State Council

State Council

The State Council Members for the Colorado Mountain Club

Julie Jacobsen

State Council Member (Pikes Peak Group)

Julie has been serving various non-profit organizations through her company Panorama Events with event management and project management services.  When she’s not diving into details and logistics, Julie enjoys spending time outdoors with her friends and dogs.  Before joining the CMC in 2021, outdoor activities revolved around hiking and backpacking.  Thanks to the CMC, her new favorites are rock-climbing, ice-climbing and canyoneering.  Along with meeting new friends with like-minded interests, learning new skill sets has been a huge benefit of the CMC. 

Christopher Haugen

State Council Member (Northern Colorado Group)

Chris Haugen has been a member of the Northern Colorado Group since 2013 and has served on the NoCo group council in leadership positions as Membership Director, Communications Director, and currently serves as the NoCo group Secretary. He also participates as a course instructor for the Basic Mountaineering Course and co-director of the Alpine Scrambling Course. Chris works as an IT Professional as a Senior Systems and Network Engineer for a software company in Fort Collins. When not recreating in the mountains, he enjoys gardening, xeriscaping, film, and spending quality time with his lovely wife, Laurel.

Robby Vaughn

CMC board liaison 

Mr. Vaughn is the Director of Business Development and Technical Marketing for Picarro Inc, a technology firm located in Santa Clara, CA. He holds an MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the University of New Orleans. He is the President (Bailli) of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs International Gastronomic Society chapter in Denver, CO. Mr. Vaughn spends his outdoor recreation time hiking, camping with his family, rock climbing, and slowly ticking off 14ers. 

Genna Morton

State Council Member (Denver Group)

Genna has been a CMC member since she moved to Colorado in 2020. Not only has she been an avid trip participant, she has also taken advantage of many courses the CMC offers, including Wilderness Trekking School, Backpacking School, Alpine Climbing School, AIARE, Alpine Scrambling School, and Intro to Backcountry Skiing. She looks forward to assistant instructing for ACS and hopefully ASC in 2024. She currently serves as Denver Group Council Co-Chair and is passionate about improving member experience across the Denver Group. When she is not on a mountain, Genna works for the City and County of Denver as a Marketing and Communications Specialist.

Brenda Leach

state council member (Western slope group)

Brenda has been a CMC member for 27+ years. Brenda had been very active in the Boulder Group while living in the Front Range. She volunteered as an A/B hikes and rock climbing trip leader, Basic Rock School senior instructor, Rock Leading School assistant instructor and the Spring/Summer/Fall School Director. In 2008, Brenda served as the Boulder Group Chair. In 2013, Brenda was presented with the CMC's Blaurock "Silver Piton" Award. Brenda and her husband retired and moved to the Western Slope in 2018 where she is now the Western Slope Group Chair. Brenda enjoys rock climbing, hiking, camping, gardening, traveling and house remodeling.

Jacqueline Hooper

state council member (El Pueblo Group)

Jacqueline has been a El Pueblo Group (EPG) CMC member for 8 years. Early in her career, she worked in higher education for 17 years including teaching and serving in upper administration. Later in her career, she worked in nursing for 16 years, retiring in 2021 from full time practice as a family nurse practitioner with continuing to work part-time as a nurse practitioner since retirement.  She has been fortunate to have been able to apply her teaching, administrative, and medical background to contributions she has made to CMC.  Although Jacqueline originally joined EPG to find a group in the Pueblo area to hike with, her involvement evolved to: becoming a Trip Leader and leading once a month+ hikes for EPG, being a co-leader for EPG and Denver hikes, collaborating with the Pikes Peak Group (PPG) to offer joint PPG-EPG hikes; learning new skills in other outdoor adventures including snowshoeing, XC-skiing, canyoneering, scrambling, rappelling, and backpacking; adopting a love of summit hikes especially 13ers; traveling internationally to hike; becoming involved in EPG governance including serving as Secretary, Vice President and now as the Chair of the group; assisting with organizing a Wilderness First Aid course in Pueblo and Colorado Springs to provide Trip Leaders a convenient location to maintain required certification; serving as a Leader-In-Training Mentor Leader for EPG; and being awarded CMC Volunteer of the Month recognition.

Carol Kurt

state council member (Roaring Fork Group)

Carol joined the CMC in 1971 when she married her husband who was a member of the Denver Group. She became very active in the CMC when they transferred their membership to the Aspen Group(now the Roaring Fork Group) after moving away from Denver in 1978. She moved full time to Aspen in 1999 when she retired from the business world. She was the chair of the Aspen Group for 20 years and served on the CMC board for 2 terms and  now now serves on the CMC Foundation. She has climbed all of the 14ers...some multiple times and loves leading trips for the Roaring Fork Group. They usually host a winter ski and a summer picnic at their Ashcroft cabin and lead a winter hut trip every year. She put on a couple of Basic Mountaineering Courses for her group when she was chair plus took the leadership and wilderness first aid courses. She led Adventure Travel llama supported trips in Utah and Wyoming. She loves that CMC works on conservation and safety in the mountains. She is also a Master Naturalist with the White River Forest Conservancy and teaches some courses for them and for the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies...especially on tundra and adaptations of flora and fauna there.

Candace Winkle

state council member (Gore Range Group)

Candace received her M.S. in Geology in Wisconsin, then moved to Colorado to work and play in the mountains.  When the oil business tanked in the 80’s, she redirected her career to IT project management.  Always enthusiastic about the outdoors, she discovered and joined the CMC in 2004 and within a few years started leading trips for the Denver Group.  In her quest for Colorado’s highest 100 peaks, she led mostly peak-bagging day and backpack trips - so many that the CMC recognized her with an award.  In 2009 she moved to Summit County and later transferred to the Gore Range Group, where she currently leads hiking, backpacking, snowshoe and various types of ski trips.  She loves traveling and finding new places for her activities.  Other volunteer work includes past director and president positions on her local water district and HOA Boards.

Jason Kintzel

State Council Member (Boulder Group)

Jason was introduced to the CMC in 1996 by Prof. Kurt Gerstle of the CU Boulder Civil Engineering Department. He's taken and taught many of the classes that Boulder offers including BMS back when it was an 8+ week long commitment. He became the caretaker of the Brainard Lake Cabin in 2005, and have also taken on the roles of Cabins Chair, Treasurer, Forest Service rep, and now Chair of the Boulder Group (and State Council rep). He lives in Longmont with his wife of 21 years with our four kids aged 17, 14, 14, & 14 (not a typo).

MEETING MINUTES