“RMBL’s science has always moved at the ‘pace of place.’ Because our researchers have worked patiently and with intention for decades, society is now better prepared to respond to the challenges of climate, water, food, and resilience. RMBL sometimes moves slowly so society can respond swiftly. The next century of RMBL is about ensuring that this depth of knowledge connects meaningfully to the world.”
— John Hausdoerffer, Director of Story and Strategic Partnerships 

As the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) approaches its Centennial, we are reflecting not only on a remarkable first hundred years of discovery, but also on how we intentionally carry that legacy forward. The next century of RMBL will require blending knowledge, place, and impact. It will require connection, trust, relevance, and partnership. That is why the role of Director of Story and Strategic Partnerships, held by John Hausdoerffer, PhD, is so central to RMBL’s future. 

I first came to know John through our shared work launching successful academic programs at Western. As we began shaping RMBL’s next century, it was clear that his vision and leadership in environmental humanities, climate science and ethics were exactly what the organization needed at this moment.  

John’s work focuses on weaving data, story, strategic partnerships, and social impact together to help move RMBL forward into its next century. His role is not about marketing science, but about ensuring that RMBL’s science is understood, trusted, and positioned to inform the world at a time when deep, place-based knowledge has never mattered more. 

A Century of Discovery Rooted in Place 

For more than one hundred years, RMBL has been a place where science happens deliberately and deeply over decades. Researchers return to the same field sites year after year, now century over century, building long term datasets that reveal patterns invisible in short term studies. 

One powerful example is RMBL’s extensive snow, plant, and pollinator datasets. These records documented shifting snowpack timing, changing flowering dates, and altered pollinator behavior long before climate change entered mainstream conversation. Because this work unfolded patiently and rigorously over time, these data now inform environmental modeling, conservation strategies, and land management decisions across the American West and globally. This depth of discovery did not happen by accident. It emerged from a culture of belonging, humility, and curiosity, where scientists listen closely to what the place reveals. Even though John is new to the RMBL staff, this unique culture of belonging to snow and mountains first drew John to the valley in 1992. That culture remains one of RMBL’s greatest strengths—a culture that John long admired from bike rides and backcountry ski tours and is now honored—as we move into our second century. 

Story as Strategy for the Next Century 

John’s work begins with a simple but powerful premise: data alone does not create impact. Story is what allows science to travel beyond academic journals into public understanding, education, policy conversations, and real-world action. 

“RMBL is not built on one story, but many,” John reflected. “When we braid those ways of knowing together, place-based science becomes a powerful force for understanding and impact. Rather than a single narrative, I see RMBL as a ‘storyshed.’ Like a watershed fed by many tributaries, RMBL is shaped by hundreds of scientists each summer, thousands of field sites, diverse disciplines, the stories of countless members of diverse species and systems, and many ways of knowing in connecting with them.” 

In John’s view, ecology should intersect with engineering, ethics, art, Indigenous knowledge, and lived community experience. John’s role is to gather, translate, and strategically share these stories, so they reinforce one another and extend RMBL’s impact. 

This approach reflects John’s broader career. An author and editor of environmental works including Wildness: Relations of People and Place, Kinship (with Robin Wall Kimmerer), What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?, and An Elemental Life, John has spent decades translating science, ethics, and place-based knowledge for broad audiences. He joined RMBL in April 2025, bringing with him a deep commitment to turning knowledge into connection. 

John continues to teach environmental ethics and philosophy of science at Western Colorado University, where he has been a professor since 2001 and served as the founding Dean of the Clark Family School of Environment and Sustainability. RMBL had an unexpected role in John’s early career as a teacher. As John remembered, “I took the first class I ever taught, in the Summer 2001 semester, up to Gothic to watch Paul Ehrlich speak. The complicated and dynamic discussion my class had on the long drive following Paul’s talk convinced me I had chosen the right career!”  

