Amanda has been involved in a variety of Nature-related groups and pursuits since retiring from a career at the BLM. She and husband Tony spend their free time in the great outdoors, when they’re not busy tending the garden, pets, trees, and cactus where they live on the edge of the Uncompahgre Plateau.
They have lived on the outskirts of Montrose since 1993, when Amanda began working with the BLM Field Office in Montrose. Once in western Colorado, they realized it was an unbeatable location, and were here to stay. They raised two children who’ve since fledged and left the nest.
Career highlights for Amanda have always involved working outdoors, and usually with water. Whether it was as a Peace Corps fisheries technician in Kenya, researching grazing impacts to willows in Colorado, documenting habitat types in Uganda’s Lake Mburo National Park, or inventorying streams on BLM lands in western Colorado, water has been a central theme. She also enjoyed working throughout this area as an ecologist with the BLM for nearly 25 years, and getting to know it well.
Over the past 15 years, Amanda has been involved in several regional river restoration efforts dealing with tamarisk, Russian olive, and restoring native riparian vegetation, including cottonwoods. She has also advocated for river and stream health and conservation for BLM’s land management plans, along with monitoring and evaluating stream and river conditions. It is these experiences and passions she brings to UWP and their mission of promoting watershed health.
