Water Fellow – Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy & the Environment
Mr. Garcia is a Water Fellow at the Getches-Wilkins Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment at Colorado Law. Additionally, he is an adjunct faculty member for Wake Forest’s Masters in the Studies of Law program, teaching the Public Law course. Prior to joining the GWC, Mr. Garcia was an enforcement attorney for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, where he worked as part of an agency-wide program to assist at-risk public water systems. He began a career focused on water and environmental issues because of his personal interest in preserving our public lands and water.

Colorado State University
Ms. Gimbel has a juris doctor degree from the University of Wyoming, a master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Delaware and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wyoming. She currently is the senior water policy scholar for the Colorado Water Center, based at Colorado State University. In this position she teaches a graduate seminar on water issues and develops policy strategy papers on issues facing the Colorado River and the Upper Basin states, of which Colorado is one. Before that, she served as the principal deputy assistant secretary for water and science in the Department of the Interior and was deputy commissioner for external and intergovernmental affairs for the Bureau of Reclamation. From 2008 to 2013, Gimbel was the director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a group within the Department of Natural Resources that works to protect and develop the state’s water resources.

Attorney , Somach Simmons & Dunn | Attorneys At Law
For over two decades, Ms. Kropf has impacted the status and outcome of some of the West’s most challenging water issues. Her experience is built on a unique combination of high-level legal work in both the private and public sectors where she has successfully handled cases with far-reaching, national implications. She is a shareholder with Somach Simmons & Dunn’s Boulder, Colorado office. Ms. Kropf joined the firm after completing an appointment as the deputy solicitor in the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. She currently mediates Indian water right settlements and other Reclamation matters in New Mexico and California, represents a variety of clients in the Colorado River Basin, along with work in Oregon’s Klamath Basin, Washington State, and other Colorado, regional, and interstate water matters. She is admitted to practice law in Colorado, Arizona, and Wyoming as well as the Federal District Court, Colorado, and the United States Supreme Court. She has also served as chair of the Water Resources Committee of the American Bar Association.

Mr. MacGregor is the Environmental and Natural Resources Specialization Lead in the Masters of the Environment professional degree program. He is also a Faculty Fellow at the University’s Law School, where he teaches courses on natural resources and directs the Acequia Project, a pro bono effort to provide Hispano irrigators in southern Colorado with legal services related to their land, water rights, and businesses. In addition to his academic role, he also owns and operates a cottage food business and is a Colorado Native Plant Master, teaching and consulting on landscape management.

Chief- Interstate, Federal, and Water Information Section – Colorado Water Conservation Board
Ms. Ostdiek is the Chief of the Interstate, Federal, and Water Information Section at the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Much of her work focuses on Colorado River matters, including supporting Commissioner Becky Mitchell in her role as Colorado’s principal negotiator on interstate Colorado River matters. Prior to joining CWCB, Ms. Ostdiek was an Assistant Attorney General with the Colorado River Subunit at the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. Ms. Ostdiek is originally from rural Western Nebraska. She attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Colorado Law School.