Jayla Poppleton is the Resilient Water & Watersheds Director at the Western Resilience Center (formerly known as Yampa Valley Sustainability Council). She came to this role after serving as the Executive Director at Water Education Colorado (WEco), the state’s leading organization for informing and engaging Coloradans on water issues. Jayla also serves on the Advisory Council for the One World One Water Center at Metro State University.

Prior to her role as Executive Director, Jayla oversaw WEco’s full suite of print and digital content programming; for nine years, she was senior editor of the organization’s flagship publication, Headwaters Magazine. She has written extensively on all things water, and it continues to be the subject she is most passionate about.

Jayla holds a Bachelor’s degree in technical journalism with a specialization in natural resources management from Colorado State University. She lives in Denver with her husband and three sons, and enjoys traveling and recreating in Colorado’s great outdoors—especially in, on, or around water.

German Velasco is Co-founder of Colorado-based non-profit La Mano Amiga (The Helping Hand), an organization devoted to life-advancement education of under-served individuals living in the US. German also founded Velasco Outreach, offering cross-cultural competency training, conflict resolution services, facilitation, and leadership coaching. Velasco Outreach is an accredited sponsor of the Legal and Judicial Continuing Education Program for the State of Colorado Supreme Court and the State of Nevada.

German has extensive urban and regional planning experience, having worked for the World Bank in Latin America and served at several public posts in Bolivia, including under the Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs and the Governor of the State of La Paz.

Educated in the US and in South America, German holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design and Planning from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Universidad Mayor de San Andres. He also completed the Program for Advanced Studies at California University in Novato, California.

Jorge-Andres Rincon-Romero is the Manager for Country Risk and Government Relations at Newmont Corporation, the world’s leading gold producer. Jorge-Andres leads the Company’s Country Risk Program and works on key issues in Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia including political risk management, stakeholder engagement, and country-entry. Currently, he is based on Mexico City, providing direct support to the Newmont Mexico team in the identification, assessment, and management of political risks.

Jorge-Andres first joined Newmont in 2017 and has held various roles in the Government Relations function within the Sustainability and External Relations group. He holds a Bachelor of Science in International Politics and a Master’s Degree in Security Studies both Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Andy’s career as an architect has spanned more than 35 years. As a Principal for 28 years, Andy enjoyed the lead role in projects, collaborating on business development strategies, winning work, and then delivering on the client’s expectations. Andy’s most recent responsibility was as Managing Director for the Denver studio of Perkins&Will, a global architecture firm. He led the 60-person studio through a merger in 2017, the COVID-19 pandemic, and strategic diversification into new market sectors. At the end of his tenure, the Denver studio was consistently rated within the top five of Perkins&Will’s monthly ranking of its 23 studios.

Having retired in April 2022, Andy has assumed larger roles in the management of 475 Lincoln Group, LLC, owners of commercial property in Denver. He is also co-manager for Barnard & Lowham, LLC, a land ownership/development entity focused primarily on properties in Wyoming.

Chris is a Civil Engineer with 40 years of experience in the field of transportation engineering. She is skilled in a broad range of design, management, leadership, client service, business development, and staff development areas. Chris has been involved in projects with conventional, design-build, and Public-Private-Partnership delivery methods. She has provided owner’s advisory services and led public involvement programs for highly controversial projects. Chris is passionate about mentoring others and helping them achieve success and fulfilling career objectives.

Chris spent most of her career working as a consultant with CH2M HILL, serving as a design engineer, project manager, staff manager, and as a leader of portions of the CH2M HILL transportation organization. After CH2M HILL was acquired by Jacobs Engineering in 2017, Chris became Senior Vice President/Colorado Region Manager of Otak, a multi-disciplinary firm based in Portland, Oregon. Chris was responsible for strengthening and growing the Colorado operation and achieving full integration into the long-established Pacific Northwest firm.

Chris retired in 2023 and is enjoying spending more time with friends and family, gardening,
playing pickleball, and traveling.

David’s career journey has spanned four decades of public service and private sector consulting, mostly in the fields of urban planning and transit project development. An Attorney, David had an active law practice while serving as an elected Metro Councilor. He went on to serve as Planning Director for the City of Portland. After leaving that position in 2000, David had leadership positions at David Evans and Associates, CH2M Hill, and Otak. His client work focused on planning and development of transit systems for cities and transit agencies. Because of his tenure as an elected official, experience as a public sector manager, and deep project management expertise, he was frequently asked to lead major public projects where multiple stakeholders had conflicting interests and objectives.

Since retiring from full time work, David has been dedicating time to important civic and non-profit activities. He is currently a member of the Portland Planning Commission and previously served on the Portland Charter Commission.