Teagen Blakey has served as President of the Magnolia Forest Group (MFG) for the past 7 years. During this time, she worked extensively with the US Forest Service (USFS) in the Multiparty Monitoring Group for the Forsythe ll Project located in Boulder County. Prior to this, in 2014, she took a deep dive into forestry, fire science, and the NEPA process in response to the USFS’s initial iteration of the project. During this time, she also worked as Assistant Coordinator for the Little Thompson Watershed Coalition and chaired another local non-profit organization. In addition to MFG, she currently sits on the board of The Environmental Group (TEG), which is challenging the construction of what would be the tallest dam in Colorado history. It was due to this project that she originally started speaking at County Commissioner hearings as a teenager. Since then, she has gone on to address other environmental issues of concern for her community, including recreation management and sports shooting. 

Professionally, Teagen spent close to a decade as a gymnastics coach, supporting young athletes to reach their goals. More recently she acquired several certifications as a life coach. In her free time, she enjoys the hiking and camping opportunities her native Colorado landscape has to offer.  

Scott Conway is the Chief Resilience Officer of Vibrant Planet and brings proven natural resource leadership and management experience to multi-jurisdictional resilience management challenges. Scott is a 20-year US Forest Service veteran in land management with a diverse set of roles including District Ranger, Spatial Ecologist, FireFighter and Forester. Scott is determined to help transition data to insight in an effort to streamline all aspects of the resilience management lifecycle with the ultimate goal of making our communities more defensible and our wild and working lands more resilient to climate exacerbated disturbance like wildfire.

Chiara Forrester is the Forest Program Director for The Watershed Center (www.watershed.center). She loves working across disciplines and boundaries to tackle complex problems toward ecosystem and community resilience. Chiara has worked with communities across the western U.S. to promote and support wildfire adaptation. She also has a wide range of research experience, from studying the impacts of climate change on plant ecology in alpine and agricultural systems to conducting survey research on the use of climate change research in land management decisions. Chiara received her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a Bachelor’s degree in Plant Ecology and Environmental Education from Hampshire College. In her role as Forest Program Director, Chiara coordinates the St. Vrain Forest Health Partnership and works with private landowners and public land managers on adaptive forest management to enhance ecosystem and community resilience to climate change and wildfire. 

Charlie Reynar is the Fire Prevention Officer for the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grasslands. He has been working in Wildland Fire Management for 25 years and has a passion for grappling with the many challenges we face when learning to live with wildfire.   

Michael Smith, aka “Smitty,” is a Fire Prevention Specialist and Acting Battalion Chief for the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. He has served as Incident Commander on many large incidents on the Colorado Front Range over the last two decades.  He is also a qualified Prescribed Fire Burn Boss and is one of the Operations Section Chiefs for Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 2.

Marya is an information and stories person focused on the worlds of wildfire management, wildfire response, and communication strategies for our public lands. Her career has revolved around creating and implementing initiatives that encourage those in our communities towards safe, happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives. She has extensive experience enhancing communications and management processes in classroom, government, family, wilderness, international, and emergency response settings.