Colorado Open Lands’ staff is comprised of dedicated professionals who operate under four guiding principles:
Integrity – we earn the trust of our landowners, partners, donors and community by fulfilling our commitments and holding ourselves to the highest ethical standards in all we do.
Creativity – we are focused on creating, championing, and celebrating conservation-minded solutions that turn land use challenges into opportunities.
Inspiration – we are driven by a love of Colorado’s magnificent lands and a respect for the landowners that steward them and the citizens that cherish them.
Collaborative Leadership – our leadership will seek and foster internal and external collaborative relationships to meet the challenge of conservation in perpetuity.
Alyssa Acosta
Alyssa Acosta is a Colorado native from a Colorado pioneer family. She brings to the team over nine years of fundraising experience through community outreach, event planning, and database management.
Kyle Balint
Kyle joined the conservation team after completing his MS in Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wyoming.
Tony Caligiuri
Tony recently concluded his six years of service with the National Wildlife Federation, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Conservation and Education.
Max Ciaglo
Max joined Colorado Open Lands as a Stewardship Intern and is now excited to work in the San Luis Valley as the Grain for Cranes Fellow.
Cheryl Cufre
Cheryl Cufre leads COL’s conservation easement stewardship and landowner assistance programs.
Carmen Farmer
Carmen comes to COL after spending four years working as the Community Projects Manager at Eastern Shore Land Conservancy in Maryland.
Kristin Gjelsteen
Kristin joins Colorado Open Lands with experience in event coordination, project management, and communications.
Cheyenne Johnson
Cheyenne Johnson has over 15 years of experience in philanthropy.
Maddy Jones
Maddy Jones joins our Development team as the Development Administrator.
Jaclyn Kachelmeyer
Jaclyn joined Colorado Open Lands after completing her master’s degree at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Ben Lenth
Ben Lenth joined Colorado Open Lands following eight years as Executive Director at San Isabel Land Protection Trust in Westcliffe, CO
Judy Lopez
Judy exhibits a commitment to building relationships around conservation in Colorado’s beautiful San Luis Valley.
Joel Nystrom
Joel supports the conservation easement stewardship and landowner assistance programs.
Sarah Parmar
Sarah has spent over a decade at Colorado Open Lands and leads COL’s private land conservation work.
John Peters
John has over 12 years of experience working in the land conservation field.
Katherine Raffio
Katherine joins Colorado Open Lands after two and a half years as the Program Coordinator at Continental Divide Land Trust.
Pam Sjoerdsma
Pam arrived at Colorado Open Lands in April 2018 with a passion for the outdoors and more than 25 years of management and operations experience
Miles Van Blarcum
Miles supports the Stewardship Team with easement monitoring, GIS, and database administration.
Leslie Volkar
Leslie is a communications and marketing professional with over fourteen years of experience.