This is a transcript of the Spur of the Moment episode “Planning a sustainable future for Denver with Laura Aldrete + Grace Rink.” It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

Laura Aldrete: I have asked staff to design and develop as though you care as though your family’s gonna live in this place.

Jocelyn Hittle: Welcome to Spur of the Moment, the podcast of Colorado State University Spur Campus in Denver, Colorado.

Grace Rink: Water is an issue in 2021, I think that it’s very important to address how all of our water systems work together so that we can proactively plan for the water constrained future that we have already entered.

Jocelyn Hittle: Hello and welcome to Spur of the Moment, the podcast of Colorado State University’s Spur Campus in Denver, Colorado. On this podcast, we talk with experts in food, water and health about how they are tackling the big challenges we face in these three areas. I’m Jocelyn Hittle and I am joined today by Laura Aldrette, the Director of Community Planning and Development for the city and county of Denver, and Grace Rink, the Director of the Denver Office of Climate Action Sustainability and Resilience. I’m excited to dive into a conversation with both of them about their work and their professional journeys.

Jocelyn Hittle: A brief bio for Laura. Before taking the helm at Community Planning and Development, Laura was senior VP at Denver International Airport where she was responsible for implementing a development plan or large swaths of land. Prior to that, Laura has had roles at various design firms and within government offices, and Laura was born and raised here in Denver.

Jocelyn Hittle: Grace, relatively recently moved to Denver in March of 2020 from Chicago, where she was president and CEO of Percuss Consulting, a firm providing various sustainability consulting services. Grace also was a senior project manager at AECOM and prior to that, the Assistant Commissioner for the Chicago Department of the Environment. Welcome Laura and Grace.

Laura Aldrete: Thank you.

Grace Rink: Thanks, It’s great to be here.

Jocelyn Hittle: It’s great to have you both. All right we’re going to go ahead and start with you Laura, and ask you a little bit about your, your work and what the Department of Community Planning and Development does. So can you give us a
sense of what are the role of your offices?

Laura Aldrete: So we have a broad breadth of what we do. It’s really starting with neighborhood communities, helping them to envision their future and creating plans out of that, that will help guide development for their neighborhoods, whether it’s development or whether it’s preservation or some combination of both. We certainly touch on food and water and healthy cities and communities as a part of that, we can talk about that a little bit later. And then as we move through the system, the city system of planning and development, we also work with the development communities in, as they are coming in with development projects, whether it’s residential, single family residential, multi-family residential,
office, commercial, industrial, there are a variety of rules and regulations and zoning law that they have to go through and to be approved. And so we take work with them through that process and ultimately realize their design and then ultimately to get it permitted for construction.

Jocelyn Hittle: It sounds like it is a little bit of a variety of different things. You have a very diverse set of tasks that are put in front of you and your team as an office.

Laura Aldrete: Yeah, so it is, it’s really all of Denver, right? It’s Denver has always, I would say since the 1850s has grown and we will continue to grow. So I don’t think of it as a question of whether or not do we grow, but how do we grow? And so in order to ask that question and have that dialogue with the community, you have, you’ve got to really reach out to, you know, that broad breadth of community members we work with. You know, there’s a number of universities here in the city, and of course we work with them in defining those what’s ultimately a building or what their vision is.

Jocelyn Hittle: Can you say a little bit about, I mean, you work at a lot of different scales too, so maybe you can describe a little bit the sort of larger scale, comprehensive plan, scale work that you do as well. ‘Cause you’re mentioning
a lot of interaction with neighborhoods at neighborhood scale, but what’s the bigger picture.

Laura Aldrete: I always like to say, we are city builders and cities are messy. So, and as the larger scale, the larger you go, the, sometimes the messier they become and there are hard questions and conversations that have to be had about who is benefiting, what is the purpose of this, of, you know, of this larger scale development, whether you’re talking about central park, which I was a part of early on, whether you’re, you know, national Western, where the CSU spur is, right? Those conversations are important, but it’s really also about thinking about transformational projects in a city. You have to be able to move into those spaces of transformational projects that are gonna, you know, create vision and excitement for a city, for the residents also for attracting people into the city. It has to also serve, you know, the economics of the city, the region competing on a national level and balancing that though back with the community and what are, you know, how are we making sure that all those rise through those transformational projects?

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, that’s no mean fit to be balancing all of the scales and all of the different interests to try to try to achieve a vision for the city.

