board of directors

Carolyn F. Burr, a shareholder with Welborn Sullivan Meck & Tooley, specializes in water law and represents clients throughout Colorado in all seven of the state’s water divisions. Carolyn grew up on a ranch in North Park, where she fell in love with magnificent landscapes. She is proud to be part of Colorado’s leading land conservation organization, which also helps preserve the state’s agricultural heritage.

Martin Herz grew up exploring the woods of Southern New England.  After living in California and Chicago, he has now called Colorado home for more than twenty years.  Martin spent several decades in the commercial real estate industry, primarily focused on arranging debt transactions for apartment and healthcare facility owners.  He is now active on several boards in Denver and serves as a pro-bono financial advisor to several non-profits.  Martin earned a B.A. in Biology from Pomona College and a M.B.A. with a concentration in Finance from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  Martin holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.  In his free time, you can find Martin hiking or cycling all over the Front Range.  

Randy Morgan recently retired as a snow sports and patio furniture retailer for the past 50 years in Northern Colorado.  He originally came to Colorado State University and has a Bachelors of Science degree in Botany and Plant Pathology.  He has been involved with many environmental non-profits for decades.  When not getting to spend time with his children and new granddaughter, Morgan is still an avid skier, fly fisherman and cyclist.

Paul Phillips has practiced environmental and land use law, policy and litigation for more than 30 years. His experience includes Environmental Protection Agency enforcement actions under the Clean Air Act, RCRA, and the Clean Water Act. From 2000 to 2008, Paul served on Holland & Hart’s Management Committee, ultimately as Chairman, overseeing substantial growth in the firm. He has also served as Chair of the firm’s Natural Resources Department and Leader of its Environmental Group. Mr. Phillips has served on the board of the Colorado Legal Aid Foundation, the Colorado Plateau Archeological Alliance, the Trust for Land Restoration, and other civic and pro bono organizations. Mr. Phillips loves hiking and backpacking in the Colorado Rockies, bagging the easy 14ers, rafting the desert canyons of Colorado and Utah, and bringing back a long-neglected hay field and orchard in Taos, New Mexico.

Dan Pike has worked in the conservation real estate field for over forty years in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. He has completed many complex conservation transactions involving a wide-range of legislative, administration and private-sector real estate tools and incentives. He has served on several non-profit boards and public commissions, has managed several organizations, and is a frequent public speaker.

After working in the Illinois and Washington D.C. offices of The Nature Conservancy, Dan came to Colorado in 1975 as Director of the organization’s Rocky Mountain Field Office, managing programs in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. A founder and principal in the Western Land Group, he specialized in completing land exchanges with government agencies from 1981 to 1996. Dan was hired as President of Colorado Open Lands in 1997. He was a founding Board member of both the Gunnison Ranchland Conservation Legacy, a non-profit agricultural land preservation group in Gunnison County, and the Mountain Area Land Trust in Evergreen, Colorado. He is past Vice-Chairman of the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts, and has served on several committees for the Land Trust Alliance. He has also served on three Governor’s Open Space Commissions, and was the first chair of the Conservation Easement Oversight Commission, established by the legislature to provide oversight to the State’s conservation easement program.

Dan received his BA from Northwestern University, and is a graduate of the University of Colorado Real Estate Institute.

Mark Walter spent his career managing institutional investment portfolios for the State of Colorado, Microsoft Corporation, and Wells Fargo. As the head of fixed income for Colorado’s public employees’ pension fund, Mark led a team responsible for managing multibillion-dollar investment portfolios for the nearly 700,000 state of Colorado public pension recipients. At Microsoft, Mark served as a senior director of capital markets, where he oversaw around $50 billion in global fixed income assets. At Microsoft, Mark was recognized as the Hero and Key Achiever of the year for excellence during the credit crisis. He also represented Microsoft at a meeting with U.S. Treasury officials to assess market conditions during the 2008 financial crisis. Mark was named among the “Top 40 Under 40” corporate financial executives by Treasury & Risk Magazine. Mark currently serves as a member of the board of directors for Leave No Trace.

As a Colorado native, Mark is passionate about a range of outdoor activities, including mountain biking, fly fishing, skiing, hiking, and mountaineering. As a lifetime outdoor enthusiast, Mark is committed to promoting the mission of Leave No Trace. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) professional designation.