Colorado Golf Day

Michael Lee, Manager, Government Affairs

On April 12, Michael Lee and I attended the Colorado Golf Day. Prior to the event, I reached out to all of Colorado’s Grassroots Ambassadors to encourage their engagement at the state level. This also created an opportunity for Michael to interact with Colorado’s Grassroots Ambassadors in person.

 

Colorado’s golf day began with a morning coffee reception in the capitol foyer where the RMGCSA, CPGA, CGA, and the CWGA each set up their own display to provide information to the mingling legislators. In Colorado, water is always an issue, so the RMGCSA displayed irrigation tools in which stimulated much conversation. The legislative traffic was great. Lobbyist Jennifer Cassell was helpful in bringing the legislators around to meet everyone.

Colorado State’s Tony Koski, Ph.D., attended. Recently, Colorado State did a study called the Hidden Value of Landscapes: Implications for Drought Planning. As far as a green industry piece that support what we do and shows the value of our industry, this hits the nail on the head. It was determined that only 3 percent of Colorado’s water is used by the landscape industry. The Colorado golf industry can certainly utilize this piece for much of their future lobbying.

Many conversations occurred throughout the morning among RMGCSA members but what I was excited to hear was the vibe around completing the BMPs. It is evident that this is important to the RMGCSA and this group will work hard to get it completed.  Dr. Koski also agreed to help throughout the process.

Following the morning reception, we all went into the senate chambers where the group was introduced by Representative Polly Lawrence and then we listened to a resolution eulogizing State Representative Richard Gebhardt.

After the activities ended, Michael Lee and I invited the Colorado Grassroots Ambassadors in attendance out for brunch where we could discuss the issues and help answer any questions that they may have. Joining us was Dan Hawkins, Seth Swanson, and Kyle Merritt. Much of our discussion was on H2B and the State BMP’s.

Michael Lee and I later made a couple of site visits. I hadn't seen Dennis Lyons in some time to I called him and he met us at Murphy Creek. Dennis is doing great. He is as busy as ever, still volunteering his time all over the city.  While at Murphy, we stopped in to visit with Eric Strasheim. Eric will be the incoming RMGCSA president this fall and like everyone else in Denver, he is hoping for a little moisture. It’s been a record dry winter in the Denver area but thankfully there’s a good snow pack in the hills.

We then stopped to see Grassroots Ambassador Mitch Savage. He was unable to attend the golf day but we stopped by Green Valley Ranch to visit with Mitch and superintendent Barry Kendall. Mitch has been doing some great things in terms of reaching out to Representative DeGette. He has become one of my region's most successful Grassroots Ambassadors. He was just recently contacted by DeGette’s office and invited to attend a roundtable meeting/discussion on the April 19 with Representative DeGette and other individuals from the state of Colorado to discuss immigration reform, including H2B. Mitch would not have had this opportunity if he hadn’t reached out to DeGette and made his presence known. Mitch reached out to both Michael Lee and myself to let us know of the opportunity and Michael provided him with all the talking points that he could need.

This was a huge opportunity for Mitch as well as the entire golf industry. This is exactly why we established the grassroots ambassadors program: to give us this very opportunity to present our issues directly to our lawmakers. Here is a tweet from Representative DeGette. Notice where Mitch was sitting, he says he’s a front row kind of guy. He told me that he will be writing a recap of the event and hopes to be invited to more roundtables in the future.

Instead of flying home that evening, I decided to stay an extra day to do some more site visits. There were a couple of courses in the Aurora area that I had not met the superintendents so I thought it would be a good time to stop in. As it turned out, both just recently retired within the last couple of weeks, so I was able to meet with the new incoming superintendents.

Jeff Danaher was the superintendent at Aurora Hills Golf Course for 27 years and Barry Dunbar was at Springhill Golf Course for 44 years, 33 as the superintendent! I wish them all the best in their retirement.

The new superintendent at Aurora Hills is Kevin Kallas. We had met at previous RMGCSA meetings and he was also the assistant liaison to the RMGCSA board. Unfortunately, Kevin had to step down from his role but Mitch Savage gladly stepped in. However, the first thing Kevin told me was that he now wants to run for the board of directors. The assistant liaison position gave him such a good taste of serving the membership, he wants to stay involved.  

Chet Wilmes is the new superintendent at Springhill Golf Course. I had not met Chet earlier but he is looking forward to attending future RMGSA meetings and being able to go to the Golf Industry Show.

My last stop was at the Broken Tee Golf Club where I met with Superintendent Tim Davis and his guest from the Englewood School District. Bill Gilmore is the District STEM Coordinator for the entire Englewood school district and was anxious to learn all about the First Green program. We discuss the opportunity of hosting his school’s classes at Broken Tee and setting up learning labs that would coincide with what the teachers are teaching. This ended up being an incredible visit. If all goes as planned, this will be put Colorado firmly on the First Green track. I will report as more information becomes available.