Episode 4: The Values That Shape Our Work – Part 1

There's an invisible force guiding actions, decisions, and implementation at Boulder County Parks and Open Space. When it's present, we move with more alignment, care, and integrity. These are our values, our compass:
Inclusion
Stewardship
Service
Engagement
Sustainability
Innovation
Resilience

We'll bring that invisible force into view, hearing from people across the department who live these values, out loud, sometimes quietly, sometimes boldly, but always with intention. My name is Elizabeth Rios-Brooks. My pronouns are she, her, and they, and I work with Boulder County Parks and Open Space as the Cultural Resource Program Coordinator. So, what does it really mean to live your values? Stick around. We're about to find out.

Innovation at Parks and Open Space doesn't always mean high-tech or flashy. Sometimes it's a small shift in approach that opens up new possibilities. It's about asking, what if? What can we dream into existence? And letting that question guide us toward more inclusive, responsive, and just ways of doing our work.

I'm joined today by Mac Kobza, Wildlife Biologist Supervisor, whose curiosity and creativity continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in species management. When you think about innovation in your role, what does that mean to you, maybe on a personal and professional note?

Necessity is the creator of innovation. Facing our environment and our species and our natural resources, the need is there to be creative, and it's necessary to think differently than we've thought in the past about how to solve the problems, especially wildlife and natural resources. Innovation is connecting different groups of people in the way they think, especially young people, because they don't know what questions not to ask. That naivete is a powerful tool for solving problems. And involving the community, the landowners, the farmers, the people that live on and own the land in conservation is also a key. That's not always been the way we've done things, which is generally in conservation. It may be something like a dictation. This is how you do it, but we need more collaboration, and we need more people with different views and how they see the world and to work together. And I think the bigger the tent gets, the more ideas and the more solutions present themselves. And then the need is there to just be more creative in how we approach not only solving problems, but thinking about what are the problems and hearing from everyone about that. When we don't have everyone in the room, we don't hear what all of the problems are. And so even though we think we're doing our best, sometimes it's falling short actually to other communities that are a part of our wider community.

I heard you talk a lot about youth, and I really appreciate you bringing them into this conversation because there's something so powerful of hearing over and over again, but why? But why do you do it that way? But why? So I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit more to maybe a project that you've done that was more inclusive, that really tried to incorporate more voices into it.

Going back about eight years now, we've been working with the Innovation Center of the St. Vrain Valley School District. In that group, we've been connecting with students, their teachers, their mentors, and their parents, and private landowners across the county in restoring native species of fish and now frogs, finding ways to do that, bringing those ideas from the students and from the community together to say where and how do you do this? Because the environment is having a hard time doing it itself, because it's fragmented, because there are not enough animals around to sort of populate the area again. And so rewilding animals is definitely something that can be done. And so we chose to do a rewilding project where the students would work with us to raise tadpoles and baby fish in the classroom, and then they release these native animals back into the land. We've had to solve many challenges to do that, and the students were a part of all of those solutions. And this was a relatively new thing in the state. It's led to other things that even the state is picking up and doing now. By doing that, we've had success in actually having these species living in places where they haven't lived possibly for decades or 100 years back on the landscape. Andso the students get to be a part of that. That's really special to see, and it's great to be a part of. Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing, Mac. And something I think I heard was that it was hard, that it was challenging. I'm wondering if you can maybe speak to, maybe tell me a story or an instance where you're like, oh, I did not know what to do here. And it's okay if you didn't figure it out either. When you're trying to do something new, there's a certain inertia, right? There's a certain pressure back against, is this really the best thing to be doing with your time, your money? Is this the best thing for the animals? How is this going to work out? And then there's all the scientific questions.

And I do believe science is important and knowledge, but I also believe it's important to take action. You know, innovation is great, but implementation and action are essential. We have to move forward to make things happen.

So we got a lot of scientists involved. We got aquatic veterinarians and permit specialists that work in the state to see if we can do this. But then also understanding how these animals live in the wild. No one's really put them in a tank and said, how do you live? You know, what's your... So we had to learn that from the ground up. These are some of the challenges.

