How the RMBL experience shapes life beyond research science

Neil Losin arrived at RMBL in 2003 as an undergraduate studying red-naped sapsuckers with Chris Floyd. He returned in 2004, gathered more data, and later published the work. “I fell in love with Gothic in the early mornings before breakfast,” Neil recalls. “Give nature a chance to astound you, and it often will.”

RMBL deepened his commitment to biology, leading to a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012 on territorial behavior in Anolis lizards in southern Florida. That same year, he and Nate Dappen co- founded Day’s Edge Productions to bring conservation stories to broad audiences through film. Today, Neil is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker whose work has appeared on National Geographic, PBS, Smithsonian Channel, and CBS. “RMBL is one chapter of my scientific training, but that training shapes my filmmaking,” he says. “Our arguments don’t just have to persuade — they have to be airtight.” Though his work spans the globe, he values RMBL’s focus on place. In July 2025, he returned to Gothic to screen films at the billy barr Community Center and explore collaborations. “Adventures are fun,” he reflects, “but community is what matters most.”

Married couple Kevin and Sonda Donovan arrived at RMBL in 1972 and 1987, repectively, as undergraduate researchers. Their work included studying the life cycle of the monument plant and courtship in broad-tailed hummingbirds. They met at RMBL and built a life in the Gunnison Valley.

Sonda has served RMBL as cook, winter caretaker, assistant director, and interim director and is now retired from the Crested Butte Land Trust. Kevin has been a builder in the valley for over 40 years (MB Builders), constructing and restoring many of RMBL’s structures. He’s built 10 new buildings, completed eight restorations through the Colorado Historic Society, worked on every building in South Gothic, and repaired many more. Reflecting on RMBL’s influence, Kevin notes, “It strengthened my reputation as a conscientious builder in Gothic, so when a client up the hill said, ‘Please don’t disturb the Linum lewisii,’ I knew exactly what she meant.”

Not all began their RMBL journey as researchers. Laura Villanueva, a family physician in the Gunnison Valley for more than a decade, attended RMBL camps as a child in Crested Butte. “It was my first exposure to a living biology lab,” she says. RMBL inspired her to major in biology and pursue medicine. Years later, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, she met a canoe guide wearing a RMBL hat – an unexpected reminder of home. Now a mother of two, she enrolls her children in RMBL camps. “That early engagement in science led me to medicine,” she says, “and being a wildflower nerd still energizes me. ” RMBL also shapes community leaders who never attended its camps, including Lauren Kugler and Ella Fahrlander. Lauren is executive director of the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley; Ella is assistant vice president of development at Western Colorado University and serves on RMBL’s board. Both say early wanderings around Gothic and RMBL- influenced school programs fostered their respect for science and community interconnection. Ella recalls returning to Gothic on a board tour after years on the Front Range. “It felt imprinted – the crisp air, with a hint of skunk cabbage, brought back Fourth of July parades with scientists in costume,” she says. Now working in philanthropy, she values RMBL’s longevity, multi-decade snow records, long-term studies, and deep commitment to place. Lauren highlights RMBL’s collaborative role as the valley’s oldest nonprofit among more than 100 organizations. “It’s history, staffing, international reach make it a vital partner and mentor, especially for younger groups,” she says.

RMBL’s deepest roots lie in long-term datasets: a 98-year-old herbarium and more than 14 studies spanning 30 to 60 years on snowpack, pollinators, stream invertebrates, and plant phenology. Among them is the 60-plus-year marmot study begun in 1962 by Ken Armitage and continued by Dan Blumstein — a study of individual mammals second only to Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee research. Ken’s daughter, Tony Award­-winning Karole Armitage, grew up at RMBL, spending childhood summers here since the marmot project began. Now an iconic choreographer (search “Who is the punk ballerina?” and you’ll find her), she founded Armitage Gone! Dance and has credits including Madonna’s “Vogue” video and collaborations with American Ballet Theatre and the Paris Opera Ballet. Karole recalls backpacking from Gothic to Aspen for ballet in the 1960s.

On a rare snowy night in a historically dry year, Karole joined our RMBL Reads book club in the new RMBL 365 space in downtown Crested Butte to discuss Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man. We joked that she deserved credit for the snow, as she was in town for an informal screening of the “Waltz of the Snowflakes” from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, performed by Crested Butte School of Dance dancers and filmed at Sam Robards’ home in 2025. Perhaps we did have Karole and these local youth dancers to thank for the moisture.

Karole recalls, “I was one of Dad’s research assistants, setting traps and, when a marmot was in the trap, weighing them, watching the blood draw, tagging and painting them with identifying dye marks – all with my father and brothers. He also had me counting marmot leukocytes in the lab and studying hummingbirds at our cabin, the ‘Marmitage.”‘ Asked how RMBL science influenced her career, Karole does not hesitate. “My RMBL childhood summers gave me invaluable cultural information as well as a scientific education,” she says. “To be an artist or a great scientist means embracing creativity, precision, discipline, humility, humor, and comfort with being outside the mainstream of American life. I learned all of that through many extraordinary scientists at RMBL, including my father. Art and science require a deep understanding of the status quo before questioning assumptions to find new perspectives in one’s field.”

What do a filmmaker, physician, nonprofit leader, builder, philanthropist, and choreographer share? Formative RM BL experiences. As Neil puts it,”The ‘secret sauce’ isn’t only the alpine ecosystem. It’s the human ecosystem — drawing people back, year after year.”

— John Hausdoerffer, PhD
RMBL Director of Story and Advancement

Top: Neil Losin near Gothic in 2003. Photo | Courtesy Neil Losin