Overview: Reed Dils and his wife, Karen, were river outfitting pioneers in the Arkansas Valley (Colo.), in the mid-70s. They owned 4-Corners Rafting, the second outfit to establish itself in the area. Within a handful of years, there would be several dozen rafting companies. It was a Wild West industry Read more…
Overview: Johnny Buschmann was a 4’11”, 80-pound freshman at Columbine High School in 1999 when a mass shooting changed his life, and the lives of so many others. He talks with Adam Williams about that day, the aftermath and his healing – from the shooting, from unrelated family traumas and Read more…
Overview: Betsy Dittenber, executive director of the Chaffee County (Colo.) Community Foundation, talks with Adam Williams about her early experiences in nonprofit work and volunteerism in Boston and Guadalajara. They talk about what a community foundation is and how it fosters resilience, and how the CCCF has created a website Read more…
Overview: Josh and Maddy Chance were high school sweethearts. The persistent football star and the resistant cheerleader. Over time, they’ve traveled near and far with their shared interests in farming, until deciding to put down roots, start a family and begin building Headwater Farms in the Arkansas Valley (Colo.), in Read more…
Overview: Jessica Oatman is an artist, teacher, coach and surfer, among other things. She also has three teenaged kids who have homeschooled their whole lives. As a family of five, they got rid of their stuff many years ago and moved into an RV and then a camper, and took Read more…
Overview: Tracy Arthur Kachadourian is a professional mediator and an expert in facilitating conflict resolution. She and Adam talk about how to build more empathetic, accountable and resilient relationships, personal and professional. Among other things. Tracy grew up in a home where conflict and her mother’s mental health challenges led Read more…
Overview: Jordan Cunliffe is a soccer coach and mentor to students at an alternative high school in Chaffee County, Colorado. He also is a former Division I university athlete whose drug addiction cut short his career playing the sport he loved more than anything. Jordan talks with Adam Williams about Read more…
Overview: Krista Jarvis grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and witnessed the Velvet Revolution. By the time she was a teenager, the country split into two nations: Slovakia and the Czech Republic. She talks with Adam Williams about creativity under communist constraints and the pivotal experience when she became an artist. Read more…
Overview: Gina Lucrezi founded Trail Sisters, the leading women’s trail running organization in the U.S., if not world. This passion extends from her standout running career – track and trail – as a National Champion and 10-time All-American at DeSales University, then as a professional trail runner and as a Read more…
Overview: Matt Allen, D.D.S., is a formerly practicing dentist who now is the CEO and co-founder of DifferentKind, a tech venture focused on making healthcare more human. He talks with Adam Williams about how, having been the valedictorian of his high school class in Prescott, Ariz., he almost dropped out Read more…
Overview: In this short episode, Adam Williams looks back at the year that was for the We Are Chaffee podcast. He also looks ahead at 2025 and the upcoming episodes that will kick off the new year. Or listen on: Spotify / Apple Podcasts SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CREDITS & TRANSCRIPT Read more…
Overview: David Sorrentino is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and of the U.S. Army. He’s a cyclist who has completed the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route three times, connecting America’s northern and southern borders. He’s an obsessive fly fisherman of more than 50 years. He’s a raconteur who has Read more…
Overview: Paul Andrews is the man with the vision behind The Crossing neighborhood development in Buena Vista, Colo. He talks with Adam Williams about that project, which is committed to 50 percent affordable housing through partnerships with the Chaffee Housing Trust and Chaffee Housing Authority. Paul and Adam also go back Read more…
Overview: Rama Yigit is a baker of Kurdish bread and baklava. He’s a circus performer and a paralegal who helps fellow asylum seekers document their stories. He also is a shepherd and farmer from Kurdistan, a region in eastern Turkey that is not recognized by Turkey. Rama is most of Read more…
Overview: Mike Harvey has been at the heart of the river scene in Salida, Colo., for more than 25 years. As a river guide and a competitive freestyle kayaker, a whitewater park designer and an entrepreneur carving out a market for river surfing and paddle boarding through Badfish, the manufacturing Read more…
Overview: PT Wood grew up in Boulder in the ’70s, skating and skitching around town. He came to the Arkansas Valley in the ’80s, like many drawn by the river and the skiing, and has been part of the scene in Salida, Colo., since. He and Adam talk about the Read more…
Overview: Angie Jenson was brought up in the Mormon church and, when she was a young woman, she sought excommunication from The Church. She talks with Adam Williams about why she felt that was necessary and about the formal exit interview that she went through to make it happen. They Read more…
Overview: This crossover episode features Adam Williams, host of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream, as a guest on Ryan Short’s (co-founder of CivicBrand) Eyes on the Street podcast. (Ryan was a guest on Looking Upstream recently.) In this episode from Eyes on the Street, Ryan and Adam talk about community Read more…
Overview: Dr. Erica Gift is a professor of psychology at California State University in Northridge. She also informally is a botanist, and is a community educator on wild foods and bioregional herbalism. She talks with Adam Williams about how she weaves her knowledge and passions for nature, food and psychology Read more…