Laura Aldrete: Sure, I mean, look, it’s not one department, right? It’s not my department, it isn’t part, you know, choice pushing on us and encouraging us to, to do better in the, in the world of sustainability. It’s, you know, mobility advocates how you are pushing us to think about better bike networks. It’s the community saying we need better schools, or we want this for, you know, we want a grocery store. Having those conversations and working to figure out how that happened. So it’s, it’s a broad breadth, I mean, it takes all of us literally to bring about those transformational projects. What I hope to do, you know, what I hope this department delivers to the citizens is to think about, you know, when they close their eyes
and they think about what, what they want their city to be, or what they’re most proud of about our city that they think about, you know, either the river and that trail system, or they think about Denver Union Station, or they think about National Restaurant or they think about the Greektown Green and Stapled in Central Park, right? That is what helps us connect based with our emotion and those are those beautiful places and I think that’s what city is all about.

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, that’s great and thank you for reflecting on that and sort of what the why is a little around, around what you are doing.

Jocelyn Hittle: Grace, let’s turn to you and talk a little bit about your why and what the office of climate action sustainability and resiliency does.

Grace Rink: Our office actually is the newest office of the city, we became an official office in July of 2020 and I like to say that a collaboration is in our DNA because this office really evolved out of a negotiation between environmental advocates, you know, external to the city, the mayor and city council. And so those groups came together and decided that as much as Denver had already done with creating a climate action plan and really being a leader nationwide in climate planning, it needed to have a single office where all of these policies would be housed. And when I look at Laura’s department, community planning and development, that is an implementing agency, that department, Parks and Rec, Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. These are the agencies that actually do work on the ground. Our office is really, it is a policy office and we, we do have programs of our own that we run, they’re a little bit smaller scale. So a lot of the function that we have is coming to the table with these other implementing agencies, as well as you know, other colleagues in the city as well and we try to bring everybody to consensus on what the new climate forward policies need to be for the city. And that’s hard work, it’s coalition building within city agencies, as well as working with our external partners as well.

Jocelyn Hittle: Can you say a little bit more about what it looks like to bring people to consensus around some of these policy issues are. I’m assuming some are easier than others and I’m assuming that the science is always changing and that’s a really dynamic kind of conversation. Can you say a little bit more on that?

Grace Rink: Sure, absolutely, I think that none of it’s really easy anymore. I think that Denver has been a leader in this field for enough years now that we’ve really we’ve tackled all the low-hanging fruit, and now we’re at that place where we’re really calling for people and agencies and entities to change what we do and how we do it. We’re talking about local government, as well as, you know, fellow agencies like state agencies as well. We’ve been around for a long time and agencies have gotten to a place where they’re comfortable with their systems and their processes and the people and communities who we serve are comfortable with those processes too.

Grace Rink: But I think all we have to do is look around us to know that we need to change how we’re doing things, how we build our buildings, how we lay our streets and we develop our communities and that is not something that’s done overnight. And so, a lot of the work that we do follows a pattern of creating what we would call a task force. So we will bring together in a formal way, all of the people or representatives of the different organizations and communities and end users who would be impacted by any new policy or change that we’re trying to implement. We bring them together, we have the really hard conversations over a long period of time. We’re talking six months to a year at times and through that, we come to a consensus around what a new policy or a new program could be, that all these impacted groups can really live with, and it takes a lot of time. It’s so much harder than an agency just saying, and this shall be the new policy, but it’s so much more effective than that because if we were to just take a magic wand and just say, this is what’s going to be now, we would have a lot of angry people at the door and people who would not be ready to adopt the changes that we’re asking for. And I have found that this Denver way of doing things is really pretty effective.

Jocelyn Hittle: I like that, the way of the Denver way of doing things which in my experience has been much more about collaboration maybe than you might see, is that what you mean?

Grace Rink: I think that’s absolutely true, I think that Denver is a really unique size for a city. It is big enough to be a big city and have all the great amenities and people that big cities attract but it also is still small enough that we really know all the people who are leaders in our communities as well as other institutions and so we really can bring those important groups together for deep conversations.

Jocelyn Hittle: That’s really important.

Laura Aldrete: Just to jump in, you know, I think about having been born and raised here and practiced most of my career here, I think that there is a very specific culture in Denver and in Colorado about collaboration because even from our history, right? Coming into the plans and not having anyone else around, but your neighbor two miles down the road, and, so you had to collaborate to make sure you survive through the winter or the drought or, or whatever it is. And I think that just carries through and I think we’re a relationship-based business community or government community and I think that builds well for us.