RMBL 365 as a Platform for Year-Round Impact 

A key part of RMBL’s next century is RMBL 365, our year-round presence in Crested Butte. RMBL 365 is not simply a building. As John commented, “RMBL 365 itself, like Gothic, will be one of the storytellers of RMBL, as well as a convener and connector.” From the moment we began to explore the 365 purchase, John began to develop this vision of a building as a storyteller. 

Emerging from the creativity of our development team, RMBL 365’s outdoor science and education programs, Après Science talks, retreats, think tanks, and community gatherings will extend the science and spirit of Gothic into the everyday life of the valley and beyond. Winter Après Science programs invite the public to hear directly from scientists after a day outdoors, creating informal but powerful bridges between discovery and community understanding of why science matters. Explorer Club experiences like these bring participants into the field with leading scientists, deepening engagement with place and research. 

John is working with RMBL’s development team to co-launch RMBL Reads with Arvin Ramgoolam from Townie Books, another example of how RMBL 365 is becoming a shared learning space for the valley. This new book club series brings together community members around ideas that shape how we understand place, science, and change, using books recommended by RMBL staff and scientists. Hosted at RMBL 365 on February 18 and March 11 at 4:30 pm, RMBL Reads is helping create a kind of Crested Butte intellectual commons rooted in curiosity, conversation, and connection. These gatherings reflect one of the core goals of RMBL 365: to bring together nonprofits, educators, scientists, artists, and community members around shared learning and conversation. 

John has joined RMBL leadership in helping our community imagine how RMBL 365 can host retreats and convenings for nonprofit leaders, educators, policymakers, land stewards, and community resilience practitioners. In a recent conversation, John shared that “these gatherings allow RMBL science to inform real world decisions while inviting new perspectives back into the lab” and extend the spirit of Gothic beyond the summer field season, bringing people together throughout the year. 

Strategic Partnerships That Expand Reach and Relevance 

Another central focus of John’s role is building strategic partnerships that grow organically from RMBL science while expanding its national and global relevance. This March, for example, John and I will travel to Andorra to connect with mountain researchers and advocates at the United Nations Mountain Partnership meeting, an organization that John has presented to and partnered with in past positions. 

Another example is the collaboration between RMBL researchers and engineers at Western Colorado University’s Rady School of Engineering. By pairing long-term ecological data with advanced sensing, modeling, and machine learning, these teams are generating more precise insights into climate, hydrology, and ecosystem dynamics. John works alongside these researchers to identify which stories matter most, who needs to hear them, who should write them (offering writing coaching if desired), and how to share them across audiences ranging from policymakers to donors to the broader public. 

John is also helping cultivate emerging partnerships with Indigenous leaders and communities, reflecting his career-long passion and background reaching back to his PhD focus on the relationship between early environmental movements and Indigenous communities. One beginning collaboration involves Ute Mountain Ute leader Regina Lopez Whiteskunk and RMBL plant phenologists. As climate disruption alters the timing of plant emergence used to guide cultural ceremonies.

RMBL scientists and Indigenous experts will collaborate to better understand and respond to these changes. These partnerships reflect RMBL’s commitment to braiding ways of knowing in respectful, reciprocal, and forward-looking ways. 

Looking Ahead to RMBL’s Second Century 

As RMBL enters its Centennial, the opportunity before us is clear. The world needs places that do not rush to discovery but instead build the depth of understanding required to respond with clarity and purpose to complex challenges. 

RMBL’s second century will deepen social impact by translating long term science into story and action. It will expand education across the full K-through-lifelong learning spectrum. It will strengthen partnerships that connect local, place-based research to global challenges related to climate, water, food, air, and resilience. 

John explained, “from the perspective of ecological time, RMBL is just getting started. Our first century coincided with a period of rapid environmental change and learning. The next century is about understanding how many ways of knowing can help us belong more fully to place, to one another, and to the future. And to model that for all places.” 

That is the story of RMBL’s next century, and it is one we are building together. 

RMBL is just getting started. 

-Article written by RMBL Executive Director, Jeni Blacklock