We Are Chaffee Podcast

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Jenny Davis, founder of Achieve, Inc., and Little Engine Eatery. Jenny’s story of a Midwest upbringing and parents who divorced when she was a teen highlights her entrepreneurial spirit. Jenny and Adam talk about her setting aside the Christian faith of her parents and exploring Eastern philosophies, ult...

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Mike Orrill, a retired Presbyterian pastor of 35 years. Mike describes himself as a “poster child for doubt,” as he and Adam discuss faith and the dangers of certainty. They talk about Mike’s personal evolution over nearly 50 years from fanatical believer who needed absolute answers to his questions, to...

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks again with Beck Cerón, picking up where they left off in their previous conversation. Adam and Beck go deeper into Beck’s story as a transgender man and the freedom he feels in his queer identity. Beck shares about his experience with gender dysphoria, as male in a female body. He talks about how that experie...

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Rob and Sarah Gartzman, a married couple who also are entrepreneurial partners who own multiple restaurants in the town of Salida, Colorado. Sarah and Rob met as high school seniors in Evanston, Illinois, somewhere around 20 years ago, and they’ve taken a really compelling path together – and for a bit a...

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Miki Hodge and Becky Gray. Becky and Miki share stories from their extraordinary lived experiences, and about how those tie to their roles in the development of Jane’s Place, an innovative housing, nonprofit and commercial project in the town of Salida. Becky also talks about her years following the Grat...

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Beck Cerón. There has been an intensity to Beck’s life. Adam and Beck talk about survival and the self-taught, self-reliant, hands-on kind of energy that his life has demanded from him. They talk about a sliding-doors moment in Beck’s youth and about addiction. They also touch on his sobriety, which has...

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, host Adam Williams talks with Tanya Wait and Abigail Smedly, deeply empathetic public health nurses in Chaffee County, Colorado. Abigail tells about a life-changing experience that happened in the country of Kazakhstan when she was 16 years old. Tanya tells about how her nursing career nearly was derailed before it began, due to, of...

Art Hutchinson joins Adam Williams, host of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, to talk about a rare history and perspective in Chaffee County, Colorado. The Hutchinson Homestead & Ranch is located along highway 50 between Salida and Poncha Springs, Colorado. The ranch has been a keystone in the community since before there even was a community, having been founded in the 1860s, soon...

Nikki Ray and We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream host Adam Williams talk about Nikki growing up in a family that struggles with addiction, and how she too would end up experiencing many years of active drug addiction, starting at a pretty young age. Nikki and Adam talk about her growing up in that environment and how it would lead to some significant losses in her life. They talk about why those los...

Alexandra Restrepo and We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream host Adam Williams talk about Alex’s early childhood with an abusive, drug-addicted mother, and the love and sacrifices of her father.  We talk about her leaving the United States and growing up with her father’s family on a farm in Colombia, South America. Alex tells how she ended up falling into a pattern of toxic relationships and instabil...

Lisa Martin, producer for the new We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast and Community Advocacy Coordinator for the We Are Chaffee initiative, and Adam Williams, host of the new podcast, talk with Ken Matthews on the Chaffee Housing Report radio show on KHEN 106.9 in Salida, Colo. The conversation is the second of a two-part transition from the Chaffee Housing Report to We Are Chaffee: Looking U...

Andrea Carlstrom, Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment, and Becky Gray, Director of the Chaffee Housing Authority, talk with Ken Matthews on the Chaffee Housing Report radio show on KHEN 106.9 in Salida, Colo. The conversation is the first of a two-part transition from the Chaffee Housing Report to a new podcast, We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream, which will focus on upstream he...