Laura Aldrete: Also, we don’t have a huge number of philanthropy or philanthropists in this community. You look at other cities our size or smaller that have, that are older and have really old money. We don’t have that and so we have to put together, everybody has to put their change on the table and compromise if we really want, you know, to the point of transformational projects, we all have to figure out how to make it work for everyone and it doesn’t mean you’re gonna be a hundred percent happy with it, but, you know, you’re, it’s all about advancing your city.

Jocelyn Hittle: Right, it’s a lot of difficult conversations and a lot of compromise. A question for the both of you, and maybe we can start with Grace and then go to Laura but both of you are relatively new in these roles, Grace, a little bit newer than Laura, but maybe you can talk a little bit about what you, what your approach is, what you’re bringing to this office, which is also a new form of what was the office of sustainability before and now it has a different, a different forum and maybe a bit of a different mission. So, tell us more about that.

Grace Rink: Sure, so yes, so for all of our listeners, this, as I said earlier, this office is new and I was just hired in March of 2020, even before the office became a real office and I know I was new to the city. I actually moved here from Chicago for this job and so it’s very exciting to start something relatively from scratch. So there were already staffed people in place, Denver already had plenty of plans related to climate action. So we had a very, very good foundation, but we definitely were in the position of merging at least two different cultures with groups from two different offices and then in February, we acquired a group from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. That was, these were the folks who managed all of the communication and engagement around solid waste management. So all the folks who tell you to recycle and how to compost, these folks joined our group, so then we had a third culture that we brought into our office. And so we spent a good portion of this year doing organizational management, and really thinking about what is our culture and what we quickly decided on and said, we have a culture of innovation. We are asking local government to do things it’s never done before and we’re asking it to do things that it’s always done in a different way. And in order to do that, we have to be people who are ready to hear no a lot and to keep persevering and keep moving forward, regardless of that. And so, it requires us to be flexible and nimble and creative and innovative and eternally optimistic, which frankly I think that if you work in the climate space you have to be optimistic because you have to be able, you have to believe that we can actually make a difference that we can actually make change. So that’s, it’s been a really good experience.

Grace Rink: We now are at 25 people. So when I started last year, I was one of 11 and by the end of 2022, we might be at 40 people. So it’s a lot of change happening at the same time, but it’s all good stuff. We’re really happy about it and I think the people of Denver put their faith in us that we could do this work and they voted for ballot initiative 2a last year which created the Climate Protection Fund, which provided our office with about $40 million per year.

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, that’s incredible. The growth, the change I’m inspired by the notion of this culture of innovation and also hearing no a lot and still, you know, being resilient and resiliency is in your name.

Grace Rink: Yeah, I don’t think that we’ve ever really taken no for an answer. We know that eventually we’re gonna get to yes, it’s just a matter of how long.

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah.

Grace Rink: And what’s the, what’s the pathway.

Jocelyn Hittle: So what about you, Laura, you’ve been in your role for about two years?

Laura Aldrete: Yeah.

Jocelyn Hittle: Is that right?

Laura Aldrete: Yeah.

Jocelyn Hittle: Can you say a little about what it was like to come into that role and how you think your leadership has influenced the direction of the office in the last couple of years?

Laura Aldrete: Sure, so I mean, there’s a lot of good things already happening in this city and with this administration and I think in particular, the focus on social equity would be one of them that aligned with where my interests were, as well as sustainability. Both of those things play into the, the built environment and the places that we inhabit. I think the thing that I brought in and continuing to pursue is really design and urban design and quality of the buildings and the spaces between the buildings that we inhabit. Whether we’re enjoying them, you know, on a Saturday afternoon or walking down them or riding our bikes through them, but also, you know, how the buildings front into those spaces. And I think there’s been a couple occasions where I have asked, you know, staff, I have asked applicants to design and develop as though you care as though your family is going to live in this place or you’re gonna spend time in the space between the buildings that you’re building and that is, I just think there are so many subliminal cues that happen in our visual experience of the city that make us feel comfortable or intrigued or happy, or sometimes, you know, sad, scary, fearful and so to really focus on those design elements that bring about joy and comfort and intrigue is what I am really focused on. And I also believe very
strongly that those, you know, that sustainability, social equity and design are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are strongest when they are thought through together and so that’s really what I have been, came in on and I continue on that march.

