Introducing Trailcology's First Intern - Jonathan Cass!

I was fortunate enough to work with the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources in the Warner College of Natural Resources at CSU to develop an internship opportunity for Natural Resources Recreation & Tourism majors.  The NRRT major has an internship requirement to help give students real world experience and hopefully a leg-up on other job candidates.  It is highly unlikely that I will ever be able to donate millions of dollars to the Warner College of Natural Resources - like Ed Warner was able to do - but I realized that I am able to give back to the College by offering experience and training to students through an internship program.

Jonathan was the first student to respond to my internship announcement and he has proven to be genuine, sincere, and excited to work with Trailcology.  I asked Jonathan to write up a short bio, so without further ado I will let Jonathan introduce himself:


Hey everybody, my name is Jon Cass and I’ll be the new Trailcology Intern for the
spring and summer. I spent the first half of my life living in the cold, dreary abyss of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where my recreational opportunities were limited to five
days a season on the icy slopes of Seven Springs Resort and the occasional mountain
biking trip to the muddy woods of West Virginia. When I was ten, my parents made
a life changing decision and decided to drag my sister and I to Denver, where I
grew up and fell in love with Colorado. I attended East High School in Denver and
have spent the last 4 years at Colorado State, working towards a bachelor’s degree
in Natural Resource Recreation & Tourism with a minor in Global Environmental
Sustainability. Over my college career I’ve fallen in love with Fort Collins and the
incredible community in northern Colorado. Throughout the years I’ve come to
realize the strength of the people who call Fort Collins home through my work with
Bohemian Companies at NewWestFest and various alumni organizations at CSU. I’m
extremely passionate about skiing, music and the outdoors and will be providing
with you plenty of exciting blog posts in the coming months. I can’t wait to get out
on the trail with all of you this summer helping to spread the incredible and aspiring
mission of Trailcology!

Jon is a great guy who is eager to learn and I'm really excited to have him as part of my team for the summer.  Jon will be providing some very interesting blog posts during his internship so keep checking back over the next several months for his posts.  Social media, such as Facebook, has become an integral part of how we communicate with people, Jon will also be helping to update the Trailcology Facebook page.  Additionally, I have asked Jon to work on a "signature project" that he will take ownership of that will add to the list of events for Trailcology.  He has a pretty good idea of what he wants to do so I'm excited to see how it develops this summer.  Jon has been very eager to help on all of the volunteer projects and I hope to get him in a Crew Leader training program so that he can start to lead crews of volunteers on his own.

Next time your out on a project with Trailcology be sure to say hello to Jon!

Happy Trails!

Chris