And then having the safety of the students around diseases that the frogs might bring in or the fish, creating space for this in the curriculum, in the school, and having the administrators. And we've had incredible support, by the way, from Dr. Haddad and all the people at the school district and the teachers at the Innovation Center. And that is an amazing place, very special for our community.

Surmounting all those challenges to get to a place where you actually have baby animals ready to go back to the wild and the students could see all of these challenges because they were in the room as part of this. And so when they go to have a career, when they go to sit in the office and try and do something like this, they've seen it. And a lot of us, we didn't have that benefit. We didn't know the communication challenges or some of the other issues that you just don't think about when you're taking your classes. And so that's some of the challenges to something like this.

Absolutely. I think you touched on something so important, which is that tension between innovating and just doing, right? Because there are moments where we need to respond. There's a crisis and we just need to be there.

And so can you talk to me a little bit about how you navigate that tension in your work? Like, how do you innovate, you know, as much as possible, but also meet the needs of all of these different things you're overseeing and supervising and animals?

There's a lot of examples we can use. From the 2013 flood to prairie dog conservation, it seems like there's some urgent need. You know, after the flood, all our streams were ripped apart and, you know, some of the dialogue was, we need to put the stream back the way it was before, no matter what, you know, just. But then a lot of us stepped in and said, I think we can do a little better. We can rewild a little bit. We can put nature back into this and still keep the community safe and still get the water to the farms.

And we put a lot of time in bringing CU Boulder professors and CU people and CSU and a lot of other thinkers in our department from different groups, different work groups. You know, I don't care what work group you're in. You have some ideas. It could be trails. It could be agriculture. It could be education outreach. We're just looking for people to give thoughts.

And I think we really did a good job over these many years of rebuilding the creek using creativity and looking at the creek as a living organism, not just a thing that runs water. And I think we all kind of came together around that and also the other values I mentioned.

And then really quick about prairie dogs. So prairie dogs are everywhere and they impact people's livelihoods. They get in people's yards. And then yet they're an essential piece of our environment if you want to see eagles and you want to see badgers and you want to see blackfooted ferrets and all of these other things. And the community understands that too.

And so I think part of the challenge is having folks that are affected by these things in the room talking together, coming up with solutions that capture everyone's concerns and then also highlights everyone's agreement. And there's tends to be more agreement than not. And then you could start to work off of those things together in collaboration instead of the alternative.

And I think it's sometimes there aren't always the best. It isn't always clear what the best solution is. And yet we will work to maximize the benefit for everyone. And yet I think the goal is finding a path forward. Again, that's sustainable.

When you do resource conservation, you do natural resource conservation. Being innovative also means how do you manage towards the future and legacy for the people that live today and then the future. Keeping prairie dogs here and working together with agriculture and having communities, they all have to be here together. And so we're trying to make that sustainable.

And so collaboration is key. Thank you so much for touching on that. And I think what I really heard is that we need to get everyone in the room becausethere's going to be all kinds of concerns from many different departments, work groups, and we need to hear those questions. We need to hear those concerns so that we can make sure that, like you said, you said something really interesting, maximize the benefit.

And so while sometimes, you know, we're not going to be able to meet every single person in the room's needs, what does it mean to maximize the benefit? Innovation is great. And I came from a scientific background doing research where you spend days and hours doing statistics and thinking and making designs. But actually, you have to do something when you work in a practical resource management agency like Boulder County Parks and Open Space. We have to apply the science. We have to apply things. There is usually a path forward that you can see that is something like common sense. It is the balance between what's practical and what's possible. And I think we work, I work to find that balance.

There are backstops. You know, I would say I don't want to go any further than this. I don't want to lose prairie dogs across the landscape. I don't want to lose bald eagles. I don't want to lose natural resources. And I know that we can work together to keep them in certain areas, for instance. And maybe these other areas, it doesn't make sense anymore. Or maybe it could be made that way again if we can find creative solutions to create those habitats there again, if that works. But there usually is a solution you can find in that balance. You just have to have a commitment to implement something that works for people and the natural world. Absolutely.