Jocelyn Hittle: So I think you hit on something there that maybe we can expand on in a slightly different way the intersections of work, right, so you talked about equity and design and sustainability. Can you talk a little bit about that sustainability piece a little bit more. So as, as you both know, that spur campus has a focus
on food, water, health, and then sustainability writ broad. So can you talk a little bit more Laura, and then Grace about the sustainability aspects of your job? You know, how does it connect?

Laura Aldrete: Well, I’ll just, I’ll just start out with an example that I think is very specific to food. In 2019, we approved with the far Northeast communities, which is Montebello, green valley ranch and gateway areas neighborhood plan, right? So going back to working with the community to define their plan, they are, they have been very focused on the fact that they’ve got food deserts throughout that area that they have just, which means no access to healthy food options. They’ve got lots of access to fast food because they’ve got lots of commercial corridors and seven 11’s convenience stores. And so we were clear, we worked with them so that the plan reflects that desire and so, you know, working with the council woman, as well as the RNS. Now development is starting to come in and to deliver on grocery stores. There’s a Costco now coming in and so that’s, you know, just being able to focus and say, what, how do we begin to bring food into an area of healthy food options, right? Not just food, but healthy food options into an area of town that has not experienced that for, you know, I would say the better part of 40, 60 years. So that would be one example I think, you know, sustainability is so broad, right?

Laura Aldrete: So it’s everything from the, how you place your footprint of your building on a parcel to how dense you go, right? Which density typically is a more sustainable way to go ’cause you’re using less land to house more people and so your infrastructure costs are less, not only your infrastructure costs less expensive, but you’re also just using less land to, for the same function that you would otherwise spread across the Prairie in a single family housing project. It’s, it’s really broad so how does, you know, other examples might be ensuring that we have great sidewalks, ensuring we have transportation network system, so bike lanes, So that’s partnered with Department of Transportation. And then moving down through the line when we get to building code, when we start really partnering with Grace’s department on energy efficiency, we, you know, to Grace’s point, we are the implementers of the building code, which stipulates, you know, the level of energy efficiency a building must have. We’re interfacing with, with the builders often who are, again, not always going to reach for that, to do the right thing. They’re gonna, they’re watching their margin as, because they’re in business but you know, with Grace’s help, we are navigating, where do we go next? So the next building code, how do we make sure that that’s got the right level of energy efficiency? So that at the end of the day in 2027 or 2030, when our, when we have metrics out there that we’re trying to achieve, that we hit those metrics and Grace is right. It’s not easy and sometimes we’re the ones that tell her no, and she keeps coming back. (laughs)

Jocelyn Hittle: She’s gonna get to yes with you eventually is what I heard.

Laura Aldrete: Yeah, she really does. (laughs)

Grace Rink: I think we all, we wanna get to the same place.

Jocelyn Hittle: Yes.

Grace Rink: We just are getting are going at different speeds, Laura’s department understands the needs and concerns of the people that they serve. Our office needs to understand them as well, if we want to get anywhere, and that’s fair and so I’ll piggyback on what Laura was saying. Well, first off, I think that, that last point about us coming to the table with funding for staff it has put us in a tremendously advantageous position that we didn’t have before. Can you imagine before, before the Climate Protection Fund, again, supported by the Denver voters, we might go to her office and say, “You really need more staff people.” Or “I need you to have more staff people.” And she could say, “Yes, I agree that would be great, And I don’t have the money to do that.” And now we’re coming to table saying, “I need you to have these staff, “and here we’re willing to fund these for the next five years. Is this something that you can do?”

Grace Rink: So it makes it much easier to be a partnership when you have something to add to the table, which is great, but like Laura I’ll then, I’ll use an example to, back to your question about, you know, food, health, and water, and I’ll use water as an example. So Denver is one of multiple agencies, regional agencies that recently collaborated on a one water plan. So this is very timely, I know that this is running later in the fall, but water is an issue in 2021, regardless of when this episode airs. And I think that it’s very important and timely that the city and county of Denver, Denver water that multiple, I think there were six local agencies in the region that came together and collaborated for a year and a half to address freshwater sources, stormwater management, and how all of our water systems work together so that we can proactively plan for the water constrained future that we have already entered. And what, so then the question is, well, what’s the role for Casr? ‘Cause we actually don’t have a water expert on staff and as Laura has said, and as I’ve said, we’re not an implementing agency, so we don’t determine water policies for Denver water, but as the agency now charged with managing sustainability and climate action policies for the city, we are that facilitator. We are the entity who can bring those different groups together and help them continue to work on coming to consensus on those issues, monitor that plan, make progress on that plan and report out on it to all the different communities that we serve.

