Meet the folks behind the website

Keeley grew up in Southern Illinois, where she was raised to enjoy the outdoors through forest wanders, Girl Scout camping trips, and building tadpole villages while tubing down the Black River in Missouri.

These early experiences instilled in her a deep appreciation for natural places, but it wasn’t until graduate school — during a serendipitous summer internship in Jackson, Wyoming — that she realized the beauty and importance of protecting large landscapes. This experience shaped her career, driving her passion for environmental advocacy and public land conservation.

After earning her law degree, Keeley worked with the National Conference of State Legislatures, where she focused on environmental policy and collaborated closely with Tribal governments around issues related to nuclear waste. She then worked as a staff attorney at The Wilderness Society for several years, focusing on the management of federal lands. Today, as the Policy Director at the Colorado Wildlands Project, Keeley seeks to leverage federal laws and policies to protect and conserve wildlands across the Western Slope.

To Keeley, public lands represent more than just open spaces — they are a refuge from an increasingly profit-driven world and a place where nature is allowed to exist on its own terms. They offer peace, connection, and the hope that future generations will experience landscapes that remain truly wild.

From a multi-generational Colorado family, Erin was raised in the foothills outside of Denver with a love of wild places. Her upbringing instilled in her a strong conservation ethos, and time spent with family often meant spending time together outside exploring the peaks, prairies, and deserts of Colorado’s incredible public lands.

She went on to pursue a degree in Environmental Studies from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where she was first introduced to the concept of community organizing through her involvement in local efforts to prevent increased coal and oil trains from moving through the city and university divestment from fossil fuels. 

After some time doing conservation work abroad, Erin returned to her home state of Colorado to work as a community organizer for Conservation Colorado, where she mobilized community members across the Western Slope on public lands, water, and climate issues. She has spent the past few years at Wilderness Workshop in Carbondale, where she works as the organization's Advocacy Director, working to bring communities together to advocate on behalf of our wild places and landscapes in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond. 

Through this work, she has seen up close how important protecting our shared resources is for Coloradans, particularly in rural communities where public lands drive local economies and shape our way of life. To Erin, there is still nothing more special than time spent outside with loved ones amongst the peaks, prairies, and deserts of Colorado’s incredible public lands.

Brien was born and raised in Colorado. “For as long as I can remember,” he said, “my family has come together for reunions timed around hatches, hunts and favorite landscapes.” After receiving a BA in Government from the University of Redlands, Brien headed to Zambia where he spent two years with the Peace Corps. Upon returning home he found his way to the West Slope of Colorado and worked on public lands and water conservation issues with Conservation Colorado as a community organizer. Brien spent the next five years of his career with Backcountry Hunters & Anglers as their Colorado and Wyoming Chapter Coordinator and National Programs Manager. Brien is back home with Conservation Colorado working as their Public Lands Campaign Manager. 

“I love Colorado. From childhood to now, public lands have been the backdrop to many of my most cherished memories,” Brien added. “Growing up, almost every weekend was filled with skiing, camping, hunting, and fishing. My successes were measured in days on the slopes, birds in the blind, and the number of fish caught. Family reunions were based on hatches, salmon runs, camping trips, and hunting seasons.”

The opportunities and experiences made possible by our public lands and waters have shaped Brien’s identity and deepened his passion and curiosity as a sportsman. When he’s not in the office chances are he’s in the field or on the river sharing his favorite pastime of pursuing wild game in new and familiar landscapes with his wife, Holly, family, and friends.

“Our public lands are incredible classrooms, and it is in these places we gain clarity on what matters most,” Brien said. “For years I’ve taken these places for granted, assuming that they would always remain as they were… But what I am seeing is that these vast and beautiful places are changing more rapidly than the people who care about them… I now work to protect Colorado’s amazing public lands.”