Overview: Ryan Heckart talks with Adam Williams about barbering history, the fall of barbershops through the late 20th century (thanks Beatles!) and the rise again in more recent years. He tells the story of his barber shop, which he recently opened in Cockeyed Liz’s old brothel, and why he named Read more…
Overview: Chris White, founder and builder of Yurts at Poncha Pass, grew up in Santa Fe, left to become a marine biologist and oceanographer who studied gray whales in British Columbia and bottlenose dolphins and wave energy in Peru, and has since moved to the mountains of Colorado to build Read more…
Overview: Stacey Joslin is executive director of the Chaffee County affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Dr. Elizabeth Ruggiero is a systemic therapist. Both have extraordinary personal experiences that influence their insights on mental wellbeing. They talk with Adam Williams about what’s missing in how we think about Read more…
Overview: Derek Scott talks with Adam Williams about skateboarding culture, history and music. They talk about the failure and perseverance that’s a necessary part of skating. And about how a kid growing up in Salida, Colo., with not a lot of skating terrain became a competition skater traveling and winning Read more…
Overview: Debbie Cassidy talks with Adam Williams about generational family trauma that includes violence, tragedy and mental illness. There is great loss, grief and, in Debbie’s words, “a lot of bad decisions,” including drug addiction. But there also is a story of divine epiphany and a triumph of the spirit Read more…
Overview: Read McCulloch is executive director of the Chaffee Housing Trust. He talks with Adam Williams about housing affordability, how we got to this state of housing affordability crisis and deed-restricted housing vs. the community land trust model. Read also addresses: Are the local building processes and policies we have Read more…
Overview: Ryan Short co-founded CivicBrand with his wife Banner during shaky economic times and a pivotal family moment in 2008. He talks with Adam Williams about making such bold and unconventional decisions. They also talk about CivicBrand’s pioneering work in city branding and placemaking, and the “locals first” approach that Read more…
Overview: Tim Brown probably is most known for his tintype photography these days. But he also had many exciting years of globe-traveling as a rarely skilled kayaker-slash-adventure photographer. He talks about both with Adam. As well as his dive into the mid-19th century techniques of tintype photography after opportunities for Read more…
Overview: Ken Brandon seems to be a kind of philosophical Stoic, Buddhist, absurdist Spartan, who is known for riding a bicycle around Salida, Colo., while wearing a giraffe head and a three-piece suit. And yet he describes himself as “boring.” Ken also is a designer, a painter and a screenwriter, Read more…
Overview: Anna Heinauer is an integrative nutrition health coach and she’s co-owner of The Lettucehead Food Company. Host Adam Williams talks with Anna about many things nutrition. Like, what is it, really? And why should we care about it? They talk about the value of local food sources and the Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Jon Pray and Ken Matthews join host Adam Williams for half-interview, half-coffee chat. Ken hosted a radio show called Chaffee Housing Report for several years. Jon was the radio engineer behind the scenes on that show as he often Read more…
Overview: In this short episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams is solo. He highlights episodes and topics from the past two years of the podcast and talks about what’s on his mind for Looking Upstream’s growth and evolving future as the show heads into year three. Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Julie Speer Jackson, Emmy Award-winning documentary director and producer. Julie talks about how she went from studying biochemistry in French, while a college student in Brussels, Belgium, to theater and eventually a career in filmmaking. Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Michael and Carrie Fox, a married musical duo that perform as Known Odyssey. Michael also is a poet and video artist. Carrie also is a writer, music therapist and grief counselor. Carrie has published writing Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Thuy Nguyen, a poet, writer and speaker on self-empowerment. Thuy came up in a cult-like religious environment. When she was a teen, she was preyed upon by a church leader and, ultimately, shunned by that Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Mahting Putelis. Mahting grew up in a Latvian community in Kalamazoo, MI. It was extraordinarily formative, and is a source of great pride for Mahting. Adam talks with him about that upbringing and community, and Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Jason Marsden, executive director of the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA). Adam talks with Jason about his early years growing up on a farm, his studying post-WWII poetry at Harvard, and his time as Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Silvana Montero. Silvana, a road cyclist, recounts the harrowing experience of when she was hit from behind by a motorist driving more than 45 miles per hour – and the seemingly divine instruction she heard Read more…