Jocelyn Hittle: That’s great, I’ll note that the, the one water plan, we are very much looking forward to, to what the next steps are once that plan is in place and it’s amazing, again, to that, that point about Denver being a really collaborative place that you have all of these entities that are coming together to say, how can we do better together than we are separately? And we’re really excited to be able to showcase them when water principles at Spur as well. Our hydro building, which is focused on water will be, I think the first commercial application of gray water, toilet flushing. So that’s water from sinks that that will be used to flush our toilets and then we’re looking at green roofs and what green roofs do when it comes to storm water.

Jocelyn Hittle: So you guys have touched on this already, but maybe you can expand on it a little bit. How do you work? You’ve already noted how you work together and you’ve both noted also that you have to work with other agencies. Is there anything you’re particularly proud of in that collaborative space that you want to highlight?

Laura Aldrete: I don’t know if it’s anything of record, but I do. I think what, just talking about how do you collaborate? I think it is right Grace and I are at the, at the heads of these organizations and then we have staff that are working together and that collaboration has to work up and down that chain, right? You’d have to think about it, like you think about your relationships in your life. There’s so much care that has to go into that collaboration and I think we do that well, right? And I, there are times when my, you know, we might not agree and then I have to go to Grace and I’m like, “Hi, we’re not on the same page.” And you know, we have, we have a good conversation about it and some things we resolve, some things we don’t, we just kind of keep working. ‘Cause when I say no, and she’s like, “You’ll say yes eventually.” And then we come back and talk about it later. (laughs)

Laura Aldrete: But I do, right? Like I don’t want to underscore like the amount of effort it takes to partner and to collaborate, to move the ball forward together, yeah.

Grace Rink: Yeah, and I’ll add that, especially in government, but probably in other types of organizations too, you often hear about the need to break down silos. And I think, but what the process that Laura just described is exactly how that happens is that, you know, that the heads of agencies talk and we know that our staff are talking and it’s all circular, right? We’re all talking together, that has been critically important and I would say one thing that we don’t do, which is good is we, we don’t do it complaining, right? We don’t, there’s no, we don’t allow for, you know, that kind of chatter behind the back like, “Why isn’t planning to this way?” Or, “Why are they doing that?” or over them saying, ” Well, Grace is always telling us do this.” We don’t do that ’cause we have these open lines of communication and so we can say, listen, you’re doing X, Y, Z and we, let’s talk about that, we need to do this differently and we need to do this better or like here’s a different idea. We can have those conversations, so I think that, you know, and being here for a year and a half that’s and during the pandemic, and there’s a lot of other things going on, I think that’s something to be proud of.

Jocelyn Hittle: So I’m both of you, as you are in these leadership roles, I’d love to have a chat a little bit about how you got to where you are. As you know, we, we want the Spur Campus to be a place where, where young people in particular can discover careers they haven’t been thinking about. So maybe you can give us a brief rundown, Grace of how you got to where you are.

Grace Rink: It’s interesting, every job that I’ve ever had, I didn’t know existed when I was in high school or even in college. So when I graduated college my, and I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. My dad gave me advice, he told me, think about three things. One, what was I good at? Two, what did I enjoy doing? And then three, what was important to me? And I have continued to use that throughout my career. The answers I had at that time were, or I was good, I was good at writing. I really like writing, I like essays and papers and those things never bothered me. Two what I enjoy, I enjoy coaching, like mentoring people who are younger than me to do the things that I do. So I really like coaching others and what was important to me at the time and this was, I mean, it’s still important, but at the time was, I wanted to save the world by fixing public education. That was my thing and I was in Ohio and I moved to Chicago because that was the hotbed of school reform at the time and I got my first job and I’m gonna tell this story because I love that story.

Grace Rink: I got my first job by reading every day, I would read about the school reform movement in Chicago and I would go to the public library and I would read the two newspapers of town, I would read the educational publications, and every time I saw somebody quoted, I would call them and I had to look up the number in the phone book ’cause I (whispers) (laughs) and I would call them and I’d say, “Hi, I’m new in town “and I read about you “and I’m really interested in your job, could I interview you to learn more about what you do?” And everybody said, yes, because like I am doing right now, everybody loves to talk about themselves. And so I had, I had scores of informational interviews with people and every person I interviewed said, “You know what? “You need to call so-and-so and so-and-so, and tell them, I told you to call them.” And so I did and I would follow up and so I had many, many more and within six months, one of the people who I had interviewed with called me and said,” I have a job, would you like this job?” And that was it that’s how I got my first job and I was working for a nonprofit, a school reform organization and it was, it was a coalition group. We were an umbrella organization that had members from 30 different groups. When I walked into the, my first group meeting, I knew almost everyone in the room ’cause I’d interviewed with all of them and, and really every job I’ve had since then, I have not interviewed for it in a traditional way, like where you actually apply until I got this job that I have right now, and that was 25 something years ago, at least five jobs ago.

