With a BA in Political Science and History from Colorado College, and a MA in Latin American Studies and Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin, Vatsala Kapur Pathy has long had a passion for politics and policy. She comes from a family where the idea of public service has always been central to her identity. Vatsala sees that access to healthcare is one of the essential ingredients to poverty alleviation. She understands that all individuals need a home, safety, health insurance and health literacy in order to thrive. Vatsala’s professional experience has traversed public health and health policy and encompasses all these dimensions. Over the past twenty years, Vatsala has worked in a variety of roles to help ensure access to affordable healthcare for all. She’s worked as a Health Policy Analyst for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and as a Government Program Coordinator for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Vatsala’s greatest contributions to the Colorado non-profit sector is in her role as owner, strategic consultant and project manager for Rootstock Solutions, LLC, a consulting company specializing in strategic planning, financial management, and project management for nonprofits, government programs and healthcare organizations such as Kaiser Foundation’s Health Plan of Colorado, where she supported the development and implementation of a chronic disease management project for Medicaid patients. She has also worked with the State Innovation Model and spearheaded a $65M grant request for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, securing a four-year grant for the State of Colorado. Vatsala has also made significant contributions in her work as Senior Program Officer for the Colorado Health Foundation where she oversaw major initiatives including seed funding for the Colorado School of Public Health’s Healthy Eating and Active Living program that led to the creation of LiveWell Colorado. She also crafted and implemented the Foundation’s first major initiative, Health Connections, to strengthen the capacity of safety net clinics and provide $9.4M in funding to 43 different organizations. Vatsala’s idea of success has always been, in the words of Emerson, to “leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because [one has] lived.”

Shane Lory '16 (2018 Recipient)

Inspired by Boulder Food Rescue and his time as a resident/volunteer at a food and social-justice housing cooperative in Boulder, Shane Lory set out to found Colorado Springs Food Rescue (CSFR) during his sophomore year at Colorado College. After assembling a team of dedicated students, Shane and company spent the '13-'14 school year busily laying down the groundwork for future growth. During its first year, CSFR crowdsourced over $7,000 to purchase initial food transportation equipment, laid down a first draft of CSFR’s organizational bylaws, and began bridging the gap between surplus healthy food going to waste in Colorado Springs and communities that lacked access to such resources. In the spring of 2014, Shane Lory and co-founder Meredith Bird ‘15 were awarded $10,000 in seed funding after presenting at Colorado College’s “Big Idea” competition, paving the way for an additional sizable grant award from the Edmonson Foundation. These initial fundraising successes allowed CSFR to hire its first full time staff member, and begin to build a Board of Directors comprised of Colorado Springs community leaders. Shane oversaw CSFR’s incorporation as a 501(c)3 non-profit, the development of its governance structures, and the hiring of additional staff. After graduation, Shane stepped down from the board and was hired on as Director of Operations. Currently leading the way in Food Systems and Education work in Colorado Springs, CSFR boasts a core staff of 7, with an additional 4 high-school student advocates on the payroll, and 4-5 CC students employed per year. Though CSFR has now distributed over 1,000,000 pounds of healthy food to communities throughout Colorado Springs and intends to continue its food access programs, its focus has shifted to include innovations in Food Education and Food Production. As per their recently released 3-year strategic plan, aptly titled ‘Cultivate 2020’ CSFR plans to develop hyper-regional food production hubs in under-resourced neighborhoods by hiring residents to grow and sell affordable healthy food directly to their neighbors.

Katherine Pease '91 (2017 Recipient)

Katherine Pease '91 is the principal of KP Advisors. She has worked with foundations, investors and nonprofit organizations for more than 20 years. She previously served as the first executive director of the Gill Foundation and as Senior Vice President for Philanthropic Investments and Policy at Gary Community Investments/Piton Foundation. She regularly speaks about the intersection of impact investing and social equity and has written about the subject extensively.