Overview: In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Jennifer Dempsey, founder of the Salida (Colo.) Circus and former director of the Belfast Community Circus in Northern Ireland. They talk about what a social circus is and the good it serves in a community. Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Shane McNeil, singer-songwriter-guitarist, auto mechanic and jack-of-all-trades. In this conversation, Adam talks with Shane about tattoos and Shane’s autobiographical song, “Guy with the Chevy Tattoo.” They talk about the early influences in Shane’s life, Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Gloria Esparza, an 18-year-old high school senior and a youth advisor through Chaffee County (Colo.) Family & Youth Initiatives. Adam talks with Gloria about her upbringing in a home with three generations and two Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Thordis Simonsen, the founding director and curator of the Museum of Authenticity in Salida, Colo. Thordis is a painter, photographer, writer and curator. She’s the author of three books, including “You May Plow Here.” Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Ray Nypaver. Ray is a nature-based psychotherapist and running coach, essayist and poet whose newest book is “Light & Dark: Reflections on the Human Experience.” Ray studied at Naropa, a Buddhist-inspired university in Boulder, Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Zac Baird. Zac is a keyboardist and composer. He’s known across musical genres for his electronic talents, including his use of synthesizers and computers. He has toured the world far and wide, playing with Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Jed Selby, co-developer of South Main in Buena Vista, Colorado. That includes the Surf Hotel, the bar and restaurant Wesley & Rose, and the concert venues of the Ivy Ballroom and the Lawn, among Read more…
Overview: In this short episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams goes solo. He looks back at the diverse guests that were on the podcast in 2023. He talks about new opportunities for listeners, readers and social media followers. He also gives a heads up on Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Rob Dubin, an international keynote speaker and former filmmaker who has become an expert on happiness and resilience. Rob and his wife, Dee, made national news 30 years ago when they survived several days Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Alpheus “Alf” Rudd, a master blacksmith with a family lineage in the trade, dating back to at least the 1600s. Adam and Alf take a ride through history and stories of a time gone Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Katie Brown, former world champion rock climber named “best female climber of the millennium” by Climbing magazine. Adam talks with Katie about her memoir, “Unraveled.” They talk about her growing up in isolation that Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Keith Baker, Chaffee County (Colo.) Commissioner, retired U.S. Naval Commander, and former owner of The Trailhead (Buena Vista, Colo.), to name just a few chapters in Keith’s story. Keith talks about his country roots Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Eddie Sandoval. Eddie might be most known as chef and owner of the Asian Palate (Buena Vista, Colo.), along with his wife, Brynn. In recent months, he also became concert manager for the Surf Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Mars and Ashley Fite. The Fites are married digital creators who were early to living adventures on the road before #vanlife became a thing on social media. Ashley and Mars share fantastic insights and Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with historian and rancher Suzy Kelly. Suzy is a local historian and nearly lifelong resident of the Arkansas Valley here in Colorado. She holds a wealth of knowledge on the history of the area, and Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with entrepreneur, author, speaker and coach Laurie Benson. Laurie talks with Adam about her experiences working on climate issues around the world. They talk about her connection with indigenous women, and her work with mothers Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with entrepreneur and activist Kimi Uno. Kimi shares about the influence of the movement on her life when she was coming up in the Pacific Northwest. She and Adam talk about female empowerment and feminism, Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Joe Parkin. Joe was a pioneering American professional cyclist in Europe in the 80s and 90s. He also has been a professional and/or highly competitive BMX, mountain bike and motorcycle racer. He’s been an Read more…
Overview: In this short episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams goes solo. He looks back at the diverse guests and topical threads of conversations in the first year of the podcast. He also takes a look at the guests’ stories that will kick off year Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Rick Bieterman and Katy Welter. Rick Bieterman and Katy Welter. Katy and Rick are married partners in a life of ranching and historic renovation, and other adventures. They met on a 75-day outdoor leadership Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Eric S. Lee, executive director for Full Circle Restorative Justice. Eric has a rich history of entrepreneurship and service to others, including as a chef and restaurateur, life coach and fitness trainer, book author Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with professional endurance athlete and author Travis Macy. Travis has a new book out, “A Mile at a Time.” It’s a collaboration with his father, the legendary endurance athlete, Mark “Mace” Macy, and Patrick Regan. Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with artist Brinkley Messick. Brinkley dropped out of art school, yet here he is, one of this area’s most recognizable artists with work that is known up and down the Arkansas River Valley and beyond. Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Elisia Parham, poet, activist and social worker. Elisia is a poet who grew up in unconventional circumstances. She and Adam talk about how those circumstances helped her to develop resilience and her voice, Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Sophia Herzog Gibb, a two-time Paralympic medalist swimmer. Sophie retired from world competition after the Tokyo games were held in 2021. She grew up in Fairplay, Colo., at first with dreams of being Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Wendell Pryor, the retired former executive director of the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) in Chaffee County, Colo. Wendell tells about growing up in what was then a rural area outside Denver, coming up Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Monica White, founder of the Colorado Tick-Borne Disease Awareness Association. Monica enjoyed a career as a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Forest Service for a number of years, and then experienced a life-changing Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Andrea Carlstrom, director of Chaffee County (Colorado) Public Health. Andrea and Adam reflect on the recent past, with the three-year mark of the first COVID case noted in Chaffee County in mind. During Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Amy and Lenny Eckstein, the married couple and entrepreneurial energy behind the craft distillery Deerhammer. Lenny and Amy tell about their East Coast origin story, how they met and made their way west, Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Jonathon Stalls, author of the book, “Walk: Slow Down, Wake Up and Connect at 1-3 Miles Per Hour.” They talk about Jonathon’s 242-day walk across the United States as a pivotal experience for Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Les Messamer, a 96-year-old World War II veteran who one might swear has lived multiple lives simultaneously. Adventurous ones and otherwise. Les tells about his upbringing in a fundamentalist religious farm community in Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Tayte Pollmann. Tayte is a writer, trail runner, Nordic skier, traveler and, it turns out, a lover of Liège waffles, artisan cheese and many other things. Adam and Tayte talk about a roving Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Dominique Naccarato, executive director of the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA) and city council member in Salida, Colo. Dominique’s story is Salida’s story, at least in part. She talks with Adam about Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Jenny Davis, founder of Achieve, Inc., and Little Engine Eatery. Jenny’s story of a Midwest upbringing and parents who divorced when she was a teen highlights her entrepreneurial spirit. Jenny and Adam talk Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Mike Orrill, a retired Presbyterian pastor of 35 years. Mike describes himself as a “poster child for doubt,” as he and Adam discuss faith and the dangers of certainty. They talk about Mike’s Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks again with Beck Cerón, picking up where they left off in their previous conversation. Adam and Beck go deeper into Beck’s story as a transgender man and the freedom he feels in his queer Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Rob and Sarah Gartzman, a married couple who also are entrepreneurial partners who own multiple restaurants in the town of Salida, Colorado. Sarah and Rob met as high school seniors in Evanston, Illinois, Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Miki Hodge and Becky Gray. Becky and Miki share stories from their extraordinary lived experiences, and about how those tie to their roles in the development of Jane’s Place, an innovative housing, nonprofit Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Beck Cerón. There has been an intensity to Beck’s life. Adam and Beck talk about survival and the self-taught, self-reliant, hands-on kind of energy that his life has demanded from him. They talk Read more…
Overview: In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Tanya Wait and Abigail Smedly, deeply empathetic public health nurses in Chaffee County, Colorado. Abigail tells about a life-changing experience that happened in the country of Kazakhstan when she was 16 years old. Read more…
Overview: Art Hutchinson joins Adam Williams, host of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, to talk about a rare history and perspective in Chaffee County, Colorado. The Hutchinson Homestead & Ranch is located along highway 50 between Salida and Poncha Springs, Colorado. The ranch has been a keystone in Read more…
Overview: Nikki Ray and We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream host Adam Williams talk about Nikki growing up in a family that struggles with addiction, and how she too would end up experiencing many years of active drug addiction, starting at a pretty young age. Nikki and Adam talk about her Read more…
Overview: Alexandra Restrepo and We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream host Adam Williams talk about Alex’s early childhood with an abusive, drug-addicted mother, and the love and sacrifices of her father. We talk about her leaving the United States and growing up with her father’s family on a farm in Colombia, Read more…
Overview: Lisa Martin, producer for the new We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast and Community Advocacy Coordinator for the We Are Chaffee initiative, and Adam Williams, host of the new podcast, talk with Ken Matthews on the Chaffee Housing Report radio show on KHEN 106.9 in Salida, Colo. The conversation Read more…
Overview: Andrea Carlstrom, Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment, and Becky Gray, Director of the Chaffee Housing Authority, talk with Ken Matthews on the Chaffee Housing Report radio show on KHEN 106.9 in Salida, Colo. The conversation is the first of a two-part transition from the Chaffee Housing Read more…