CMC wins
excellence award

By Rolf Asphaug

I am thrilled to report that on Tuesday, November 13, 2001, the Colorado Mountain Club received an El Pomar Award for Excellence in the field of Environmental Issues. The award, by the nonprofit El Pomar Foundation, includes a cash prize of $15,000.

The El Pomar Awards for Excellence program is perhaps the most prestigious award program available for nonprofits in Colorado. The program is unique because candidate organizations do not apply for the awards, but are nominated and selected by a distinguished panel of Coloradans known as the Awards for Excellence Selection Commission. The Selection Commission determines the winners and finalists in each of eleven categories. The CMC was the winner in its category; the other two finalists each received $5,000.

The Selection Commission evaluates nominees “based on an organization’s community impact, effective resource use, commitment to mission, and the degree of success of program implementation.” This year’s Selection Commission included such notables as former Senator and current University of Northern Colorado President Hank Brown, former Denver Public Schools superintendent Dr. Evie Dennis, former Colorado Governor John Love, Colorado State Representative Lynn Hefley, former Colorado State Senator Tilman Bishop, and former Boettcher Foundation President William Douglas. The CMC was nominated by Mr. Douglas.

The CMC received its award at a presentation banquet at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs before an audience of 1,200 attendees. A short video highlighting our Club’s activities was shown along with the videos for other finalists. CMC President-elect Bill Houghton, Executive Director Kristy Judd, Conservation Director Vera Smith, and I attended on behalf of our Club.

To quote from the award announcement:

“The Robert V. Menary Award for Environmental Issues is for those organizations that have achieved excellence in their efforts to support the preservation of natural surroundings and promote environmental awareness and conservation. Founded in 1912, the Colorado Mountain Club is Colorado’s oldest and largest outdoor education, recreation, and conservation organization. The club lobbied for the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park in the early 1900s, Dinosaur National Monument in the 1930s, and the Wilderness Act of 1964. In addition to conservation efforts, the club is a user group and operates an extensive ‘give back’ program with trail construction and maintenance, weed control, field mapping, and other projects. The club’s schools and seminars teach the principles of ‘Leave No Trace’ and ethical climbing.”

We all owe thanks to many dedicated CMC volunteers and staff—perhaps most notably State Conservation Chair Steve Bonowski, who prepared much of the supporting documentation for the award; and Conservation Director Vera Smith, whose activities were viewed highly favorably by this diverse and professional Selection Commission. However, we shouldn’t stop there: We also owe thanks to the rest of our fine staff including Kristy Judd and Education Director Brenda Porter for providing information and support for this award; our various State Conservation Committee, Group Conservation Committee, and Group Trails Committee chairs and volunteers, including Denver’s Jerry Helmke; our Boulder Group volunteers working on weed control efforts; the volunteers and staff responsible for our various schools that all take care to include Leave No Trace principles in their curricula; our conservation-oriented members and donors who help all this happen; and all of the many CMC members who have worked on environmental issues through the history of the Club. Our collective efforts have obviously been noticed at the highest levels.

We can also congratulate our American Mountaineering Center partner, the Colorado Outward Bound School, which was nominated and named the winner in the category of Sports and Recreation. This was the third time COBS had been nominated; it was the first time CMC had received such an honor. We are hoping that in future years we might obtain nominations in Sports and Recreation, Education, and Special Projects.

Rolf Asphaug is past-president of the Colorado Mountain Club.