I started my professional life as a journalist at my high school newspaper (shout out to Littleton High School’s Lions Roar!) and continued with the student media outlets (including CU Independent and Radio 1190) during my time at CU Boulder. From August 2020 through May 2021, I worked as a staff writer and TRENDS Reporting Fellow for The Colorado Sun covering a variety of topics around the state, including the coronavirus pandemic, coal transition communities, wildfires and forests, affordable housing, and other odds and ends that floated my way. As a TRENDS Reporting Fellow, in conjunction with the Sun and Community Foundation Boulder County, I trained with organizations including Solutions Journalism Network, Building Bridges, Free Press: News Voices, and more to orient my work toward equity-minded, community-centered journalism. I’ve freelanced with the Longmont Leader, Left Hand Valley Courier, KGNU Community Radio, Boulder Daily Camera and more.

After my journalism fellowship, I was burnt out from reporting on the “polycrises” of COVID-19, unprecedented wildfires and drought, a mass shooting that rattled my city, and more. I decided to take some time off from chasing ambitions to recover, so I took a job with a local restaurant. I managed shifts, served tables, expedited and ran food, and even tended the bar on occasion at Ash’Kara Boulder, a community-focused eatery that prioritized a well-sourced, impeccably charming dining experience. Many people consider restaurant work intermediary to their “real” careers; yet my time there gave me the space and resources to flourish as an interpersonal expert, a culinary aficionado, and a motivated leader. I worked with and learned from a phenomenal, supportive team, who taught me that even when you’re in the gnarliest situation, leaning on others and working together will get you through it most successfully.

For much of 2022 I worked as an Outreach and Stewardship Specialist for the Colorado Natural Areas Program. I traveled around the state to private and public lands, surveying designated State Natural Areas for rare plants, prime plant communities, unique geology, critical wildlife habitat and other natural features of interest. When not out in the field (or forest, foothills, or fen), I wrote site visit reports, created digital maps, expanded CNAP’s website resources, and collected a series of interviews with past and present CNAP affiliates. This job was a fantastic union of my skills and studies, but after such a jam-packed season, I was eager to focus my energy and attention to a more local scale.

After relishing some time off to work on creative projects, tend to my health, and volunteer at a community food bank, I joined Boulder County Parks & Open Space as a Conservation Easement Stewardship Monitor. I coordinated a full season monitoring schedule, aiming to visit about 130 conservation easements in total. Many of these visits included meeting with landowners to discuss questions and concerns about their property and the conservation easement that encumbered it. I also helped the Real Estate Division in ongoing efforts to acquire new conservation easements, which included establishing property baseline reports. This position was my first real foray into the legal side of land conservation, and I found it fascinating to get behind the scenes of critical, mutually beneficial real estate transactions such as easements.

All manner of luck - particularly right place and right time - coalesced into a role that fit my hodge-podge resume quite well: Conservation Geographer with The Nature Conservancy in Colorado. As I write this, I’ve been here more than a year, and I’m so happy and grateful for this job. I get to make maps most days (yes, I do enjoy yelling at ArcGIS Pro); I collaborate with coworkers on staff committees to build community; and I’m learning from pros in GIS and beyond on what it means to do conservation work these days. I could see myself here, whether in this specific role or morphing my way around TNC, for a long time, and that motivates me every day.