PERSONAL REFLECTIONS CDTC’s founders and network offer their reflections during our 10th year. Stay tuned for our next Passages for more reflections! DON OWEN, CDTC BOARD
LEE GAULT, HELPED CDTC’S FOUNDING
In the fall of 2012, I took my annual hiking and fishing trip to the Western Slope of Colorado, where I had lived for more than a decade. After disappearing into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison for four days, I met Teresa in Grand Junction, and we drove to the Land Trust Alliance Rally in Salt Lake City. Teresa talked to me about how the CDTA (the previous nonprofit organization for the CDT) had fallen apart, and how she was not going to let that happen to the CDT. She said she wanted to organize people to form a new organization. The CDTC started with four board members, including Teresa, and a budget of $4,500. I was the fifth member when I joined the board in January 2013…
[A favorite memory] was an experience where [Executive Director] Teresa Martinez came up to Montana. We were on the edge of Glacier National Park. Our regional director came out and he hiked with other people and with Brenda Yankoviak. Teresa and I didn’t have time to participate in the hiking part of the trip and I gave Teresa a ride back to where she needed to go and it was lovely to spend time with her as a person and to hear about her vision for the CDTC. This was probably within the first couple of years of the CDTC. I had time and she had time and we had a really lovely time spending time together
Right now, I think we’re in a sweet spot, with great staff, lots of volunteers, a solid membership base, an engaged board of directors, and strong partnerships with agencies and other organizations. I would love to see us have regional offices in each state where we can rally support for the CDT. I would also like to see us have a wider volunteer program run out of each regional office. I think regional offices are essential to completing a protected corridor of land for the CDT, which is perhaps the biggest challenge we have. I would love to see us complete the protection of the CDT in my lifetime. PAGE 26
I think the CDTC is a great program and a great organization and it has such a strong mission in working with one of the major trails in the country. It’s such an iconic landscape and trail that is fun in many ways. To have seen partnerships develop and the way we are working together makes me very proud. I think it’s just the relationships and partnerships that Teresa and the coalition have built. Teresa and the CDTC as a whole take the word coalition to heart. The relationships that the CDTC have built are not just transactional; everyone is a partner in design, plan, vision, and implementation.