Grace Rink: And so I think that what I have done in my career is I have just kept my, I always kept myself open to new opportunities and I think the most important thing to me that has always been a thread is I need to be part of something that is bigger than myself and I enjoy working for cities because we can do things at scale. So a lot of the work that we do in the climate office, you can do that in lots of different types of organizations, but here I can do things at a scale that impact the entire city and that is really exciting and something I always look forward to everyday when I get up.

Jocelyn Hittle: Wonderful, I love that. I think that the stories that show how surprise is so much a part of people’s journeys,

Grace Rink: I am surprised that I am where I am is a thing that, that a lot of people end up saying, and, you know, starting out with education reform, and now you’re in sustainability and obviously you’re, you’re the, the thread there is wanting to make positive impact and positive change.

Jocelyn Hittle: Definitely, let’s go to Laura and tell us how you got where you are.

Laura Aldrete: I come from a medical family, physicians or nurses those were my choices and so of course I was pre-med for the first year and did okay. And had an aunt who was kind of an alternative gal who just took me aside and just said, well you know, “What is it that you get, what gets you so excited?” And I said, she said, “If you could do anything in the world, what would you do for your career?” I was like, “Oh, I would like.” It took me a second ’cause I knew, right? I never thought about it but I knew exactly, I wanted to be an archeologist in Latin America, Central America, right? My father is from Mexico, I’d grown up, you know, spending time in Mexico with my family. He was a professor in, throughout Latin America so I went and, you know, we went and traveled a lot. So I just had a very great familiarity, was bilingual and had seen, you know, a great handful of sites throughout Latin America and so like, literally that was freshmen summer of freshman year, went back in the fall, changed my major, found a professor who worked in Peru, you know, and I got an unpaid internship to clean Yama bones, you know, in the basement of one of the old buildings at CU, and then found my way into a study abroad for a semester in Honduras working as an archeologist with some professors out of, out of Ohio but, and just, you know, like actually did it, like I actually was an archeologist just clearing know late classic Maya, you know, foundations and discovering, you know, kilns and burial sites and mittens and everything that you would want it to be in shards and then senior year I had to write a thesis on it and didn’t really have much, like we found things and it looked like this and then it went into a monologue that was, you know, collated with all the other studies and went into the library and to go see Alba Honduras and nobody read it, nobody did anything but I kept doing archeology, right?

Laura Aldrete: So it was great, so I would spend six months in the dry season in Honduras with this same group and then I’d come back and live out of my car or in a tent or in a hotel. Going to different digs around the United States that’s what you do but eventually, I kept thinking like I’m in these communities, but I’m not, I’m not connected at all. The best I can do is write a report. and it goes into a library that nobody reads and, and a friend of mine had, from college gave me an article on Lake Lucia project in India, where he had built social housing but he had not thought about the culture of the people. And so he built the, the bathroom right next to the kitchen and so here are 200 and twenty-five units of social housing that get built and not a person will move into them because he did not, because the architect missed the whole point about culture. That article made me realize the connection between, you know, archeology, anthropology, and place and affecting, impacting, and affecting people in your community.

Laura Aldrete: So I went back to school and studied for, I actually have a double master’s in Latin American studies and urban planning and then really just went from private sector, you know, kind of worked for a design firm for three years. That was great, learned a lot, similarly to Grace, where, as I started thinking about wanting to be more connected to my community, anytime we had a client or someone who is an assurance that was connected to the city of Denver, I followed up and said, “Hi, can I just, can I grab a cup of coffee? Can we go talk?” And eventually made my way to a conversation, a cup of coffee with the planning director, Jennifer Molton, once we did connect, same thing. She was like, I got a job for you then I moved into the public sector and that was a fantastic experience, I learned a lot. And I would say, you know, the thing that my aunt taught me in one question was that follow, is to follow your passion. And it sounds so cheesy, but it is 100%, I believe it is 100% the option because it’s a long road, you know, I’m in my fifties, I’m not done and I’m loving getting up every day and I love what I do and it’s hard as are, you know, everybody’s jobs, but I wouldn’t trade it for a second.

