Dale Will, acquisitions and projects director for Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, stands on the Thompson Creek Open Space property outside of Carbondale.
Dale Will figured out early in his career that his temperament was better suited to negotiating than litigating. People who love the wide open spaces in the Roaring Fork Valley have reaped the benefits of that discovery.
Will will celebrate his 25th anniversary with the Pitkin County Open Space and Trails program on May 1. He initially worked as the executive director and for the last eight years as acquisition and projects director. By any title, Will’s role has been getting some of the most iconic private lands in the upper valley into public hands.
“I couldn’t be happier that I can’t go anywhere in this valley without seeing a landscape that I know is legally protected,” Will said. “It’s been a dream job. I couldn’t have invented a position for myself that’s any better than this one.”
He became the third executive director of the open space program in 1999. After getting his law degree and license in California, his goal was to become an environmental litigator. Instead he ended up with the California Department of Conservation in a role where he helped assess conservation and outdoor projects for possible grants. He was familiar with the Aspen area from living at John Denver’s Windstar Foundation property in the early 1980s to study farming practices. He was vacationing in Aspen in 1999 when he saw the Pitkin County Open Space and Trails program was seeking an executive director. The job played to his strength of negotiating deals. He was hired for the position.
“I felt pretty lucky and still do,” he said.
Roughly 84% of the lands in Pitkin County are held by state and federal public land management agencies, primarily the U.S. Forest Service. But the remaining 16% of private lands are some of the more visible properties in the valley floors or in the transition zones between the floor and mountains. It’s in those areas where Will has made his mark.
Dale Will has headed Pitkin County Open Space’s acquisition efforts for 25 years.
His first task with open space was teaming with Aspen Valley Land Trust to secure lands at Ashcroft Ski Touring to prevent development of a single family home and associated outbuildings in the middle of the cross-country ski center.
“We bought the property based on a letter from the Forest Supervisor’s office saying two years later they would have us out of it again,” he said. “They’d trade us other land. Well, two years came and went. We bought the property and they seemed to lose interest in helping us with the exchange. So we eventually had to go to Congress to get that done.”
The open space program buys some property outright either alone or with partners. But in a lot of cases, it buys conservation easements on property — eliminating or reducing the development potential while allowing ownership to remain with the families for ranching or simply for peace of mind that it will be untouched. Will’s role is to feel out the owners for their interest in selling land or conservation easements, then crafting deals that work for the landowners as well as the county. Deals must earn recommendations for approval by the open space board of directors and ultimate approval by the Pitkin County commissioners.
To label him a land man wouldn’t be a stretch, though the term is commonly applied to people who buy property and provide a public face for oil and gas companies. In this case, Will is the land man for public benefit.
“He’s very good at making creative paths,” said Graeme Means, who has served for the last 12 years on the board of directors of the open space program and previously was on the board in the 1990s. “He’s not afraid to reach out to other people.”
For example, Pitkin County spent $34 million earlier this year to acquire Snowmass Falls Ranch, 650 acres of stunning beautiful ground between Snowmass Creek Road and the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. It was the biggest investment in the history of the open space program and one that could have potentially stretched the program thin for years. Will was able to get a $10 million loan from Great Outdoors Colorado that will allow open space to pursue some other big projects on its plate. Meanwhile, it is working with the Wilderness Land Trust to get the U.S. Forest Service to purchase a major portion of Snowmass Falls Ranch.
While Will is passionate about his work, he’s got an easygoing style. He doesn’t have the polish of a smooth-talking real estate agent swinging multi-million dollar deals. He’s got more of a salt-of-the-earth demeanor and a genuine interest in preserving agriculture and local food production in the valley. That’s probably helped him approach ranchers.
“One of the most interesting aspects of the job is something that initially terrified me and now it’s the part I like most, which is to start a conversation with the landowner,” Will said.
They are typically very attached to the properties and they are making major decisions with the primary assets of their lives. He empathizes with their plight.
“Some of these conversations go on for years and years and then something will happen,” he said. “It’s planting the seeds and laying the groundwork and creating some familiarity. I don’t want to pressure anybody. It’s all voluntary.”
