Meet the Board
Get to Know UsIn order to keep the historic preservation concerns of the entire county in mind, the board is deliberately composed of representatives from cities, towns, and rural areas from throughout the county. The board is elected by the members of Historic Larimer County at the group’s annual meeting. The next annual meeting will take place in the spring of 2019.
Board of Directors
Ron Sladek: President
Term Ends: May 2024. Represents: Fort Collins
Ron Sladek, president of Historic Larimer County, has been working as a professional in the field of history and historic preservation since the late 1980s. He founded Tatanka Historical Associates in 1992 to focus upon providing expert consulting services in the areas of historic resources documentation, planning and education. Ron’s expertise in Western American history, historic architecture and engineering, field documentation, archival research, and historic preservation planning and analysis is utilized in all stages of every project. In addition to working on hundreds of documentation and planning projects in sixteen states, he has prepared landmark nominations placing forty-two properties on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, along with another seventeen as local landmarks. Ron’s projects have included historic resources as varied as farms and ranches, homestead sites, airports, irrigation ditches and reservoirs, rail and road bridges, rail and highway corridors, cemeteries, oilfields, ski resorts, downtown commercial buildings, mining and milling sites, estate properties, active and closed military facilities, residential neighborhoods, public buildings, and residential and agricultural districts.
Beyond his project work, Ron has taught a historic and public records research course at Front Range Community College in Fort Collins and he frequently provides lectures and walking tours throughout the region. He has served on a number of non-profit and community boards and project development teams. Ron has been the recipient of awards from local historic and preservation organizations, as well as the Colorado Historical Society. In 2005, the American Society of Landscape Architects presented its National Preservation Honor Award to him for his documentation and restoration of the Ute Cemetery in Aspen. From 2009 to 2016, Ron was an active member of the Fort Collins Landmark Preservation Commission, serving five of those years as chair. He has served many years as a member of Colorado Preservation Inc.’s Endangered Historic Places committee. In recognition of his expertise and service to the community, Governor John Hickenlooper first appointed Ron to the Colorado State Historic Preservation Board in 2013. He is now in his six year on the board, having been reappointed twice. Three decades into his career, Ron is considered one of the leading Rocky Mountain regional consultants in the fields of history, architectural history, and historic preservation planning.
Meg Dunn: Vice President
Term Ends: May 2024. Represents: Fort Collins
Meg was an inner city math teacher in a former life. Now she enjoys researching and writing about local history. She authors several websites, including NorthernColoradoHistory.com, UrbanFortCollins.com, and barefootmeg.com (as well as associated Facebook pages). She manages three(ish) real estate properties, is an administrative assistant for a small non-profit based in Israel, and is on the board of a Fort Collins-based missions agency called On Mission Global.
Meg served on the Fort Collins Historic Preservation Commission for nine years, stepping down at the end of 2022 after being term limited. She is the president of the Fort Collins Historical Society. And she was on the steering committee formed in October 2016 to oversee the process of creating a local preservation advocacy organization which later became Historic Larimer County. She has been on the board of Historic Larimer County since February 2017.
Meg is married with three grown kids, two dogs, two chickens, and a bevy of house spiders. She lives in a landmarked 1925 Craftsman cottage in Old Town, Fort Collins.
HLC currently has an open secretary position on the board.
Ray Sumner: Treasurer
Term Ends: May 2023. Represents: Timnath
Ray is a western and public historian who’s research interest is in Colorado History and the Powell Expeditions. He graduate in May 2018 from Colorado State Univeristy with an MA in Public History where his concentration was Museum Studies and Historic Preservation. The past year, he interned with the Historic Preservation Branch of the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) at CSU and worked on a survey of historic properties at Fort Lee, Virginia. Ray also received a second M.A. in May from American Military University where he focused on nineteenth century U.S. History and wrote his thesis on a network analysis of the 1867-869 expeditions of Major John Wesley Powell. He is currently planning a series of commemorations for the sesquicentennial of Powell’s expeditions including a ascent of Long’s Peak and re-trace of Powell’s 1869 expedition through the Grand Canyon. Ray works with the Grand Canyon River Guides organization to educate the commercial river guides on Powell history and has twice participated in their annual river training through the Grand Canyon. Ray retired from the U.S. Army in 2016 after 22-years of service as a Psychological Operations Officer and a Short-Range Air Defense Artillery Officer. This summer, Ray began working on his Anthropology PhD at CSU where he will focus on nineteenth century archaeology in northern Colorado, west of the Continental Divide. Ray grew-up in Iowa but recently planted roots in Timnath.
