about protecting human and water relationships. Her projects examine the justice and equity of decision-making processes that lie at the intersection of hydropower development, Indigenous rights, and climate governance. She works in Costa Rica and the United States, and has traveled extensively to learn about diverse cultures and ecosystems in order to inform more sustainable management solutions. Emily is a research affiliate of University of California Santa Barbara’s Environmental Justice & Climate Justice Hub, developed and leads a Climate Change Interest Group within the American Anthropological Association, and is Assistant Director of the Free-flowing Rivers Lab at Northern Arizona University. She received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Science from Drexel University and completed a Certificate in Marine Science while sailing in the Pacific with Sea Education Association. Emily earned a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies from Florida International University and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder.