Colorado Trout Unlimited - Officers and Directors
President – Ken Neubecker
Ken is Colorado Trout Unlimited’s Vice President and previously served as CTU’s West Slope Regional Coordinator. Ken has been active with Colorado Trout Unlimited for many years. He re-established the Eagle Valley Chapter and then helped in the process of combining it with Ferdinand Hayden and High Country to form a larger and more dynamic central mountain chapter. Ken served as President of both the Eagle Valley and the re-constituted Ferdinand Hayden Chapters and is currently on the Board and the Newsletter Editor.
Ken was also a founder of the Eagle River Watershed Council and helped create the Eagle River
Watershed Plan. Ken represents CTU in a number of forums, including the Colorado River
Headwaters Forum, SWSI Phase II Recreational and Environmental Technical Roundtable (TRT)
and GAP TRT as well as being the Environmental Representative on the Colorado River Basin
IBC Roundtable.
Ken has an undergraduate degree in Biology and Geology from Lawrence University and a Masters Degree in Education from CU. He has also worked for many years as a teacher, naturalist, writer and Professional Land Surveyor in Colorado. Ken and his wife, Paula Fothergill, are avid fly-fishers who live in Carbondale, CO, and call both the Eagle and Roaring Fork Valleys home.
Vice President – Sinjin Eberle
Sinjin Eberle has been a member of TU for approximately 5 years, and is a member of the Cutthroat Chapter in Littleton. Sinjin has served on the board of CTU as Secretary, and is currently coordinating the Buffalo Peaks Ranch project. He has a degree in Environmental Science and has been very active in the environmental community for many years, especially in the fields of environmental restoration, energy, and national defense. Currently, Sinjin is a Research Analyst for Lynx Research, a nationally recognized marketing research firm. Finally, Sinjin is very active in athletic endeavors, actively competing in road and mountain cycling competitions across the western US.
Secretary – Allyn Kratz
When I received the request for a biography of my life, in a paragraph or two, I realized that my lack of a life must have become self evident. This is my attempt to accomplish said task. I grew-up in South-Eastern Minnesota within a block or two of a trout stream and I lived every moment possible on that stream. At about age 12 or 13, I purchased my first fly rod, a JC Higgins 7.5 ft solid fiberglass rod kit. Soon thereafter I purchase a JC Higgins fly-tying kit. I still have some of those bright yellow and red feathers. I had caught the bug when Lee Wolff began having a weekly show on television. I still have the bug as well as the disease that results in the caring for the environment. When asked in HS biology class what my career path was to be, I responded by saying that I was going to be an Environmentalist. I actually became a H.S. Biology teacher who taught about the environment.
When I decided that I wanted to expand my advocacy to include humans and their relationship with their employer, I took a position in Kansas. You might be surprised to learn that there are not a lot of trout streams in Kansas. My motivation to move someplace else which ultimately turned out to be Colorado was due to my quest for a trout stream. My first act upon moving to Colorado was to join Trout Unlimited. That was in 1987. I did not become involved for some time, a member only and then in 1999 I joined the Board of Directors for the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter. I served in the role of Director at Large, Vice President of Communications, President of the chapter, grant writer, Project lead on the Mill Sap Mine reclamation project, Riverwatch lead and advocate for Severy and Bear Creeks, home of pure populations of Greenback Cutthroat Trout.
Treasurer – Michael McGoldrick
I caught my first king salmon within 100 yards of the Seattle waterfront at age 4, but I didn’t start fly fishing until I was a bit older. I studied on both coasts, and have lived and worked in the United States and in Europe. My career has included teaching of various subjects in economics and finance, and managing the investments of five different mutual funds. Colorado has been my home for 26 years.
My current primary business activity is investing in securities and other financial instruments. For the past six years I have taught economics and finance courses at a university in Eastern Europe. I volunteer for educational, environmental, and cultural organizations. I've been on a half dozen non-profit boards, and was elected Board Treasurer by 3 or 4 of them. I've been interested in environmental causes (including water issues) all my life. I've fly fished for trout in most of the major regions of Colorado, in 10 other states, and in 7 other countries, and I've been a loyal member of TU for 24 years.
NLC Representative – Tom Krol
Tom Krol is a past president (2000-2002) of the CTU and former editor of Streamside, the CTU
statewide newsletter. He is currently a member of the Evergreen Chapter, but was originally a member and board member of Wild Trout. Tom was very involved in CTU’s prolonged, yet successful effort to convince the Colorado Wildlife Commission and Division of Wildlife to stop stocking fish infected with Whirling Disease. He has also been a key figure in the development of the South Platte Protection Plan, an alternative to federal Wild and Scenic designation designed by a group that included water providers, local governments, state agencies, environmental organizations and recreational interest groups.
Tom is the co-owner of the marketing communications company Tomago Media. During a fifteen-year career in broadcasting, Tom held positions as creative director and executive news producer at KMGH-TV in Denver. He also drives a school bus part-time in West Jefferson County, where he is known to many as "Tom the mean bus driver."
Director – Jo Evans
Jo Evans has served on the CTU Board of Directors since her retirement in 2003. Prior to that time she served as CTU’s lobbyist for over 20 years at the Colorado General Assembly. She is a recipient of the prestigious Wirth Chair Award, beloved by legislators on both sides of the aisle for her dedication and integrity, and has been a driving force in numerous key environmental victories from the passage of Great Outdoors Colorado, to the defeat of the “blank check for megadams” Referendum A, to the passage of SB156 strengthening the state’s instream flow law.
Director – Dennis Cook
Dennis Cook is completing his second term as President of the Cherry Creek Anglers Chapter,
previously having served as chapter Secretary. He has been an Executive Search & Leadership/Team Development consultant for the past 22 years, after a 23 year corporate career finishing as a Vice President, Human Resources. He is a navy veteran – serving active duty, shipboard in the 1950s. He is also a man of hidden talents - in addition to TU, he has been very active with the Barbershop Harmony Society including serving as the Rocky Mountain District Board President and as General Chairman for the Society’s 2007 International Convention.
Director – Bruce Hoagland
Bruce Hoagland joined TU in 1978, and since that time has served in nearly every capacity of leadership – as chapter president of the Boulder Flycasters in the 1980s and the Gunnison Angling Society in the 2000s; as CTU President in the late 1980s during the height of the Two Forks Dam campaign; as Executive Director of CTU in the early 1990s; and as a member of the TU National Board of Directors. He was deeply involved in the Two Forks battle, in efforts to ensure protection of trout fisheries in light of water releases for rafting in the Arkansas River, in the greenback cutthroat trout restoration program, and in the formation of the Silver Trout Foundation to manage the bequest of Steve Lundy for the benefit of CTU and Colorado’s trout resources.
Director – I. McA. “Mac” Cunningham
I am a real estate investor/developer by trade, having begun my career renovating historic buildings in Boston, MA in 1973. This carried me to historic renovation and re-development projects in Massachusetts, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Alaska and Florida. My company has also conceived, financed and developed over 30 residential multifamily and commercial projects in many of the states mentioned above. We continue to be very active in this field, particularly on the Western Slope of Colorado. Because I was raised in the summers at the head of Buzzards Bay (entrance to Cape Cod), I grew up an avid fisherman and bird hunter and spent my youth on the water. This continued when I moved West in 1975, and particularly when I moved to Aspen in 1980 and subsequently full time to Grand Junction in 1999.
I began my TU activities with the Western Colorado Fly Fishing Exposition here in Grand Junction. Three years ago we had minimal youth participation. Because of my own children’s enthusiasm, I became quite involved in securing donations and in the youth portion of the Expo. In 2005 we initiated the now well known free youth T-shirt program and had 65 youth participate in the 2005 Expo. That year I was asked to join the Board of Grand Valley Anglers Chapter of Trout Unlimited. The next year we had over 200 youth participants and I became president of GVA for the same year. For the just completed 10th Annual Expo we had more than 200 youth participate. I was also asked to do the interviews for both regional radio and television stations promoting and covering the Expo. Through the hard work of our many wonderful volunteers, this past Saturday we added 116 youth members and 39 adult members during the Expo.
I was fortunate to be re-elected president of GVA for this year and have participated in past CTU
Rendezvous, quarterly meetings and last year’s TU Regional meeting in Durango. I have also been heavily involved with the Roan Plateau issue, having worked with both TU national and state staff, various energy companies including Marathon and Chevron, as well as with the NWF staff. I am currently Chair for the 2008 Trout Unlimited Regional Meeting which is to be held here in Grand Junction in mid May. So far we have acceptances from TU leaders of CO, WY, NM, MT, OK, TX, UT, ID, AZ, with a few others pending.
Director – Tom Powell
Tom Powell has deep Colorado roots; he was raised in Durango, and graduated High School there. He went to CSU and received a Bachelor of Science in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology and a Masters of Science in Fisheries Science. He worked as an Aquatic Wildlife Researcher, and then as Research Leader, for the Colorado Division of Wildlife for 31 years. In that time he completed projects on predator/prey relationships in fluctuating reservoirs, evaluated stocking rates and usefulness of artificial spawning beds for walleyes, developed and evaluated costbenefit analysis for metropolitan fish management practices, and developed and implemented a state wide angler creel survey and associated angler harvest data base.
As a research leader, he supervised projects involved with lake and stream ecology, effects of heavy metals on trout, evaluations of coldwater stream habitat improvement techniques, effects of trout stocking sizes, numbers and species on angler harvests, studies of native trout management policies, evaluation of special regulations, Colorado River native species interactions, development and maintenance of a state-wide lake and stream database, and whirling disease.
