Meet Ashley!

Right now I'm frantically packing and getting ready for the trip, but I thought I'd take a break to share a little bit about myself. I'm Ashley Cantrell, Environmental Health Specialist, but there is more to me than just a name and a title.

Let's start with hometown. I'm from Aspen, Colorado. Most people are surprised when they find out that people are actually born and raised in this tourist town, but its true! Aspen has a great community where everyone knows each other, its safe, and all residents have a voice in the direction of the town. My family has been here for over 40 years and my parents still live here. I feel very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place with amazing recreational opportunities.

Like I said, I work for the City of Aspen. We are very lucky to have a City Council that supports environmental programs and strives to make Aspen a green place to live, work and visit. I am in charge of two of our environmental programs: recycling and ZGreen. The ZGreen program is a certification program that awards ZGreen certification to businesses that meet the standards. Find out more at www.aspenzgreen.com. We also certify events as ZGreen. Green events are becoming more popular everyday, and here in Aspen we recently started requiring that all events meet the ZGreen standards. We are proud to be the first town to require green standards for events. When I'm not helping businesses and events be more environmentally friendly, I'm helping people understand what to recycle and creating new programs to decrease waste in Aspen.

When I'm not working, I'm out enjoying the mountains and rivers. I love to ski, road bike and run. I also play ultimate frisbee with our local team. Frisbee is a crazy sport that is gaining popularity all around the world. If you don't know what it is check out www.upa.org to find out.

That is all for now. Thanks to everyone for making this trip happen, especially all the Rotarians out there!

Meet Laurel

I’m Laurel Prud’homme, a Colorado native born and raised in Colorado Springs, where I reside today. I am thrilled to get to know Australia as the locals know it…experiencing first-hand their communities, traditions, and cultural perspectives.

My vocational interests:
With a degree in Commercial Art, I began my career as a graphic designer, working in advertising agencies and design firms, eventually adding account management and marketing strategy into my daily activities. I moved into the health care sector in 2005, and I currently work for Kaiser Permanente (http://www.kp.org/) in the marketing communications department for the Colorado region. With health care reform at the center of US political debate, I look forward to finding out more about Australia’s universal health care system.

A bit about me:
I live in Colorado Springs with my fabulous, sometimes disasterous dog, Dasher. I am the token "city girl" of our GSE team, coming from the largest city in District 5470. While I love the sunshine and blue skies of Colorado, I perfer to enjoy the outdoors from groomed trails and paved roads, and find that cold winter days are better spent indoors watching movies than freezing on the ski slopes (but I will do that on occasion). This will be my first official trip that requires a Passport, and I'm absolutely thrilled to be going to Australia.

5470 District Conference

Our Team meet this weekend for the District 5470 Conference. We were able to meet the Australian team from District 9520 and get lots of great advice. We honed our presentation and finalized all the last minute details. We are ready for Australia!