Gil Cisneros: The Right Place at the Right Time

photo Gil Cisneros

In 1967, Gil Cisneros was newly married and feeling the pressure to get started on a career. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t see myself working underground for the rest of my life”, says Cisneros, who was working as a miner at Climax Molybdenum Mine in Leadville. He started taking…

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Lorene Martinez: From Unsure to a PhD

photo of Lorene Martinez

Leadville local Lorene Martinez was unsure about college. But she took one class at Colorado Mountain College. Then another. With encouragement from faculty, this single mom realized she could succeed. And she did, all the way to a PhD in microbiology from Colorado State University. “CMC is one of the best choices I ever made,”…

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Robyn Kent: Huge Value to Me

Robyn Kent at Colorado Mountain College’s graduation ceremony in Rifle

Robyn Kent was worried about the gap on her resume. Although she had been a licensed psychiatric technician for the State of Colorado for five years, she had taken time off to raise her two kids until they reached kindergarten. “I hadn’t worked since 2005,” she says. At that point, she was living in New…

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Joshua Loubek: The Perfect Place for Me

photo - Josh Loubek skiing

As a 19-year-old freestyle skier from Seattle, Washington, Joshua Loubek could not imagine a magical place where he could ski world-famous powder in the morning and attend college classes in the afternoon. But that is exactly what he found when he enrolled at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs. It was an environment where he…

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Zach Borngraver: Chain Reaction

photo - Earn-A-Bike program

During my time at CMC, I often doubted myself and asked why I was going to school for “Sustainability.” I knew deep inside it was what I actually believed in and what I wanted to do, to leave the world a better place, but I never fully understood the impact one person could make in…

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Debbie Novak: A CMC Family

photo - Debbie Novak

My history with Colorado Mountain College began in 1993 when I took an art class. I’ve taken art classes on and off since that time. My son took a few classes in 1998, and in 2004 my daughter began taking Concurrent Enrollment Program (CEPA) classes. (They weren’t called that at the time.) In 2005, we…

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Don Nguyen: Reality TV Star and Rainier Guide

photo - Don Nguyen

Making an outdoor hobby into a career is a dream shared by all Outdoor Recreation Leadership (ORL) students. Hundreds of aspiring mountaineers, raft guides, and rock climbers have joined the ranks of Colorado Mountain College Leadville students, looking to gain the skills necessary to turn that dream into a reality. Don Nguyen, a 29-year-old ORL…

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Beau Sibbing: Rescued Becomes Rescuer

photo - Beau Sibbing and Karen Lapides

It was a snowy day in January. The kind of day that snow worshippers pray for. Conditions that persuade you to call out of work and head to the hill. Beau Sibbing and his best friend were skiing in a remote area of Breckenridge Ski Resort when tragedy struck. A high-speed impact left Beau hanging…

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Sean Kerrick Sullivan: Photographic Inspiration

photo - Sean Kerrick Sullivan

Professional commercial and editorial outdoor photographer Sean Kerrick Sullivan fondly remembers the time he spent in Steamboat Springs more than a decade ago earning his associate degree from Colorado Mountain College. Sean was still on campus when he sold his first photograph commercially. Big Agnes, at that time a local outdoor start up, bought his…

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Brett Menter: Soft Skills Outdoors

photo - Brett Menter

Since graduating in 2014 with a degree in Outdoor Recreation Leadership, Brett Menter has led heli-ski trips in Alaska, guided ice climbing trips on glaciers, coordinated outdoor activities for disabled children and more recently, taught outdoor orientation classes at Colorado Mountain College Leadville. A natural born leader, Brett saw that he would need to learn…

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