Tom also spent two years with the US Agency for International Development working on Lake Victoria in Kenya, East Africa. He was part of a team of American and Kenyan researchers who evaluated a UNFAO proposal to establish a fish meal industry and its effects on the artisanal
fishery of the lake.
Since retiring from the CDOW in 2001, he has been a CTU Director-at-large. In that role he has assisted CTU and chapters with fishing regulation recommendations, wild trout management and fish stocking proposals, and Wildlife Commission policy revisions.
Director – Tom Jones
Tom Jones is a retired telecommunications executive, who lives with his wife Shirley and Cricket, the worlds most lovable Border Collie, in Durango, CO. After obtaining his Bachelor's and MBA degrees from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Tom began a thirty-six year career in the communications industry. He enjoyed a litany of line and staff positions, including marketing, labor relations, planning, engineering, construction and operations. His career with Verizon culminated in the leadership of a line organization of about one thousand employees with end-to-end responsibility for network operations in six states with five million customers.
Involvement with TU began with joining the White River Chapter in Michigan. Tom just completed a two year term as President of the Five Rivers Chapter, and is beginning his fifth year on that board. Since moving to Durango, Tom has served on the Music in the Mountains board of directors, and is currently serving as president. He is also a member of Professional Associates of Fort Lewis College, which is an advisory group to the college president.
Director – Paul Prentiss
I've been fly fishing and tying flies for more than 50 years. My first fly rod was a Heddon cane
rod with a Shakespeare automatic spooled with HDH line. I learned to tie flies on my own by
taking apart patterns, watching a neighbor, and reading Field & Stream. I scrounged feathers and
hooks from any source available. After a variety of jobs I went back to school in the late 1960's
and embarked on a 30-year career with a Fortune 500 company in Financial Services and then
Information Technology. I retired in 2001.
I've lived in Boulder, Colorado since 1964. It is where I met my wife, Susan, and raised a family.
Now I have 4 grandchildren who will all have a chance to become fly fishermen just as my
daughters did some 30 years ago.
The majority of my time is invested in promoting the sport of fly fishing and working on
environmental programs. I work for Front Range Anglers, one of the premier fly shops in
Colorado, on promotional and educational endeavors. I've been a member of TU for 25 years and
have been on the Board of the Boulder Flycasters since retirement. In 2004, I became involved
with Fly Fishing Team USA and the development of a National Fly Fishing Championship in
Colorado. I do some free lance writing and photography for various fishing publications. Beyond
the aforementioned commitments my objective is to be on the water at least 150 days a year
chasing anything that swims.
Director – Glen Edwards
Glen is a fourth-generation Colorado native, raised in the farming and ranching country of the
San Luis Valley. He married his wife Jackie in 1959, received his undergraduate degree in
metallurgical engineering from Colorado School of Mines in 1961, worked in Albuquerque, New
Mexico at ACF Industries until 1964, then moved to Los Alamos for a job in plutonium research
at the National Laboratory. Daughters Denise and Brenda were born in Los Alamos, and Glen
completed an M.S. in materials science. In 1967, the Edwards moved to Stanford, CA where
Glen completed a doctoral program in materials science and engineering at Stanford University in
1971. He began an academic career at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. but
moved the family back to Golden in 1976 to accept a professorship at CSM. Glen taught
materials engineering and directed materials research at CSM until retiring in 2004. The Edwards
have four grandchildren. Grandkids Tana (15) and Teran (10) live in Mukilteo, WA; Bryce (10)
and Torrey (7) live in Arvada, CO.
Glen has been a life-long hiker, backpacker, fly fisherman, and conservationist. Both Jackie and
Glen joined WDTU in 1990, assisted then newsletter editor John Connolly, and served on the
WDTU board. Later, Glen served as WDTU Vice-President (2002-2004), then as WDTU
President (2004-2006). While President, Glen initiated the Clear Creek project, “The Golden
Mile”, and cajoled Miles Williams to accept the role of CC Project Director. While the Clear
Creek restoration project has proven to be an administrative challenge, the first of three phases
has now been finished, and Glen continues to work with Miles to see this fisheries restoration
project through to completion.
Director – John Trammell
I have been a TU member more than 25 years and an activist for almost that long. I was a CTU
Area Vice President, a member of the National Resource Board, GVA officer and newsletter
editor, and Director at Large for CTU. I was responsible for changing "enhance" to "restore" in
NTU's mission statement (I'm rather proud of that one). I am an ardent supporter of native-trout
restoration, and also a geologist (which means that I know everything, some of which is - or
should be - useful to TU). I was a member of the GMUG National Forest’s Pathfinder process, 3
years in which I fought the water buffs tooth and nail to protect National Forest streams from
excessive exploitation. I could go on. You know the story.