And, you know, you called it common sense, right? The tension between the practical and the possible. And I want to push back. That is not common sense for everyone. That is hard work. It's really hard. But I think a really important part of it is that everyone feels heard, that everyone who needs to be at the table is at that table. And I think that is really what allows us to get that buy-in for people to feel comfortable, even if they didn't get exactly what they wanted. Not everyone will get everything they want. And I kind of think that's the way it is. Not everyone is going to feel great. But you've done the best job you can. This is a hard job. What we do in this department, I would say every group has a challenge like this. And we all work for this balance or something like this. Some people don't like the word balance. And I understand why. But finding that path forward.

And again, I think it's an agreement, right? It's an agreement to compromise. And that can be a hard word to say, too. But in the environment we are today, where the pace of change is so fast, both the environment and in the ways that our society is developing and the way that the communities are developing across the front range and in Boulder County, it's so fast that we need to be innovative and think creatively and work together. And we do need to compromise.

Because even when we talk about restoration, we can't conduct restoration like we always have. We have to look at what does it mean to restore and what are we restoring to and what are we keeping and for what purpose. Who are we restoring for? That's a great question, too. What is this serving? Who is this serving? And thinking more broadly about that. And there's a lot of discussion in the environmental community about that. And so, yeah, there are compromises and things that have to be made. I will not sugarcoat it. There are some decisions that we have to make that are really tough sometimes because they do come at a compromise one way or another a little more sometimes.

I think this is connected to something that you said earlier about legacy. And I think it's also connected to youth. So I'm wondering, what legacy do you want to leave in your professional role at Parks and Open Space? You know, when you look at our guiding, our vision, our goals, our philosophy, the Parks and Open Space values, I think it speaks a lot to, I believe in those things. We want to keep Boulder County, Boulder County. Like why people come here and the views are great, but also the lands are pretty. You know, we have wildlife here. We have agriculture. We have people who are still riding horses and people are walking their dogs everywhere and people that are enjoying life.

Sustainability means trying to keep this really fragile park system, this thing that the community has bought and allowed us to conserve for them, just to keep that going forward and staying together as much as it can from, it's not going to be exactly like it was from when it was first purchased or even, but we need to try and maintain those open spaces for the values they provide us, for the quality of life it gives people and the wildlife that lives on it. I think that's a goal to keep in mind professionally. And if we can keep that going, we've been going 50 years. I think we can go a lot more than that. Let's do it.

Thank you so much, Mac. I really appreciate talking to you, especially about like that visioning and that legacy. I just think it's so important when we think about kids and future generations.

And maybe just one last question for you. What is your favorite little known fact about wildlife in Boulder County?Someone will probably fact check me on this, but I do believe the golden eagle pair that are nesting on the hogback features of Rabbit Mountain Open Space have been there at least 140 years. Whoa! Yeah, I think we've had records going back. Not consistent, not every year, but from early monitoring. So some of our wildlife have been doing great for a long time. We want to keep that going. Let's keep it going. Thank you so much, Mac. It was lovely talking to you. Thank you.

I'm joined today by Mike Lohr, Buildings and Historic Preservation Field Supervisor, whose work bridges care for the past with the need to adapt and grow. What comes to mind when you hear the word innovation?

So for me, it's always been synonymous with curiosity. More than just being like given a tool and shown how to use it or like shown how something works, how a process is done. It's actually wanting to know like why does this tool work this way or like why is it done this way? Why is this process being done that way? And then to actually learn that, learn why it is, and then seeing that possibility and then making it happen.

You talked a little bit about curiosity, and I love that. I'm wondering, what does it mean to stay curious in the context of innovation?

For me, it's always just come naturally. I want to know why something works. It started just wanting to know why solar works. Like how does this little piece of sand basically make energy? So I did a lot of research on that just on my own, and I started playing around with it at home. I bought solar cells, like individual cells, and actually made my own panel, soldered them together. So it's a lot of just curiosity and tinkering for me. Maybe that's just natural.

That's natural for you for sure, because I have not built my own solar panel at home, let me tell you. So continuing to think about curiosity and innovation, can you talk about how that has shown up within your role?

