Office of Sustainability Coordinator
Jen Colby, BS
Prior to joining the Office of Sustainability (OS), Jen Colby served as a program coordinator at the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center here at the University of Utah. She mentored the student group SEED (Sustainable Environments and Ecological Design) as they developed the successful 2006-2007 Sustainable Campus Initiative, which led to the creation of the OS. Jen previously worked for the USDA Forest Service, first in public outreach, comment analysis, and rulemaking as a member the Content Analysis Team, and then as Partnership Coordinator for the Kamas Ranger District of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Her interests include organizational and leadership development, social change and human psychology, systems thinking, alternative energy, and natural resource conservation and restoration.
Jen originally moved to Utah because of the outstanding outdoor recreation opportunities in the Wasatch Mountains and nearby deserts. She spent several years alternating seasons between winters in Alta, Utah as an innkeeper and summers as logistics manager for the Colorado Outward Bound School in Marble, CO. An avid skier and hiker, Jen nonetheless finds herself now spending most of her free time enjoying urban Salt Lake City living. She is passionate about organic gardening, cooking, and historic preservation. She and her husband are slowly working on a "green" remodel and re-landscaping of their 1890s-era cottage near the University of Utah.