CO BHA member Paul Vertrees, of Cañon City, is a retired Army veteran with 20 years of military service to his credit. Paul currently teaches Army Junior ROTC at Cañon City High School, coaches the high school rifle team, and volunteers as a senior hunter education instructor for the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW).
Paul is also a member of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society (RMBS), and works on a joint project between the RMBS and the CDOW, spending a week or more each summer gathering census and biological data on bighorn sheep along the central Front Range and Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Paul pours the same kind of energy and drive into CO BHA. He has attended national forest resource and travel management planning meetings and written multiple letters to the editor supporting enhanced enforcement of ATV laws to stem the growing tide of public lands abuse and degradation by thoughtless motorized recreationists. Additionally, working with Front Range co-chair David Lien and other chapter members, Paul plays a lead role in CO BHA’s efforts to get the 20,000-acre Browns Canyon Wilderness bill passed in Colorado.
As Paul said in one of his letters to a state newspaper: “As a backpacker, angler, and foot-powered hunter, I strongly support the Forest Service's mitigation of illegal and damaging OHV abuse and overuse. And before anyone labels me a ‘bleeding heart liberal,’ let me state that I am a registered Republican, a retired military veteran, a member of Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society, and consider myself conservative. The damage from OHV abuse and overuse on public lands is widespread. It's time to get a handle on it.”
Despite his teaching, coaching, letter writing, and other volunteer work, Paul still manages to find ample time for backpacking and fly fishing during the summer, and traditional bowhunting each fall. He’s also hoping to hike the Colorado Trail next summer, acknowledging that “having a very supportive wife and family is what makes it possible for me to spend so much time volunteering and in the backcountry … I'm a very lucky man.”
And we’re very luck to have you, Paul!