One of his favorite transactions was with Billy Grange, a longtime rancher on the outskirts of Basalt. Will introduced himself to Grange years ago and made the pitch for conservation easements. He would check in at least once a year to see if Grange and his relatives in the family ranch had any interest in a deal. For years, nothing happened, but finally Billy called him after being repeatedly approached by developers. A deal to acquire conservation easements was reached in September 2007. The Granges continue ranching the land; the southwest perimeter of core Basalt is protected from development.
Dale Will, left, jams with Bobby Mason and John Denver at Windstar in the early 1980s.
Agricultural lands have a special place in Will’s heart. In 2012, the board of directors and staff leadership held a retreat to discuss big-picture issues that don’t get covered in their regular meetings. They focused on food production as a conservation value. Up to that point, agricultural conservation efforts had focused on preserving what Will refers as the Marlboro Man image — keeping iconic western irrigated pastures conserved. At the retreat, the open space leaders determined they wanted to promote local food production.
That eventually led to the conservation of multiple properties in the Emma areas, some even outside of Pitkin County, that Will dubs “the fertile crescent” because of the way the cumulative properties wrap around the base of Crown Mountain. The purchase of conservation easements kept some of the properties in ranchers’ hands and purchases of property allowed the open space program to lease ag lands to small operations like Two Roots Farm and Marigold Livestock company.
The fertile crescent is among the top three projects Will said he is most proud of, along with Snowmass Falls Ranch. “I always thought of it as the Holy Grail,” he said of the latter.
The third project to crack his list is the Sky Mountain Park, created through purchases from the Droste family. That preserved land between Highway 82 and Snowmass Village and created one of the best recreational trail networks in the valley, which is closed seasonally for the benefit of wildlife.
Open space preservation is overwhelmingly popular with Pitkin County voters. Funding for the program was first approved in 1990. It was reauthorized in 1999, 2006 and in 2016 for another 20 years starting in 2020.
In its latest inventory, the open space program reported that it owns land or conservation easements on 22,747 acres. See the list at pitkincounty.com/DocumentCenter/View/27981/Open-Space-and-Trails-Property-Inventory. That doesn’t include recent acquisitions such as Snowmass Falls Ranch.
Pitkin County holds conservation easements on 79 properties with nearly 18,000 acres. A total of $59 million was spent with the county spending $41.46 million and the rest provided by partners.
In the 2016 election, some critics claimed the program was geared too heavily toward building mountain bike trails and recreational properties rather than preserving open space for wildlife. As the acquisitions expert, Will has been tagged with that criticism in some quarters.
Gary Tennenbaum, who took over for Will as executive director of the program in 2016, said the label is “unfair” for both the program and for Will. The program has some of the most restrictive seasonal closures in place among land management agencies, Tennenbaum said. The program adopted its “Protection of Biodiversity and the Management of Human Use” policy for open space properties in 2016. Many of the places where the program acquired conservation easements don’t allow public uses.
“Dale is the force behind the biodiversity and human use policies we have,” Tennenbaum said.
County voters in 2016 approved funding reauthorization by roughly a margin of 70 percent to 30 percent, solidifying the support for the program.
As the open space program expanded and required the executive director to attend to more administrative and management responsibilities, Will transitioned out of the position to focus on acquisitions and special projects. Tennenbaum, who Will hired in the early 2000s and relied on as his right-hand man, took over as executive director.
The switch, Will said, was seamless, in large part due to the mutual respect he and Tennenbaum have for one another. Will is happy doing what he does best.
“I’m freed up to focus on cracking the next nut on the deal,” he said.
Will has an innate ability to “get things done,” Tennenbaum said. “He solves problems, he solves issues.”
Will is understandably hesitant to discuss the next big acquisitions on the open space program’s plate, though he said the interest in St. Benedict’s Monastery in Capitol Creek Valley is no secret. The stunning property was listed for sale last week for $150 million. That’s obviously out of the program’s price range, but the hope is a buyer would work to conserve most of the land. At age 64, Will hopes he can help make it happen.
“If that one could get done while I’m still on board, I’d feel pretty good,” he said. “But I’m never going to stop being interested in the next deal.”