Sue Schneider: Board Member
Term Ends: May 2025. Represents: Poudre Canyon/Loveland
Sue is a fifth generation Larimer County resident. She grew up in the upper Poudre Canyon, living there during her early years and then spending all holidays and summer vacations on her family property, which has been in her family for over 120 years. She graduated from CSU with a degree in Park History. Following graduation, she and her husband Rick joined the Peace Corps and lived in Guatemala. After that they settled in Grand Junction where he taught school and she worked with local governments for the State of Colorado. Upon retirement she and her husband moved back to the front range and now reside in Loveland, but spend lots of time at the family property in the Poudre Canyon. She’s always been interested in the history of the area and is also on the board of Old Poudre City, Inc., the entity that owns the land that the Poudre Canyon Chapel, Community Building/Fire Station and Eggers School Museum are on, and which was donated to the community by her family. She and another board member host upper Poudre Canyon historic home tours in the summer. She has enjoyed her involvement with HLC and is learning lots about historic preservation and the history of the area.
Sharon Danhauer: Board Member
Term Ends: May 2024. Represents: Loveland
Sharon Danhauer, a third generation native Coloradoan, has devoted much time and effort to the preservation of local and regional American history as a volunteer and through her business, Danhauer’s Tours. Her passion for learning about, preserving and sharing local history began while she and her twin sister were elementary students in the Denver public school system listening to the teacher read aloud from Ralph Moody’s immortal “Little Britches”. She has said, “It was better than a serial on the radio or television to me and I was hooked on history. We lived southwest of Denver near where Little Britches lived with his family on their 80-acre hardscrabble farm. It was so exciting to see what he described in the book and walk where he had walked.” Sharon has served multiple terms on the Board of Directors of the Berthoud and Loveland Historical Societies, Colorado-Cherokee Trail Chapter of OCTA, Historic Larimer County, the Association of Front Range Museums, was a member of the Colorado Vintage Base Ball Association, and is a member of the Rocky Mountain Map Society. She received Loveland Historical Society’s “Having a Heart for Loveland History” award in 2010. Sharon is the mother of two sons and grandmother of five.
Judy Jackson: Board Member
Term Ends: May 2025. Represents: Bellvue
Judy is a northern Colorado native. She was born at P. V. H. in Fort Collins. Though she grew up and went to school in southern California, she spent summers at her grandparents home in Bellvue and later bought their home in 1978. Judy has enjoyed many careers. She taught oil painting for 12 years, was a legal secretary for 12 years, and was a chiropractic assistant for 12 years. She was the owner of Sunshine Daycare for 12 years while hosting weddings and special events at her home, the Flowers House, on weekends. Judy has enjoyed working on the restoration of her historic home and the Bellvue Grange. She is currently president of the Pioneer Women’s Association and oversees and gathers volunteers for the Bingham Hill Cemetery.
Tracy Briggs: Board Member
Term Ends: May 2025. Represents: Berthoud
Tracy is a first-generation Coloradoan who has lived her life in small towns along the northern Front Range, where she gained an appreciation for the mountains and plains early on. With a life-long interest in history, she earned a degree in the field from the University of Northern Colorado. Tracy serves as the Director of the Little Thompson Valley Pioneer Museum, which is owned by the Berthoud Historical Society. She enjoys sharing local history with visitors while at the same learning from many of them. Aside from work, Tracy enjoys camping and travel, reading, and time with her family. She also enjoys seeing the humorous side of most everything.
