Carrie Besnette Hauser grew up climbing down first.
As a kid in northern Arizona, she’d often hike into the Grand Canyon, where descents precede ascents.
In Colorado, she flipped the direction of her off-road ambling and climbed all the state’s 14ers. Those ascents are a mere footnote in her list of Colorado accomplishments, where the outdoorswoman and Ph.D. recipient spent 11 years guiding Colorado Mountain College, worked two terms as a commissioner for Colorado Parks and Wildlife and served on more than a dozen high-profile rural and urban business, finance, governance and charitable boards.
“It’s been really fun to get to know the state through this tapestry of peaks and rivers and sort of set some goals,” she said. “And really, I think it’s been as much a reflection of learning about these particularly rural communities where so much of this outdoor economy is so important.”
Hauser is now taking the national reins of the Trust for Public Land, a 50-year-old nonprofit conservation group with offices in more than 30 states that has worked to protect nationally treasured landscapes as well as creating more than 5,000 community parks that put green, open spaces within a 10-minute walk of nearly 10 million Americans.
It’s a big deal for Colorado to have the boss of one of the most powerful conservation groups in the country living on the Western Slope. (Hauser is not leaving Colorado.) And it’s an even better deal for the Trust for Public Land.
“Carrie understands the profound impact that access to the outdoors can have on individuals and communities, and her leadership will help us bring these benefits to even more people across the country,” Lucas St. Clair, chair of the trust’s board, said in a statement. “Her passion for the outdoors, commitment to equitable access to nature, and extensive community leadership will propel TPL’s mission and team forward.”
Hauser recently stepped down from an 11-year run as president of Colorado Mountain College, where she guided nearly $100 million in investment in housing and facilities, increased graduation rates to record levels and aligned the school’s 11 campuses with the needs of the communities as part of its Dual Mission. Colorado Mountain College’s Dual Mission work trains nurses, police officers, avalanche scientists, resort managers, chairlift mechanics, artists, environmental scientists and sustainability experts who help communities better handle the shifting challenges facing rural mountain towns. The school is funded by property taxes collected across eight counties covering 7,500 square miles of rural Colorado.
“We’re loving these incredible places to death and we’ve got to figure out how to protect them,” she said, noting how Colorado Mountain College’s innovative 130 education tracks enable students to safeguard landscapes and mountain economies for future generations.
Hauser sees similarities in the Colorado Mountain College funding model and the way the Trust for Public Land finances conservation in that both are deeply involved with rural communities. It’s not just about raising money to fund education for 12,000 students or protecting tens of thousands of acres of wild lands. It’s about showing up in communities and working with residents to meet their needs.
“I think we need to think about not just protecting land or opening a park. It’s also, ‘What are the long-term impacts?’” she said. “How do you think about these things in the way of systems and not just sort of one project and move to the next project. How do they also connect together?”
Under Hauser’s leadership, Colorado Mountain College earned federal designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution, attracting a student population that is more than 25% Latino, better reflecting the high country communities that house its campuses. The work will help her carry on the Trust for Public Land mission to connect more people with the outdoors and foster the next generation of public land stewards.
“In this politically divided climate where people don’t feel listened to when decisions are made, I think Trust for Public Land is squarely in the bull’s-eye of something that I think is really important. And that is the power of convening,” she said. “It’s the power of listening. It’s the power of making sure that all voices are heard, whether that’s a rancher on the Western Slope of Colorado or in the middle of Nebraska, or it’s a community in the South Side of Chicago that’s really working to make sure that that’s a safe place for kids.”
The search for a new president and chief executive at the Trust for Public Land homed in on Hauser’s “unique experience, particularly from the education side,” said Happy Haynes, a national and state board member for the Trust for Public Land and former director of Denver Parks and Recreation who has worked closely with Hauser when she was at Colorado Mountain College, the Daniels Fund and Metro State University.
“In the education realm, a lot of her work was focused on access and equity and getting kids who were less privileged into the outdoors,” Haynes said. “She brings great perspective and experience to ways the outdoor world can better engage communities of color and low-income communities.”
The trust’s work in rural and urban communities mirrors Hauser’s work. She’s lived in Colorado’s big cities and small towns and advocated for both. She’s traveled to just about every small town in Colorado and listened to the concerns of rural citizens who are feeling left out of policymaking discussions that impact them. She’s worked with Tribal leaders to better address their concerns over land use policies. Breaking down the wall that divides rural and urban interests involves a lot of travel and meetings where all citizens have a voice.
“I do think that there’s an equity question around this,” she said. “And that is, how do you make the process of these conversations and these decisions and these projects in the case of TPL, how do you also make them equitable?”
Conservation around the country is on a roll. In the years coming out of the pandemic, voters overwhelmingly approved ballot measures that directed $3.7 billion toward preservation of open spaces and parks. The Trust for Public Land championed 26 conservation ballot measures in 11 states in 2020 and voters passed all of them, marking a first-ever sweep for the organization. In nearly 50 years, Trust for Public Land has protected more than 61 million acres. In the 25 years since the trust started working with communities to secure voter-approved funding for land protection, the organization has helped secure $94 billion in funding for parks, climate and conservation.
One of Hauser’s most important assets, said Conor Hall, the head of the Colorado outdoor recreation office who spent many years working on national policy for the Trust for Public Land, “is that she is a phenomenal listener; a really genuine listener who has the talent and expertise to act on what she hears.”
Look at how she navigated dozens of public meetings with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission as the agency reintroduced wolves to western Colorado. Look at how she guided Colorado Mountain College toward meeting the needs of rural economies where it has campuses.
“She is beloved in all the places she has lived and worked. It can feel like there is more of a divide than ever between the rural and urban right now and there are political chasms that feel insurmountable. The beauty of TPL is that everyone cares so much about nature and that can transcend a lot of these divides,” Hall said. “Watch Carrie lean into that and bring people together from all sorts of backgrounds to protect our land and water.”
The protection of open spaces in Colorado and the West is happening alongside increasing struggles around housing, real estate prices, the impacts of recreation and the challenges of shifting economic tides as communities transition away from traditional economic engines like tourism or energy development.
Balancing those issues with conservation is a delicate dance. Hauser points to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s work to create a new state park around Fishers Peak in Trinidad as an example of how conservation groups can work with state officials and local communities to create something that benefits wildlife, ecosystems and residents.
“It means taking time to understand what’s our impact and how can we build in some of this infrastructure to support it?” she said. “You can’t just go ‘OK, the gates are open.’ It’s systematically thinking about both the protection side and the access side, to make sure that more people have access to these incredible places and a much richer, more diverse complexion of people have access to these places.”