Laura Aldrete: And I think it’s okay to change and evolve, right? I think there’s this pressure that you have to make it as a one, you know, a time and point decision that you are gonna follow for the rest of your life. And in fact, nope, like, I mean, there was a small population of people who probably actually do that. And everybody else is in this evolutionary path that is not linear.

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, and I think you, you both said some version of following your passion and I think that that can sound kind of intimidating to someone who may, to your point, Grace not be sure what that passion is, but following your curiosity is a slightly easier thing to do. If you know, you’re interested in a number of things, you can follow those, those things. And where does your next sort of moment of curiosity take you next. Speaking of loving your work, you’ve both said that you, it gets you out of bed every day. And that it’s hard tell me a little bit about what, what’s a day in the life, if there is a typical day.

Laura Aldrete: In this leadership position, which I will say is different than other, you know, most other positions I’ve had, I am extremely structured. So literally every 30 minutes I am moving from one topic to another, from 7:30 in the morning. and last night it was till 7:30 at night. I made sure I carve out time to go work out, a couple times a week because that’s my sanity and that kind of keeps me grounded. So that, that is a challenge and making decisions in this executive position, the buck stops with you, making decisions again and again and again actually is, sometimes it’s easy but it’s just like, you’re just aware that you are the decider, to quote the president and that’s okay, right? Like 10 years ago probably was not, I probably wasn’t ready for that, but I’m just cognizant of that, that people are coming to me as the executive director asking for a decision and I have to weigh and balance and make a decision.

Grace Rink: And I wouldn’t say mine is similar, it’s a little bit different in a couple ways. And one to be clear, like my office is a lot smaller than Laura’s department. So the range of issues that she would have to deal with on a regular basis and those decisions, you know, every 30 minutes is as significantly greater scale than what I have. But I too, in a leadership position I’m faced with making a lot of decisions and helping, helping the team think through the different options for decisions, I’m rarely in a position of like saying, okay, well, this is how it’s gonna be. It’s more like we hear it all out, we troubleshoot and we all come to consensus on what’s the right way, but I have to be part of those discussions. It’s been an interesting evolution, as to starting here last year, as I mentioned earlier, when I started, I was one of 11 people and I was very much still in a project management role ’cause there simply weren’t enough people to do all the work. Now that we have rapidly grown so much, I am doing much less in the project management space, in fact, hardly at all. and in much more in a position of reviewing documents and helping the team make decisions and, you know, thinking about what comes next.

Jocelyn Hittle: Can you tell me a little bit about your teams? Are there, you know, as we’re thinking about introducing young people to new careers. What are some of the roles that are on your teams that maybe people would be surprised to hear about?

Grace Rink: I have one person who has an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree in chemical engineering. If we, and you know, that isn’t necessarily needed for the type of policy work that we do but we have a lot of scientists. We have a lot of scientists and engineers, and it helps them to speak to the people who are impacted by the policies that they are recommending. But we also have people who don’t have those kinds of scientific degrees because we also have people who just need to work with people, right? They need to be out there in communities, they need to be good communicators, they need to be good collaborators, they gotta be able to sit at a picnic table in a park and meet with average folks and just talk about climate and talk about how this impacts their community and that’s a completely different skillset, not everybody has that and so we, I would say we’ve got a really broad range, interests and abilities and skills and degrees in our office.

Laura Aldrete: Yeah, so same here. It’s really ranges from, you know, records folks and cashiers all the way to your double majors, whether it’s engineering or architecture or urban planning. It is, you know, I think in terms of, it’s such a broad, again going from planning all the way to going out and inspecting, right? So tradesmen who have experience or have had their own companies in a variety of different disciplines, they are, you know, equally important, right. There’s, a lot of ways to get to leadership positions or to matter, right. You know, education in general and liberal arts degrees are great and, you know, I would always recommend them but that’s not always, that’s not a requirement for my department because we’re often working with the construction. I mean, we do work every day with the construction industry and not, you know, some do, some have degrees, some have undergraduate degrees, some don’t, and we’re really focused on the trades in that, in that area. But I would say, right, like besides a degree, right? Thinking about like critical judgment, critical thinking, just good, basic judgment communication skills. How do you work with others? How can you hear others? Those are in my mind, some of the more important skill sets that don’t really have anything to do with a higher education and though I would always promote higher education.

