CHELSEY NUTTER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Chelsey became the first Executive Director of ARWC in 2019 and oversees the organization’s staff, outreach and projects including fire mitigation and forestry work, post-fire recovery and watershed health education. She has secured over $2 million in funding for forest fuels mitigation and fire recovery. A native to the Arkansas River Valley, Chelsey brings a strong history of developing, managing and implementing projects in the communities of the basin. She engages diverse stakeholders in each community, and across the state, to create comprehensive solutions to complex water and forest health challenges. She is a member of the Arkansas Basin Roundtable that gave rise to ARWC, and serves as the Needs Assessment Co-Chair of the Roundtable Environment and Recreation Committee as well as the Lower Arkansas Water Quality Working Group. Chelsey has a background in water law and administration, hydrology, environmental policy and planning, soil sciences, forestry, geology, GIS, nonprofit management, accounting, strategic planning, economics and marketing. She earned a Bachelor degree in Land Use Planning and a Master of Business Administration.
CARRIE ADAIR
GIS & OUTREACH
GIS & OUTREACH
Carrie collects, manages and develops ARWC data and brings the organization’s projects to life by generating maps, creating story maps, and other visual formats to bring form to ARWC work. She uses data to paint a picture of the condition of compromised and burned watersheds that allows staff to identify needs, prioritize projects, pinpoint safety concerns and provide education to funders and stakeholders in the communities in the Arkansas River Basin. Carrie has over 10 years of experience with using GIS and related spatial analysis tools to support forest health, water quality, community wildfire protection planning, fire suppression, emergency response, flood mitigation, emergency preparedness, river restoration, recreation and education work. She worked as part of the Waldo Canyon Fire post-wildfire efforts by creating project maps, collecting project data and participating in community outreach and public meetings through the Coalition for the Upper South Platte.
ANDY LERCH
LEAD FORESTER
LEAD FORESTER
Andy uses forestry techniques for forest and ecosystem restoration to help create forests that are resilient to wildfire, climate change, and outbreaks of insects and disease. He comes to ARWC as Lead Forester from Oregon, where he worked on collaborative forest restoration projects that engaged federal, local, and nonprofit partners to develop and implement landscape-scale projects to reduce the threat of severe wildfire and provide protection for communities and watersheds. Andy is excited to work with ARWC on forest treatments that promote watershed function throughout the Arkansas River Basin. Andy earned a Bachelor Degree in Forestry from the University of Missouri and Master Degrees in Forestry and Entomology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
THERESA SPRINGER
RECOVERY COORDINATOR
RECOVERY COORDINATOR
Theresa brings more than 20 years of on-the-ground experience with post-fire flood recovery to ARWC. Her knowledge, expertise and sincere passion for helping communities who have been affected by fire and flood allow her to provide quick, precise, compassionate recommendations to landowners and communities reeling from the impacts wildfire, helping them prepare for and respond to subsequent flooding. Through the Coalition for the Upper South Platte, Theresa worked on post-fire recovery for the Hayman Fire, Waldo Canyon Fire, Hayden Pass Fire, Beulah Hill Fire, Junkins Fire and Spring Creek Fire.
DAVE STEFFAN
RECOVERY COORDINATOR
RECOVERY COORDINATOR
As a local rancher, fire chief, combat veteran and wildland fire fighter, David is deeply rooted in his home community of La Veta, where the Spring Creek Fire burned in 2018. David has been a wildland fire fighter and sawyer since he attended college at Western State University where he studied history and biology. He earned a graduate degree in Colorado History from the University of Colorado - Denver. He served in the Army Corps of Engineers with two combat tours in Iraq. He fought the Spring Creek Fire as an Engine Boss and Sawyer, became involved in post-fire recovery efforts and was hired as ARWC's local recovery coordinator. He works on projects that help burned watersheds, and his friends and neighbors, recover from the effects of fire.
KATE SPINELLI
RECOVERY COORDINATOR
RECOVERY COORDINATOR
Kate studied community social work and earned a Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis before moving to Colorado in 2012 to pursue conservation. She worked for local organizations in the Arkansas River Valley to provide community-based environmental education. In 2014 Kate joined a local land trust to develop the organization’s land stewardship program. Working alongside landowners, partner agencies and organizations, she developed land health workshops and projects, located grants and coordinated technical assistance to implement restoration projects for forest and watershed health, fire mitigation and recovery, sustainable agricultural practices, nonnative vegetation management, reseeding and revegetation, and wildlife habitat enhancement on protected land. With the need for fire mitigation and post-fire fire and flood recovery for both the land and its communities becoming urgent, Kate began connecting fire and flood-impacted landowners in her community with federal, state and local partners to complete post-fire mitigation projects in the 2016 Hayden Pass Fire burn area. Through ARWC, Kate continues to work for the health of local forests and watersheds by engaging the communities that depend on and cherish them.
