Shadowcliff Board of Directors

It takes a lot of help and guidance to maintain Shadowcliff’s beautiful facilities, plan for the future and oversee the activities of more than 1500 guests each season. Here are a few of the people who volunteer their time help steer our course as members of our Board of Directors.

karen bigelow shadowcliff board

Karen Bigelow

Karen Bigelow has served as a member of the Shadowcliff Board of Directors for 3 years and has been a volunteer there for nearly 15 years.

Karen is an accountant who works for the Department of the Interior. She has spent in excess of 30 years managing the nations assets located primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. She is married to David Grossman and they have 3 children and 3 grandchildren. Karen has also served on the board of Hostelling International and is passionate about travel. Karen recently completed her “life list” which involved seeing the 28 wonders of the world before her 50th birthday.
shadowcliff board michael bowman

Michael Bowman

Michael Bowman is a fifth-generation Coloradoan, born and raised on the family farm and ranch in Yuma County, Colorado. He serves on the National Steering Committee for “"25x'25", served as Chair of Colorado's New Energy Future in 2006 and was co-chair of Governor-elect Bill Ritter's energy policy transition team. He was a member of the 2005 TransAtlantic Dialogue on Climate Change and was active in Colorado’s “Amendment 37” campaign, the nation’s first citizen-initiated renewable portfolio standard. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Colorado Conservation Voters, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s Democratic National Convention Planning Committee and as a steering committee member of the Colorado Climate Action Plan and the National Leadership Summit for a Sustainable America. Michael also served as a contributing expert to the Advisory Committee of the Presidential Climate Action Plan.

Michael is a founding board member of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, a member of the Farm
Foundation Bennett Agricultural Roundtable, co-chairs the Colorado Farm-to-Cafeteria Coalition and is a recent recipient of the Gamma Sigma Delta “Distinguished Achievement in Agriculture” award by Colorado State University.

Throughout his adult life he has been active in the rural development initiatives both domestically and internationally, serving on the National Council of Advisors for both the Heartland Center for Leadership Development in Lincoln, Nebraska and Holistic Management International in Albuquerque where he has participated in a grasslands sustainability project near Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Michael is a graduate of the Colorado Agriculture and Rural Leadership program, a Next Generation Fellow in Columbia University’s American Assembly and is a Bighorn Fellow.
judith christy shadowcliff staff

Judith Christy – Co-Director

Judith F. Christy is Co-director of Shadowcliff, a Master Gardener and a Ceremonialist. Judith combines her love of nature with her knowledge of plants, organic gardening, nutrition and the natural world. She has owned and run several small businesses, worked as a cook, a teacher and founder of a Children's Community Gardening Museum in Kansas City. She has also served as lay minister of an alternative interfaith community and brings a rich knowledge of ceremony and sacred dance from many traditions.
Michael Dorsch shadowcliff board

Michael Dorsch

Michael Dorsch is a retired small business owner who now spends a lot of time volunteering. Since 2004, he has been Director of the annual Shadowcliff HIV Retreats, which were begun 16 years ago by the founders of Shadowcliff, Pat & Warren Rempel. These 3 day weekend retreats have a full agenda of various workshops and forums, interspersed with a variety of body therapies, as well as discussion groups, hikes, and social activities.

In addition, Michael also organizes the monthly community educational forums in Denver. He also serves on the Colorado State ADAP Advisory Committee and the University of Colorado ACTG CAB. Nationally, he is involved in the Drug Development Committee of ATAC (AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition). Michael is a former member of the Denver Ryan White Planning Council (1998-2007) and the CCG/NCAB of the ACTG (AIDS Clinical Trials Group) (2000-2004). He enjoys camping and cooking, and spending time with his best friend Skylab "Sky".
john hoffman shadowcliff board