Again, just seeing the process of the way things are done here. I came on 18 years ago, and it's night and day different. Just yesterday. Yeah, just yesterday. There's been a huge change just within the department of just how things have been done way back then and just seeing how much things can improve and being able to actually have a voice and make those improvements has been really important to me with Parks and Open Space.

I think you really touched on something important at the end, to have a voice. And I think when we think about innovation, it's really important to make sure that we hear all kinds of voices show up in the space. That way we can get to something we may have never even imagined before. Can you give maybe a more concrete example, maybe like your favorite story related to something that you've helped innovate or been a part of at Parks and Open Space?

So that's where the change I feel like comes from. So in the beginning, I was a new employee and that voice, I would have these ideas and I would say them. I felt like they were just falling on deaf ears. So I'd propose an idea and it just would never happen. It was only when I got a new supervisor, our old supervisor retired, and one of my ideas, he was like, oh yeah, we'll write a proposal for it and we'll see where it goes. And that was actually the start of our solar tool trailer.

Oh, wow. Which I had proposed before with a past supervisor and again, it was just on deaf ears and nothing ever came of it. But now that's one of our main assets on job sites. Thank you for being vulnerable and for sharing that. I know it's not always easy to talk about the ways in which this job is hard and I appreciate that. And can you tell me more about this solar tool that you're talking about? I don't think I know what that is or what that means or what that looks like.

A lot of our projects are extremely remote. You don't have any access to power. So we have to bring gas generators in to run power tools and charge batteries. And we like to have hot lunches, so we bring a microwave to our projects. And that's very important to have. Yes, very important. But the generators, I mean, if you forget an extra can of gas, you're out of luck. If you need to run a tool and it's like too cold out, it might not start. And also you just have to listen to that noisy generator all day. And like you're working in some of the most beautiful spots in the county and you just hear this like hum of a generator just roaring away.

So the tool trailer came out, again, just curiosity. Like what if we put some solar panels on this? And looking into what equipment's needed and realizing like, oh, it's not that expensive. And coming up with a plan and a price list and putting it together. Currently, we can run anything that we normally would. So like two, any of our heavy duty saws, we can run a microwave, most importantly. Charge our batteries. It also will monitor how much power you're using over time period. And currently we've logged over 560 kilowatt hours. So that's if you take a 2,000 watt generator, which is our kind of go to, it's small and portable. That's like running that for 255 hours straight. Whoa. So just gas running and putting exhaust in for over like almost 300 hours.

I think what you're describing is amazing. Not just because, again, it like pushesthose boundaries forward. You saw a problem and you were like, I think I know how we can figure this out. Also from an environmental standpoint, it's way better to use solar than to use all of that gas through a generator. And then what you talked about, that data, of also being able to compile that data to show, maybe this is more of a personal question, but how big is it? I'm so curious. How big is that thing? Is it heavy?

The trailer itself? Yeah. So the trailer is a tow-behind work trailer. It's enough to hold all of our tools, a bunch of hardware, a couple toolboxes, and then even just to throw whatever we're wanting to take up to the job site in there. Could be totally wrong. I want to say 14 foot by 7 foot wide trailer.

So cool. Just one more question for you. Yes. What makes innovation in our field hard, especially within our institution, right? And you talked about this earlier. Sometimes it's people that make it hard.

And how do you stay grounded when you're pushing for something totally different that we haven't done before? I feel like a lot of just the mindset of, I don't want to say like everyone today, but we're very much like you can go on Amazon and buy something. Like you don't have to make something for yourself anymore. Like if you want a tool that does this or that or to complete this process, you're going to look and try to find it.

It's changing that mindset to think of like, oh, how could I do this on my own with like what I have? Just within the department, it's a really great place. It like encourages that innovation and like celebrates the innovative ideas. It really helps to just have like-minded people around you that have that and just the resources to make that okay and to let your voice move forward with that idea and like actually attempt to make it a reality. Even if it doesn't work, just to make that attempt is really important to have.

