Daily Planet Telluride, Colorado, USA January 15, 2007
Holstrom aims at a more self-reliant region Tomten farm founder hired as first sustainability coordinator www.telluridenews.com/articles/2007/01/16/news/news01.txt By Katie Klingsporn Kris Holstrom was a driving force behind Telluride?s new community garden. She grows organic food at an improbable elevation of 9,000 feet, and peddles mixed greens to the community at the farmers market. She passes her knowledge along to farm interns, and the public learns from her writings and presentations. Considering the paths she has already forged toward a more localized, self-sustaining community, it comes as no surprise that Holstrom has been hired as the region?s first sustainability coordinator. ?I?m really excited,? Holstrom said. ?There?s a huge amount of ideas and power and creativity in the community, and I?m excited to tap into that. We?re heading into a time when we?re really going to have to think outside the box, and this is a great community to do that in.? The position of a sustainability coordinator has been conceptualized, discussed and formed over a period of about two years. All the talk came to fruition this fall, when the towns of Telluride and Mountain Village, as well as San Miguel County and the Telluride Foundation, came together to fund the position. Although Holstrom will work with all the entities, her position is not a governmental one. She will head up a non-profit organization with its own office and working board of directors. Holstrom and the board will be charged with creating an annual action plan for regional sustainability in the areas of culture, economy and environment, and will see through the implementation of programs geared toward that end. Holstrom beat out roughly 40 other applicants to nab the job, and said the competition was formidable. ?They had people from all over, and they had some really strong candidates,? she said. However, Holstrom made the cut of nine candidates that were screened by a hiring committee, and emerged as one of the three who were interviewed. All three were very qualified, said Telluride Town Council Member Roberta Peterson, who was on the hiring committee. But when it came down to it, Holstrom?s background and local experience were unparalleled. ?We were very happy with Kris,? Peterson said. ?She knows a lot about the environment, she?s very knowledgeable about the area and she?s very involved in the community.? Very involved, indeed. But Holstrom said she?s willing to hand off some of her other responsibilities in order to make this job her chief focus. ?This?ll be my No. 1 priority,? she said. She has a capable manager and interns to hold things down at Tomten Farms and at the Colona grow dome, and the community garden manager, Jeanne Walker, will oversee operations there. Holstrom pointed out that she will still have a role in these things in her new position. Plus, she said, this sort of signifies a next step she feels the calling to make. ?It?s time for those of us who have been involved in sustainability in various ways for a long time ? since everyone else is kind of getting the picture ? to step it up, to make a bigger dent,? she said. ?It?s really about community, about doing everything I can for this place. It?s an amazing place, it?s a privilege to live here, and with that privilege comes responsibility.? The first order of business, Holstrom said, is taking the necessary steps to achieve non-profit status. Then she and the board ? which is so far comprised of government liaisons and knowledgeable members of the public ? will get started on a projects in areas such as renewable energy, recycling, waste as resources, food production and ?just all the different ways we can become self-reliant,? Holstrom said. Holstrom, whose farm is located on Hastings Mesa, has lived here for 20 years, has been running Tomten Farms for 14 years, and has been growing food most of her life. Long before the general populace becomes clued into the most emergent developments in the realm of sustainability, she?s living them. Renewable energy, permaculture, worm composting. You name it, she knows it. Nevertheless, Holstrom welcomes all and any public input. Her email is kholstrom at gmail.com, and she encourages anyone interested to contact her. Reporter Katie Klingsporn can be reached at katie at telluridenews.com
