APA Colorado Board Slate Announced

Hello fellow APA Colorado member. My name is Josh Olhava, and I currently serve as the Planning & Development Supervisor with Ayres Associates. I’ve had the pleasure of working in both the public and private sectors for more than 15 years and have always valued the role planners play in shaping strong, thoughtful communities. That commitment is what keeps me engaged in advancing our profession and supporting others in it.

Outside of my professional work and volunteer involvement with APA Colorado, I enjoy spending time with my wife, our twin daughters, and our two dogs. Whether we’re running between school and sports or catching up with friends and family, we like to find adventure and enjoy new experiences both locally and beyond. That said, a quiet night at home or a laid-back get-together is always a welcome break.

I’ve been involved with APA Colorado for over ten years. I started as a member of the Professional Development Committee, helping expand the range of sessions at our conferences and mentoring emerging professionals. I later served as Treasurer for five years, working closely with the board and staff to realign our budget, offer more member events, and strengthen visibility of planners with elected officials.

Since beginning my term as Chapter President in 2025, I’ve worked with the board to update our Strategic Plan and restructure committees to better reflect member interests and needs. Over the next year, we’re expanding educational opportunities through online platforms so members can share their knowledge and learn from one another. We’re also developing new training sessions and partnerships with organizations like the Colorado Municipal League, the Department of Local Affairs, and others in related fields. At the same time, we’re continuing to support Area Representatives and committees to strengthen local connections and overall chapter engagement.

Looking ahead, I want to see these efforts reach more members across the state and continue refining how the Chapter supports planners in their work. I also want to help build up the next group of Chapter leaders who will carry this work forward and ensure the Chapter remains responsive and relevant.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve and for your consideration.

My name is Shelia Booth, and I currently serve as the Vice President of External Affairs for APA Colorado. First and foremost, thank you for the privilege of serving in this role over the past two years. It has been an honor to advance our Chapter’s mission, and I hope to earn your support as I seek re-election to continue this important work.

My overarching goal is to expand the Chapter’s reach by forging new connections and strengthening existing relationships with allied professional organizations and affiliates such as Downtown Colorado Inc., ULI Colorado, ASCE, ASLA, ITE, WTS Colorado, CCCMA, and more. Across the state, there are invaluable opportunities for planners to share knowledge, collaborate, and promote best practices. These connections not only highlight the significance of planning but also create meaningful avenues for education and partnership. If re-elected, I will continue expanding these networks to ensure that every region benefits from these efforts.

In addition to building relationships with outside groups, I’ve also worked on the NPC 25 conference planning committee, contributed to the Colorado Transportation Symposium, and served as co-chair on the Awards Committee and Outreach and Communications Committee (you down with OCC? You should be!). Moving forward, I look forward to continuing my collaboration with the Awards Committee and OCC co-chairs to celebrate outstanding planning efforts in Colorado and provide a dynamic platform for dialogue and knowledge exchange.

Currently, I serve as the Comprehensive Planning and Special Projects Manager for the City of Colorado Springs. Previously, I’ve held roles with CPS, the Town of Monument, the City of Fountain, El Paso County, and as the Chapter Administrator for APA Colorado. I am eager to build upon the work our Chapter has done and to further our collective efforts in strengthening the planning community across Colorado. I hope you’ll allow me to continue to serve APA Colorado for another term as VP External Affairs.

I am seeking to serve as the Central Mountain area representative on the Colorado Chapter of the American Planning Association to bring together planners in the region and Western Slope.

Our region faces significant issues common to many rural and resort communities related to growth, affordability, and transportation unique within Colorado—I believe planners play a critical role to support communities in navigating these pressures. My work has focused on bringing people together to comprehensively identify strategies to better the places we live, from developing comprehensive plans, leading public engagement processes, or building coalitions across jurisdictions. This includes:

• Promoting balanced approaches to growth that protect community character while expanding access to housing and economic opportunity.
• Advancing inclusive, multimodal transportation strategies that improve regional connectivity.
• Supporting diverse voices in planning and bringing rural planners together to share and learn from one another.

I’m excited to connect with local planners and to help foster dialogue across regions of Colorado to advocate for the needs of our communities at the state level and support a more inclusive planning profession.

Planners in mountain areas often have similar experiences and challenges; to support you through your challenges, I hope to bring conversation and collaboration to the Central Mountain region. Sharing ideas and working through problems with innovation and grit is at the heart of small-town living. As your representative I would strive to represent our concerns and issues to others in the state and advocate for policies and programs that respond to our needs. During my term, my goal would be to hold a few conversations in the mountain area to provide an opportunity for members to share concerns and receive feedback and ideas, to help solve particularly challenging problems we may all be facing and elevate our region as a whole. It takes a lot to live and survive in the mountains, I hope we can share our wisdom and experience to grow our region and our profession for the benefit of everyone.

To learn more about me: www.linkedin.com/in/tobyieuterstauffer

Thank you for the opportunity to become more involved in APA Colorado.  I am looking forward to interacting with a wider network of planners and doers in Colorado, all striving to make life better for those around them.  There is joy in serving as the Denver Metro Area Representative, listening to and gaining a better understanding of the needs and goals of the planning community in Colorado.

I am a transportation planner with over years of experience, a passion for cities, and a particular interest in walking, cycling, transit, and our evolving mobility landscape.  My early passion for urban places led me to my career in planning with a singular goal: to make a difference in our cities and to create places where a future generation can thrive without needing to drive.