John Hoffman - Secretary

John Hoffman currently serves as Secretary of the Board, has an accounting degree and is the Corporate Controller for Scotch Industries, a Lawrence based cleaning company serving northeast Kansas. John is married to Beth, a father of eight and a grandfather of six. John is a bald eagle enthusiast, an avid runner and a person totally committed to the environment. John and Beth live rurally in Lecompton, Kansas and regard Shadowcliff as a second home!
bob mann rocks photo shadowcliff staff

Robert J. Mann – Co-Director

Robert J. Mann is Co-director of Shadowcliff. Bob practiced business law in Kansas City for more than 25 years before founding Bridging the Gap, Inc. in 1992. As founder and CEO until 2005 Bob led BTG to its prominent position as one of the largest environmental education organizations in the Midwest with a 20 person staff that leads and coordinates the efforts of thousands of community volunteers.

Bob is a weaver, moving as easily in the business sector as among government and political leaders and grassroots activists. He has served as counselor and consultant to three Kansas City Mayors and countless elected officials and business leaders on sensitive environmental issues over the last 18 years. During the last five years Bob has facilitated overmulti-day workshops as part of Shadowcliff's Sustainability Series teaching the principles of sustainability and assisting participants to apply those principles to their day to day lives. Bob shares from his broad knowledge of environmental issues as well as his love for the natural world and inspires us to explore both the opportunities and the challenges which confront us as we work to integrate our personal values with our daily choices at home and in the workplace. He is an avid hiker, runner, bicyclist and a frequent lecturer, writer and facilitator. His daily life embodies the principles of collaboration and interconnectedness
carl sniffen shadowcliff board

Carl R.J. Sniffen – Vice Chair

Carl Sniffen is the deputy city attorney for the City of Grants Pass, Oregon. He has nearly 30 years of legal experience, working with many nonprofit, tax exempt organizations. He serves as a mediator and arbitrator, and he has been a member of many national, regional and local nonprofit, tax exempt organizations, including the Road Runners Club of America and Asante Health Systems. Carl teaches professionalism and ethics to tax exempt organizations at Rogue Community College and coaches cross country, track and field at Grants Pass High School.

Carl and Barb Sniffen first visited Grand Lake, Colorado in 1978 and has been introducing many of his high school cross country runners to Shadowcliff, Grand Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park for the last several years.
joni teter shadowcliff board

Joni Teter - Chair

Joni is a long time sustainability entrepreneur in one of the largest bureaucracies in the world: the U.S. government. She works for the Environmental Protection Agency and teaches part time in the Global Social Sustainable Enterprise program at Colorado State University's College of Business. Her passion is helping people see the interconnections among activities and systems impacting the human and natural worlds, and finding opportunities for positive social change at those intersections. Her current job focuses around integrating high performance building standards with environmental management system operations in EPA Region 8's (Denver) new LEED Gold headquarters facility.

Joni has 25 years' experience in the fields of environmental law and policy, integrated environmental management, urban growth and land use. Past work has included tours of duty at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and environmental auditing support to the Malaysia Department of Environment. Joni has traveled extensively and spent most of the 2004-05 academic year in Egypt on a Fulbright Grant exploring sustainable tourism. Joni and her husband Matt are still married after designing and building a passive solar, energy-efficient home in Boulder. The house is occupied by a variety of animal companions, including a street-smart Cairene cat who maneuvered Joni into getting U.S. green cards for The Cat and her kittens.
lance woodbury shadowcliff board

Lance Woodbury - Treasurer

Lance Woodbury currently serves as Chair of the Finance Committee. Lance is a partner with Kennedy and Coe, LLC, a regional accounting and consulting firm, where he leads their Agribusiness Practice. He lives in Garden City, Kansas with his wife Dana and their two daughters, Campbell and Whitney. Lance grew up visiting Shadowcliff, later working as summer staff, and joined the board in 2002.












BTG representatives:

William (Bill) Craig

Bill is the CEO/President of Lakemary Center. He is also Appointed Chair of the Kansas Autism Task Force and President and Governmental Affairs Chair of InterHab, the state association for agencies serving developmental disabilities. He is a life-long nature-enthusiast and Kansas Citian.