That's such a beautiful message, Mike, and a great place to end. Stay curious. Trust yourself. Dream it. You can do it. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm joined by Scott Golden, Senior Resource Specialist with Forestry and Fire, who brings a field-based lens to creative problem-solving and innovation on the ground.

What does innovation mean to you? And you can take this personally or professionally. Innovation, and I'll take it from the realm of parks and open space, really means being the leader among the peer agencies that we work with, always looking for a better way to do things, whether that's a cross-boundary collaborative fuels reduction project or our limber pine conservation efforts or biomass utilization, always trying to like take that next step.

I heard you say collaborative and leader. Can you talk a little bit more about how collaboration works with innovation? In the past, forestry, fuels reduction efforts, wildfire mitigation efforts, kind of been these one-offs. We referred to it as, you know, these random acts of wildfire mitigation or these random acts of forest restoration.

When we started working together cross-boundary with other agencies and realized, you know, number one, wildfires don't know property boundaries, they don't care whose ownership it is. The last beetle epidemic taught us that. Is it a landscape scale? It doesn't know boundaries. So working with various land ownerships, whether that's the federal, state, private agencies, local agencies, private landowners, and those folks to actually do something of meaningful scale. In the last few years, that's really where the focus has been.

Can you share a little bit more, maybe an example of a specific collaboration that you've had or been a part of and how that's informed the work? Absolutely. So the current project that we're working on is part of the Department of Natural Resources, Colorado Department of Natural Resources Executive Director's Office, Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program, Landscape Resilience Investment Grant.

And there were eight focus areas within the state, Boulder County being one of them. We successfully pulled off one of those projects a couple years ago. The current project now is in West Nederland, where we'll be working with not only county property, but an adjoining private property landowner, the U.S. Forest Service, the State Forest Service, and the Town of Nederland across all of these various property ownerships to do something of scale that will actually make a difference in wildfire mitigation west of the Town of Nederland.

That's a lot of people in one room. I'm wondering about how do you navigate maybe the challenges of having so many different voices in one room? Herding cats is a good way to put it. Everybody agreeing to play nicely in the sandbox is huge. We've gotten to that point, at least here locally. But everybody has that common vision.

And once everybody realized that we're much stronger together than doing our own thing, it's kind of been an organic process from there. Still, whenever you have a lot of people with strong opinions and their own sense of direction for their agency, it can be tough to navigate that sometimes.

But for the most part, especially with the help of some of the local groups that we have now, the NGOs, the non-governmental organizations, specifically the Watershed Center and the Boulder Watershed Collective, they've really been the connecting link to the community and in the collaborative to help bring all of this together.

I want to bring us back to innovation a little bit closer. And I think what you'vebeen talking about of creating a common vision of how we're stronger together is such a reflection of deep innovation, of making sure that other voices are also incorporated in that space. Can you talk about how innovation plays a role in developing that common vision and that stronger together attitude? Our world is always changing. So if you're not innovating and you're not adapting, adaptive management is our key phrase. Whether it's the climate issues that we face, the increased pressure on the resources that we all share, that's always changing. So you can't be static in this. And if you're not innovative and take that adaptive management approach, you're probably going to end up being stalled in your efforts.

Can you maybe give an example of ways in which innovation has been difficult or is hard, even when we try our best to be collaborative? Innovation is hard. And I'm going to go back to the things are changing. So when you're working in an ever-changing environment, trying to stay on top of that can be a little bit difficult. And that's with forestry. We're not doing something for today other than necessarily some fuels reduction efforts. We're really managing for the future. So when you start looking at our realm is 50 years out, how do we visualize what that 50 years is going to look like from now and adapt to that so that we're ready when those changes actually take place. And what is the role of innovation in the future and creating something that will last for decades, right? For other people to continuously to enjoy.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate talking to you today, Scott. It's been lovely. When we talk about engagement at Parks and Open Space, I think we're talking about how we connect with people, with land, and with each other. I think it's about showing up, listening closely, and building trust over time. Engagement to me isn't just about events or emails. It's about relationships. And it doesn't always look the same. I think sometimes it can be big and public and corn festival, and other times it can be small and quiet and really personal.