Katherine also earned her MA in Public Administration from The University of Colorado, where she is also a Lecturer in the School of Public Affairs. She has worked with many emerging leaders in philanthropy and nonprofits as a mentor and teacher, including fellows of CC’s Public Interest Fellowship Program and graduate students at the University of Colorado Denver.

Katherine currently serves on the Board of Directors of Global Greengrants Fund. She is also a member of the Global Advisory Council of Cornerstone Capital Group, the Steering Committee of Impact Finance Center, and the Advisory Board for the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado.

Gretchen Hammer '94 (2016 Recipient)

Gretchen Hammer is Colorado’s Medicaid Director, overseeing the office which administers public health insurance for low income and disabled Coloradans, including Medicaid and the Child Health Plan Plus. 

Before joining the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing in January, 2015, Ms. Hammer was the Executive Director of the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved and served as past chair and Member of the Board of Directors for Connect for Health Colorado.  In addition to her Board Service at Connect for Health Colorado, Ms. Hammer has served on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Children’s Health Care Access Program and the Anchor Center for Blind Children. She also served on the Board of Trustees for HealthONE. 

In her early career, Ms. Hammer was a private consultant focused on leadership development, complex systems change initiatives, strategic planning, program management and constituent engagement for numerous public serving organizations.

Scott Campbell BA '91, MA '93 (2015 Recipient)

Scott Campbell has a record of excellence in public interest work in Colorado. He served as the director of Palmer Land Trust from 2007 to 2014. Under Scott’s leadership, Palmer Land Trust protected 25,000 acres of natural and agricultural lands and launched 40,000 acres of conservation projects currently underway. With 80,000 acres protected in total, the organization became one of the twenty-five largest land trusts in the country. It won the El Pomar Award for Excellence in 2007; became one of the first nationally accredited land trusts in 2010; and received the Jane Silverstein Ries Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2013.

Scott founded the Protect the Peak Conservation Initiative, a non-profit, collaborative effort to build a contiguous ring of protected public and private lands around America’s Mountain, Pikes Peak. He established Colorado’s premier conservation awards event, the Southern Colorado Conservation Awards—to acknowledge and celebrate the work of conservation non-profits throughout the state. He co-founded the Colorado Scenic Byways Conservation Coalition, leading eighteen non-profits in a multi-million dollar effort to protect open lands along Colorado’s national scenic byways.

In 2014, Scott was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He was subsequently named the Lincoln Loeb Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Scott’s work at Harvard and Lincoln is exploring new models for western water conservation—where conservation easements, rotational fallowing, and agricultural-municipal transfer agreements advanced by non-profits and NGOs can restore river ecologies while providing long-term water supplies to farms and cities.

Lance Cheslock '82 (2014 Recipient)

Lance A. Cheslock has served as the director of La Puente ("the Bridge") in Alamosa since about 1990. La Puente is a homeless shelter that serves 1000's of immigrant workers in the valley as well as indigent homeless each year. It also helps find them homes and jobs and health care and has expanded to include a coffee shop that builds a sense of community and responsibility between those with no one to care for them and the residents of Alamosa.

He has started a recycled goods store that furthers this cause and helps to raise money to support the efforts. He has managed to convince the state of Colorado to give La Puente a tax break beyond the charity level to an "Enterprise Zone" because of his work investing in social justice and economic recovery, and he often talks with the governor and senators.

There are many other things he has done over the past 20-30 years, including providing many internships for CC students.

John Fish (2013 Recipient)

John Fish was a pastor, college professor, activist, and organizer. After earning his Bachelor’s degree from Princeton (1955), he went on to receive a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary (1958), and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1965 and 1971, respectively). Fish was the founding director and, later, national director of Project 55’s Public Interest Program (PIP), the forerunner of Princeton AlumniCorps.

From its beginnings in neighborhood nonprofits in Chicago, PIP expanded to other cities and placed Princeton students and alumni in yearlong community-service fellowships and summer internships to spark civic engagement and promote social justice.

With John’s guidance and support CC’s Public Interest Fellowship Program is modeled on the work of Princeton Project 55.