Jocelyn Hittle: No, no worries.

Laura Aldrete: Actually my boys are listening. (laughs)

Grace Rink: I will, I will make, I will add one thing though, that we want people to understand that you don’t need to have a degree or in some cases, any degree, right? Depending on what, you’re, what you’re bringing to the table from your own lived experience and what we’re looking for in that particular job.

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, absolutely that diversity of lived experience is very important.

Laura Aldrete: Yeah, and urban planning isn’t graduate degree only, there’s a few undergraduate programs that are urban studies. So, you have to get through undergraduate and then into graduate school and that as a result, as a result, we have a very high white population and it used to be white and male it’s now more, much more female, but we still struggle to reach to our surrounding colleges who are Latino serving and, you know, bringing those, those young kids through, through their undergraduate and into graduate programs. And, and I personally, my pitch for urban planning is that this is all about impacting your community and using policy and government to help, to help do what they are working with, and ultimately working with developers to deliver that for your community. So, it’s a great way to, to give back, which is certainly a part of our community being raised as a Latina, but you know, it, you have to know it, you have to go and dig it, dig out and find it to, to know that it’s there.

Jocelyn Hittle: We only have a couple minutes left. So I wanna be sure that people know how to find you and know how to learn more about each of your offices. So we will link to your social media in the show notes, but is there any particular way you’d like people to be able to find you.

Grace Rink: Certainly our office, Office of Climate Action, Sustainability Resiliency, we’re on all your favorite social networks. And my understanding is that our handle is @Denver Casr, which is C-A-S-R, thank you.

Laura Aldrete: And similarly, on Twitter we are @Denver CPB, and then for Instagram, we have a we’re at Denver underscore landmark, which is our historic preservation group, which usually has great photos of old buildings and cool, cool history facts about Denver, so that’s a great one to check out as well.

Jocelyn Hittle: We will, like I said, we’ll link to those so people can, can find more information about each of you and the work that you do. And we’re gonna wrap up with our Spur of the Moment question. So we’ll start with you, Grace. Question for you is, do you have a favorite article of clothing you’ve had for a long time?

Grace Rink: that’s a really good question. I actually am the kind of person who keeps clothes for a really, really long time it’s a nice sustainability measure.

Jocelyn Hittle: Sure, there you go. (laughs)

Grace Rink: I also greatly dislike shopping. Yes, I actually have this one extremely loud print blazer that might actually predate my children. And the oldest is 14 and it’s, so if anybody ever sees me at a spring function, I might wear that blazer.

Jocelyn Hittle: I love it.

Grace Rink: And I have a matching purse, which also is only used with that jacket.

Jocelyn Hittle: Amazing.

Laura Aldrete: Wow.

Jocelyn Hittle: That is a great sustainability note, by the way, yes.

Jocelyn Hittle: So Laura, the question I had for you, I think you have sort of answered maybe, but maybe not. So if you were not going to be in the job that you have now, what would you have done?

Laura Aldrete: I would be a food historian. I just, and it ties in right with anthropology and archeology, but in particular Mexican food, the history of Mexican food, because you’ve got the indigenous native foods, plus you’ve got foods from Asia coming through, right across in then landing on the west side crossing land to get to the east side of Mexico at a cruise to get back to Spain. And so then, and then you’ve got Spanish food, European food coming back. And I mean, I would start there, but I think I could spend the rest of my career focused on just food history in Mexico.

Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, I think that’s genius because that means you get to go eat it.

Laura Aldrete: Right.

Jocelyn Hittle: And talk to people about it.

Laura Aldrete: Right.

Jocelyn Hittle: That’s fabulous.

Laura Aldrete: Yeah.

Jocelyn Hittle: All right, well, thank you both so much for being with us today for the Spur of the Moment Podcast, we have enjoyed talking with you and having this wide ranging conversation about your professional journeys and I know there are so many nuggets of advice that you both have given to our listeners, particularly our young listeners. Thank you so much for your thoughtful guidance for them.

Grace Rink: Thanks, we’ve enjoyed the conversation.

Laura Aldrete: It’s been a pleasure, thank you.

Jocelyn Hittle: The Spur of the Moment Podcast is produced by Peach Islander Productions and our theme music is by CATSA. Please visit the show notes for links mentioned during today’s episode. We hope you’ll join us in two weeks for the next Spur of the Moment Episode. Until then be well.