Celena Collins, Board President
Celena has volunteered with a number of non-profits such as United Way and personal growth organizations such as Toastmasters International since the late 90’s, and continues to follow that path with TEG. She has lived in Coal Creek Canyon with her husband since 2010, and has a deep passion for its rustic beauty, lifestyle and community. She has a background in web development, technical process streamlining, and has a hobby-turned business of custom crochet apparel for men & women of all ages. You may see her making posts and announcements on behalf of The Environmental group in social media platforms, and participating in various discussions of how to protect the environment in our canyon and the surrounding areas.
Bonnie Begert – Secretary & Membership
Bonnie has always had a passion for protecting the environment. She graduated with a BS in Environmental Science and Natural Resources from Purdue University with specialties in soil and water quality. She has worked as an Environmental Specialist at Aurora Public Schools for the past 15 years. Bonnie has many environmental certifications and belongs to numerous environmental groups. She and her husband, Scott, moved to Coal Creek in 2009 and can’t imagine ever moving back to town!
Bambi Hansen, Vice President
Bambi and her husband Paul have lived in Coal Creek Canyon for 35 years and raised two sons who are now starting families of their own. As founding members of TEG, the Hansen’s began with a focus on recycling and wrote educational articles on best practices for conserving resources. This soon evolved into a community recycling effort. The Hansen’s coordinated this program for about ten years, diverting tremendous amounts from the landfill. With the advent of single stream recycling their focus changed to education on how and where households and business could do it themselves. As part of the recycle committee for TEG, Bambi continues to work for a permanent recycling program for the community.
Bambi also Chairs the River Watch team for the Division of Wildlife. Through River Watch, Bambi has sampled Coal Creek water once a month at Twin Spruce and at Plainview sites. In the Fall of 2011, the program was passed on to the Coal Creek School and CC-K-8 students went to a statewide training in order to take over the program and make it permanent part of their science program. Bambi serves on the Stop Gross Dam committee, meets with Denver Water and various other agencies with the hopes of bringing about policies for conservation and awareness regarding our most precious resource, water. She looks forward to the coming year, working with this group of diverse and energetic people.
Heather Southworth, Treasurer
Heather and her fiancé, Eric, moved up to Coal Creek Canyon 2 years ago and love it. She is interested in getting to know the community and in helping make a positive impact on the environment.
Beverly Kurtz – Board Member
Bev has been involved with TEG for many years as a concerned resident of the North Shore of Gross Reservoir. She and her husband, Tim Guenthner, have lived in Lakeshore Park for over 25 years. Bev retired from IBM in 2014 and at that point had time to direct her Project Management and IT skills to helping with the fight against Denver Water’s reservoir expansion plans. She is a long time river runner and has worked most of her adult life on campaigns to save western rivers. She is excited about her role as chair of TEG’s committee “Citizens for Sustainable Water Management” (CSWM) that will focus on the effort to stop Denver Water.
Dana Edwards – Board Member
In July 2016, just 5 months after moving to Nederland, Dana and her husband were evacuated from their home due to the Cold Springs Fire. This experience made it clear how fragile and precious this incredible ecosystem is, and Dana was moved to do all she could on her part to educate and inspire others to take action and preserve it. Since then, she has been active at the hyper-local and grassroots level, organizing neighborhood fire mitigation efforts, spearheading a local Saws & Slaws Event, and most recently, actively bringing awareness of the fight against the Gross Reservoir expansion to Nederland. This has included multiple social media posts to local groups, letters written to both FERC and the Boulder County Commissioners, and making a public comment at April 3rd BOCCs meeting.
Dana is honored to be considered for a board position of TEG and welcomes the opportunity to work with this organization in furthering their mission. Dana has most recently served as Treasurer for the Nederland Community Library Board, is a founding member and organizer of the Women Entrepreneurs + Business Owners of Greater Nederland, and is also beginning to work closely with the Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s Boulder Committee.
Jennie Curtis – Board Member
Jennie Curtis has lived in Boulder County’s Lakeshore Park neighborhood on the north shore of Gross Reservoir since 2005. She works in the non-profit sector as the executive director of the Garfield Foundation, a philanthropy focused on environmental sustainability and deploying systems solutions to complex problems. Jennie has been active in the opposition efforts against the proposed expansion of Gross Reservoir for over a decade. She enthusiastically joined the TEG board to support its leadership in the fight against expanding Gross dam. Jennie is an avid outdoor enthusiast and a committed environmentalist and activist.