With that, I'd like to introduce today Amanda Hatfield, our Senior Volunteer Coordinator, a voice in helping us rethink what meaningful engagement looks like. Amanda, can you talk a little bit about what engagement means to you personally and then maybe guide us into how that looks like professionally?

So my role as a Senior Volunteer Coordinator in our Education and Outreach workgroup is solely focused around volunteer work projects. And I mainly do those within our resource management division. So I always tell people to think about things like the plants and the animals and the weeds. That's my specialty. I also am lucky enough to work with our agriculture division as well. I do some projects with them. For me, it is a way to get people out on the land and helping. I have a quote that I live by that means a lot to me. Paulo Coelho says that the world is changed by your example, not your opinion. And I think a lot of people think of that as just like a way that you need to show up. And I think that that's only a small piece of it. Really, what we want people to do is to be engaged in any way that they can. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you physically have to be there. While that is a majority of what I do, and it doesn't mean that you have to accomplish something. I think that there's so many different ways that you can get involved with that. It's a core value in my life is service and giving back and being engaged. And I've learned as I've gotten older and more mature that there are these different ways to do it. I have people in my life that are differently abled and they can't physically do some of these projects, but they still show up in different ways. So I really try to foster that in any way that I can with the public and with our staff. And I think a lot of what I heard is making opportunities for other people to engage in the land in the ways that they want to, in the ways that they're capable of, in the ways that make sense for them. So meeting people where they're at.

Maybe you could give an example of how that has shown up in your work. We do these volunteer projects because our staff alone, there's no way they can get everything that needs to get done with the department in a year without the help of volunteers. There's absolutely no way we can do it. And we're lucky that we have people that want to show up. I think when people come to a project, they're expecting that, okay, we have this plot of land. There's this weed we have to get rid of. I expect every weed to be pulled up by the time you're done. And we're not going to stop until you, no snacks, until you're done. And that's not at all what it is. My primary goal as a volunteer coordinator is to create a safe, welcoming space for people to connect with their community. That is my number one goal in any volunteer project that I do. And if they don't feel that at the end, then I have done something sorely wrong. If we don't get finished with the project, I'm okay with that. There's always going to be more work. There's always going to be more people that want to show up. But if they don't feel like that they have engaged some way with our department, interacted with the earth, interacted with their fellow community members, then I've done something terribly wrong. That is my number one goal. The work is secondary. It's easy to get caught up in that, and I think our volunteers too, because they're usually kind of driven, and they get something done. I often will force breaks on them. and stop and like, hey, let's take a look around. Look where you are. It's really beautiful.

I think sometimes in white culture, there is this senseless need of urgency, and we need to finish this. And I think it goes back to that cliché of like, it's not about the destination, right? Like it's about the journey that we're taking folks on and engaging with that land. And I think that's what I'm really hearing. Absolutely. And I think it's such an important thing to drive home with people because I do think that there are also these expectations on our government that we should be hitting these checkpoints. They need to be done. They need to be done in this time of like explaining that this is not a checklist. This is a process, and it's part of a process. And guess what? All these processes interact with each other too.

It's like intersectionality. And you know, the resource management sphere is that we can't just put up a prairie dog fence. We have to make sure that with ag that there are not cows there that we're interfering with. We have to make sure that there's no wildlife that we're interfering. There's no eagle closure in place that there's no burrowing owls there. We have to make sure that trash has been cleaned up from the area we can't put a fence in. There's all these things that go into that.

And I think what it really does is make people stop and think, oh, I was upset that they didn't get that done first. Maybe I can understand now why that took longer. Maybe this is why government goes at a snail's pace. It's not because they're lazy. It's not because they don't want to do it. It's because they're actually being thoughtful and making sure that all these things are in place before we get something done.

I really try to, and I've said this before too, of like if you were at a park, you don't ever think about how beautiful the park is, how that there's no trash or how that you have a place to park or you know where the trail is. If you have never thought about those things, then we are doing our job really well. If one of those things gets taken away, like there's a trailhead closed, people start to realize what work goes into making that effortless. And it's a big deal.

