Kari . Distefano AICP
Town of Rico
Kari Distefano, AICP, grew up in a small ranching community at the base of the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming where her father was a forest ranger. She has almost always lived in rural areas; even her six years of middle and high school in Fort Collins Colorado were bracketed by summers spent camping on various national forests while her dad worked doing timber inventory. Not long after graduating from high school, Kari was offered a job in the Telluride Ski Resort Planning Office drafting and designing infrastructure. She wasn’t supposed to be designing infrastructure, but the engineer for whom she worked hated engineering (he later became a lawyer) and as it turned out, Kari liked engineering so it was a mutually acceptable relationship. She later went to work for San Miguel County in the Recreation Department, where she implemented projects related to recreational activities such as parks and trails, and is now the town manager of a small town near Telluride called Rico. Late in life Kari attended the University of New Mexico and received a degree in Environmental Planning and Design. She has always loved the outdoors and spent two decades as a competitive runner, skier and cyclist. In the summer, she rides her bike over Lizardhead pass to work, and in the winter, she stops on the same pass on her way home to cross-country ski.
07/21