Bonnie Gibson: Board Member
Term Ends: May 2024. Represents: Fort Collins
Bonnie has been in the cultural resource management field for 20 years, with the majority of her work focused in the High Plains, Intermountain West, Great Basin, and Southwest. She is currently the Mountain West Regional Director for Statistical Research, Inc. with a new office location in Fort Collins. Cultural resources have always been in her blood, having grown up on Liberty Farm in Virginia along the Potomac River. The house was built in 1795, so she cut her teeth in archaeology by digging up pottery and Union belt buckles in the yard. In addition to archaeology, she has a background in business consulting and holds an MBA. Her archaeological experience paired with a background in project management and process facilitation allows her to take a fresh approach to historic preservation projects. She is active in the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists, previously serving as treasurer, board member, and co-chair of the Education Committee. She currently chairs the Conference Committee for the American Cultural Resource Association, the national trade organization for cultural resources. She is passionate about public outreach and education, and hopes to be a strong preservation voice for our community.
Bob Gregory: Board Member
Term Ends: May 2024. Represents: Fort Collins
Bob Gregory is a Colorado native and graduated from Colorado State University. He then enlisted in the Air Force. Following his service, he returned to Greeley to join his family’s business. In the mid 1980s, the business closed and Bob launched a new career in the investment field. He moved to Fort Collins in the early 1990s. Ten years later, he retired and began a new career as a “professional” volunteer. Bob is now completing his tenth and final year on the executive committee of the Scottish Rite Masons. He is also a trustee of the Scottish Rite Foundation that raises and manages funds used to treat young children with language disorders. Bob is a board member of the Animal Friends Alliance and a former board member of the Children’s Speech and Reading Center and the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program. With a long-time interest in history, he has joined the HLC board of directors to help preserve important places and prevent them from being demolished in the name of progress.
Brian Packard: Board Member
Term Ends: May 2025. Represents: Loveland
Brian Packard is a native of Loveland and studying history has always been his passion. He has witnessed first hand the area’s tremendous growth and interesting changes over the years. Learning about the area’s history fills him with energy and he brings that energy to Historic Larimer County. HLC has exposed him to parts of the area that have been previously unknown and has deepened his understanding of this part of our beautiful state.
Brian is an accountant by trade, receiving his accounting degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a masters degree from Regis University. He holds a current CPA license with the State of Colorado. Brian has a beautiful wife, two young kids that keep him very busy, and they all enjoy spending their time outdoors together. The mountains are another passion of his and he enjoys camping and hiking along the front range.
There are currently two open positions on the board. We would especially like to have representation from Wellington, Estes Park, Livermore, Masonville, Virginia Dale, or any other small communities in Larimer County that aren’t currently represented on our board. We would also be happy to have an architect or event planner join the board.
Rebekah Schields: Liason
Liason For: City of Fort Collins
Rebekah Schields has lived in Colorado for the past five years. Born in North Dakota, she came to an appreciation of history and history places early in life through her family’s travels to National Parks, historic battlefields, house museums. She graduated from Montana State University with a B.S. in anthropology and started working for a local history non-profit, giving walking tours of Bozeman’s historic neighborhoods and downtown. In 2018, she came to Colorado to pursue her M.A. in history at Colorado State University. Rebekah currently works as an architectural historian for Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc, conducting research and documenting historic buildings and infrastructure across the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions. When she’s not looking at historic buildings, Rebekah can be found enjoying live music, working on embroidery projects, and playing board games with her partner Stephen.
D. L. Roberts: Emeritus Board Member
Founder, Board President for 29 years, Board Member for an additional 6 years (for a total of 35 years!)
DL Roberts was born into a family of pioneer ranchers. His great grandfather, RO Roberts, homesteaded the Roberts Ranch in 1874. The family has always been interested in preserving the many historic and prehistoric sites and artifacts found on the 17,000 acre ranch at Livermore as well as other parts of the county.
DL was one of the original group that established Historic Larimer County (then known as the Larimer County Historic Alliance) in 1988. He is a former president of the organization and remains on the board. At least one tour of the historic Roberts Ranch is hosted each year by Historic Larimer County and led by DL.
DL was the recipient of our 2021 Historic Preservation Award. He stepped down from being an active member on the board in May 2023.
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