That's why we have some of the best people that work for us is that they're so good at doing that because they make it look effortless and people don't think about those things when they're in our parks. They don't think that they're not seeing weeds along the trails in part because of our staff. Also a large part because of those volunteers, those people that are showing up and doing it.

That's one of my favorite things is we're in a public space, weed projects especially, because it's very obvious what we're doing is that visitors on the trail will thank us and thank volunteers for what we're doing, which is so meaningful for them, but also for me that they get that experience. I think it's so great. Right, to be seen. To be seen. We all want to be seen, don't we? I mean, it's such a human thing to want to be seen and like I'm doing something good.

Speaking of being seen, maybe let's have a conversation of who isn't being seen and who hasn't maybe been a part of really engaging with the land and what that has looked like. So how do you see engagement playing a role in equity and building community trust? It's vital. I think once again, a very white Eurocentric thing, we look at as a checklist. Like, are we done with engagement? Check. Have we done stewardship? Check. It's one of those things.

I would say historically, it's been us telling people how to be on land. Absolutely. This is something that's really centered even in the Park Service. I love the National Park Service, don't get me wrong, but it is very much protect and preserve. It's very militant. This is how you enjoy the land. These are the rules for the land. And then really trying to let go of that as part of how we engage with the community.

And the first step is not just going out to people in the community, but developing a relationship with them and developing trust. And it is a long process and being okay with that. And while we are the government and we're used to things happening on a long timeline, it's an even longer timeline than I think we've maybe think on budget timelines. It has nothing to do with the budget timeline. We're talking years and years and years.

When people ask me like, can we engage people of historically marginalized community? I'm like, absolutely. But it's not going to start with me asking them to pull weeds. That's so ridiculous. That doesn't sound great. But it really is just going to people and talking. How do you engage? What are you comfortable doing? Is it talking to someone? Is it having a suggestion? Is it a survey? Is it going on a guided hike? Honestly, it might be doing a project.

One of my favorite days I've ever had with the San Lazaro community. Now this relationship with this community has been a long time. We have built a lot of trust. They loved pulling weeds that day. I had like full groups of families. They were like, I want to do more of this. This is great. Once again, a very core, a very human thing of like, I am physically making a difference. I can see what I'm doing. I can see what I've done. That's a human thing. That's not a race thing. That's not a socioeconomic thing. It's someone feeling like they're making a difference right now.

And it really opened my eyes. I was like, oh, all right. I like this. This is great. The thing I am most conscious of as a volunteer coordinator is that when people can volunteer their time, that is a huge piece of privilege. You have the time and you have the money to spend doing something outside of your job or with your family. That is a huge privilege.

And I was talking with a coworker on the way over here is that people hear that word and they think it's a dirty word. And I try to use it a lot. It's the reality. If you can acknowledge that you have this privilege, then you can move forward from there. That's fine to notice that you have privilege. We've privileged for a lot of different reasons.

As a white woman, I think I use this a lot as a good check and a good reminder that I want to be an ally. I want to support people that maybe need a little bit more of a voice, but also that's not my space. And being an ally, I'm not part of that group. Not everything is for me. I need to ask. I need to make sure that I'm confident and I'm strong and I'm opinionated whether people like it or not. And I don't need to be that for everybody.

And I have a tendency to want to be a caretaker and to uplift people, but not everyone needs that. I need to check that privilege that I have that I can be that. That's how I, for me, personally, in my personal life, how I can be an ally and I can get people engaged and I can also push them forward.

Thank you so much, Amanda. It has been a privilege to speak with you today and learn a little bit more about what you do. Thank you so much.

I'd like to invite Jim Drew. Thank you so much for being here, Jim. Our volunteer coordinator at the Agricultural Heritage Center. Jim brings experience in navigating complex relationships with community members, landowners, stakeholders that have all kinds of perspectives.

Jim, can you please share an example of a time when engagement helped shape a project or decision and what that actually looked like on the ground?

