The climate movement demands every person show up in some shape and way, with their skill sets, experiences, and interests, ready for the sometimes long journey of progress. We are thankful to have Heidi Leathwood on that journey and on the 350 Colorado team – she’s our Climate Hero of the Month! 

Heidi got started with 350CO in 2017. Between signing petitions, making donations, and submitting public comments (just to name a few), Heidi was living activism in a lot of ways! Fast forward to the summer of 2021 and Heidi had started serving an invaluable role as a paralegal intern for our regulatory efforts. It is hard to overstate just how much hard work, attention to detail, and follow-through is demanded in a role like that, but it wasn’t enough to slow her down. One of Heidi’s big undertakings was helping to draft our party interventions at the COGCC (CO Oil and Gas Conservation Commission) on the financial assurance rulemaking to make sure that fracking companies pay to clean up their mess. And as if fighting for strong rulemaking in oil and gas industry wasn’t tedious and demanding enough, Heidi was also showing up to fracking protests, writing letters to the editor, and just recently played a big hand in helping create the coalition-backed letter to Governor Polis demanding he declare a climate emergency and take climate action.

She has also helped tremendously with 350CO’s participation in other rulemakings at the AQCC (Air Quality Control Commission) and other regulatory bodies. She regularly reminds other volunteers who serve on these committees when public oral and written comment opportunities arise so we can all have our voices heard. In general, Heidi just leads by example. She meets with her legislators, takes on projects and tasks, and does it all with kindness and determination. 

Now at the start of 2022, as we honor Heidi’s dedicated long-term volunteer efforts, we are so excited to welcome Heidi in a staff capacity as our new Climate Policy Analyst! Joining 350 Colorado is a dream job, according to Heidi, and exactly the type of work she was hoping to find someday when she took the plunge and decided to jump headfirst into fighting for our future. Like many in the climate action movement, Heidi is transitioning out of her former career(s). She is former Chair of the Keyboard Department at Lamont School of Music and for many years enjoyed regularly collaborating with other musicians in performances of both traditional and modern classical repertoire. Another simultaneous career was as a teacher of the Alexander Technique—a technique that helps people from all walks of life change the way they sit, stand, move, and react to stress: it can be applied to do any activity more easily. 

During Covid, with excessive time to garden and way too much time to reflect on the worst-case scenarios of climate catastrophe, and what that would mean for her two 20-something children, Heidi decided to move toward becoming a full-time advocate for the changes we need to make to address this crisis. Heidi is now nearing completion of both the Environmental Policy graduate certificate program at the University of Denver’s University College and the Paralegal Certificate program at Arapahoe Community College.

Thank you, Heidi, for all the many ways you have shown up to this movement and moment in time!

Want to be our next Climate Hero of the month? Join us as a volunteer by emailing volunteer@350colorado.org.