I hold a master’s degree in planning from University of Texas at Austin, a post-graduate urban design certificate from Simon Fraser University (British Columbia), and professional planning certifications in the United States (AICP, 2002) and New Zealand (MNZPI, 2008), as well as the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. My experience includes transit service, transit-oriented urban design, complete streets, and transit capital project planning in the western United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Since joining the Denver Regional Transit District (RTD) in 2022, initially in a short-term project role, I have focused primarily on the Northwest Rail Peak Service Feasibility Study (Project Link) and the Fleet and Facilities Transition Plan (Project Link), two of RTD’s major projects that were completed in 2024.  My work continues into 2025 with oversight of the agency’s bus operating facility design standards to support electrification of the bus fleet, ongoing coordination between RTD’s remaining commuter rail expansion projects and Colorado’s intercity rail program, and technical support for the Level Boarding Study that will upgrade the agency’s 50+ light rail stations to full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Immediately prior to joining RTD, I worked for a smaller transit agency in Washington overseeing nearly 30 staff leading the agency's the transit service planning; capital project planning, design, and delivery; one of the nation’s largest vanpool programs (over 300 revenue vehicles); marketing and customer service; and implementation and oversight of a systemwide contracted app-based first-/last mile on-demand service. In this role, I served both as a member of the agency’s senior executive team and as the lead project manager for the design of major projects, including a new operations building, several new and renovated transit centers, and an annual program of accessible bus stop construction.  In addition to transit capital improvements, I led implementation of the frequent transit network and service improvements that ultimately led to a 12% increase in ridership over pre-pandemic (2019) levels by Q3 2024, coupled with sustainability initiatives that included an ongoing incentives-based trip reduction program and the agency’s zero-emission fleet transition plan.

My passion for this role with the Colorado Chapter of APA is to help advance the state of complete streets and walkable, transit-oriented urban development in the Denver metro area.

Ryan has over a decade of experience in transportation engineering, design, and urban planning across 3 continents and 7 US states. He loves to blend the intersection of data and people to find solutions that work across all boundaries. Ryan was born in Webster, TX as a military brat, and found himself moving frequently throughout childhood. That bug to keep moving never left, and as a young Architecture student at Georgia Tech he found himself yearning to leave and continue on his journey of exploration.

Ryan worked as an architect in Singapore and Denmark, working on multi-family housing projects and mixed-use developments where he fell in love with the thing that connected these high-density projects: transit. From there, he went back to school to become an engineer and enter the field of transportation engineering where he worked on the California High Speed rail project in California, the People Mover bus network redesign in Alaska, and Green Line transit line for RTD in Colorado.

Ryan has written and won two TIGER grants in his career, one for MARTAs Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit project (opening soon!) and for the Atlanta Beltline mixed-use trail system. He has experience meeting with congressional leaders, state representatives, city boards and planning commissions to spearhead projects across all boundaries and garner support where needed. He is passionate about his work and delivering results. He also lives the way he works. He has lived downtown his entire adult life, and until he was 26 lived without a car, relying solely on transit. He has commuted to work via walking, biking, taking transit, and carpooling. He believes that in order to make improvements to the systems you work on, you must use those systems routinely.

His career is marked by a commitment to innovative solutions, strategic planning, and delivering measurable outcomes in complex planning projects and he looks forward to working with the City of Denver on the Planning Board.

For my entire professional and academic careers, I have strived to create community, foster connection, and promote education and excellence.I am a timely person with a keen attention-to-detail and a love for going above and beyond in any task I complete. I bring a sense of enthusiam and energy to every project I take on, while still maintaining professional standards and a level-headed approach to any issue I may face. 

Supporting professional and state organizations has always been a passion of mine, even before I became a professional planner. I have served on various boards and committees before in both participatory and administrative roles. The first committee I served on was the Diversity Committee for the Pennsylvania Department of Education. During my undergraduate career, I served in administrative roles for nearly 3 years in organizations charged with education the student body and other organiations on diversity and equity in the workplace and classroom. During my graduate career, I served as the president of my program's Student Planning Association where I established, developed, and hosted two different speaker series (a luncheon and workshop series), both of which are still running today.

Currently, I serve on the national APA's Education Committee and work as a transportation and land use planner at a private firm here in the Denver metro. I have been waiting for a chance to become involved with the APA CO chapter, and just know that I will excel in this role!

I’ve chosen to be a candidate because I’m at a point in my career where I can better commit time and effort to what I’d aim to be as a Board member: an effective facilitator acting as a hub and a champion for your ideas, communicating those ideas to the Chapter, and seeking ways to implement better communication, collaboration, and comradery among a group of like-minded change agents facing similar issues and obstacles.

As a planning professional with 20 years of experience across city, county, and state levels, I understand the unique and complex challenges facing Northern Colorado—rapid growth, water scarcity, natural hazards, and a wide range of seemingly competing community values. These issues demand thoughtful, collaborative, and locally responsive solutions.

Planners in our region need spaces to connect, share ideas, and support one another in navigating shifting local, state, and federal policy landscapes. As Deputy Director of Community Development for the City of Greeley, I oversee long-range and current planning, engineering development review, building, landscape architecture, and civil inspections in one of the fastest growing municipalities in the country. I’ve seen firsthand the power of collaboration and the value of building relationships across sectors and experience levels.

Mentorships and apprenticeships are fundamental to preparing a new generation of planning professionals, and Northern Colorado could cultivate a more robust pathway to attract students and emerging planners into the area. At the same time, folks with a wealth of regional institutional knowledge have been retiring or approaching the end of their professional careers, and we can all learn from their perspectives. Developing a forum to share experience, knowledge and inspiration from our more seasoned planners would benefit us all.

These ideas are not necessarily original, and I’m not uniquely qualified to shepherd them. I’m running to serve as a facilitator and connector who amplifies your voices, promotes mentorship and knowledge-sharing, and strengthens the planning community in Northern Colorado.

We face real challenges, and I believe we are truly Better Together.