Engagement has meant many different things to me over the years. And one of the priorities for the Agricultural Heritage Center and the programs that we offer was building up relationships with people like school teachers and building a volunteer core, which uses a lot of the principles of engagement to build these long lasting relationships to make that initial engagement meeting, share goals and share a vision, build rapport and trust over time.

Building those relationships over time taught me the process of engagement. One thing that I've picked up over the years is that I can apply those skills and those experiences to working with other communities as well.

And something that comes to mind is working with an indigenous led group called Harvest of All First Nations. There was interest on their part in holding their corn festival on a Boulder County Parks and Open Space property. And I was brought into the conversation to see if it would be a good fit for the Agricultural Heritage Center.

This was a brand new relationship that we embarked on. I would say we were probably all a little tentative at first and not sure what our intent was and whether or not we could trust each other. We started that relationship slow and worked together just to see, almost giving each other small little bits or grains to see if the other one had good intent.

But in a way, just to start that trust building process because it's not just something that you can go to someone and say, okay, you can trust me. I've got your best interests at heart. And meanwhile, I'm someone who would probably say that.

So I go in with I'm a pretty optimistic person and I feel like I have good intent, but I may not be aware of times when the impact of my actions might come across negatively or I approach this relationship in a way that knowing that I would probably make mistakes through this process, I asked for grace and like, please forgive me if I get any of these parts wrong. I want to make sure that we meet your needs and we put on an incredible event.

And it was a big learning process for me. Like I thought I knew all those things, but I had to really get out there and just try it out and make some mistakes.

I think one of the things that I heard really clearly is relationships move at the speed of trust. It's going to take time and it's not going to be within one calendar year, right? You can't just put a timeline on it. It's something that needs to be intentional and requires openness from both sides.

You talked a little bit about that hesitation that maybe existed on both sides. I'm wondering if maybe that comes from an institutional level, right? Because when we're working with the tribes, a lot of times I think we're thinking about the ways in which our government has let them down in multiple counts. And that's a very nice way of saying it, right? Of treaties being broken, of massacres that have taken place. And that is this very heavy history, right? That then feels like might be on us, right? And how is our institution going to be different? How are we going to engage differently with this community?

I'm wondering a little bit more if you could talk a little bit about that tension and what it was like for you to navigate that. And you talked a little bit about like, I also had to face this personally, right? You to navigate that and you talked a little bit about like I also had to face this personally, right? Like I thought I knew everything about engagement, but turns out I was like I had a lot to learn. So I'm wondering if you could talk just a little bit more about that.

I think historically Boulder County Parks and Open Space history programs have focused on colonial history and that was really part like industry standard for those of us engaged in that. We thought we were doing the best we could. Admittedly, a lot of us are white folks whose history was being represented in these stories. Over the past few years for us, for our organization and across the history world in general, there's a big reckoning going on right now. There's wider acknowledgement that so many stories are missing from history. It's taken a lot of learnings and unlearnings to get the context of those stories. That's like one of the first steps in building a trusting relationship is learning why someone or a group of people might have negative feelings towards a government body or an organization that represents local history, but meanwhile their stories are missing. Acknowledging that missing element, that exclusion is a major part of moving forward.

I think it's so amazing that they approached you. There is a deep vulnerability to that, of an ask and a trust. Even though over time you had to develop that, the fact that they came to you and they said, "I think we want to do this together," seems like it's a huge, huge deal. How do you read into that?

It is a huge deal and I think it took a lot of courage on their part and a lot of vulnerability to see if it would work. I'm guessing different groups approach other organizations all the time and face rejection or there's not a quote unquote fit for the priorities of an organization. I'm so glad that we found common interests and shared goals. I think they knew what the possibilities were and they were dreaming big and decided to jump in and I think it took a lot of courage.

Thank you so much, Jim. It's been absolutely lovely talking, connecting about what does it mean and how does it look like to engage tribal communities and how can they show up in our spaces and what does it mean to recreate that lost connection to the land. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you.

Thanks for having me and I think it's just the beginning of our progress forward. Absolutely. Huge thanks to our guests for sharing their stories and insights as well as Longmont Public Media for providing a recording space.

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