Jamin Heady-Smith never thought of volunteering as optional.

While growing up on the Kansas plains, Heady-Smith and his family spent countless hours volunteering within their community.

“I didn’t realize volunteering was optional until I was an adult,” he joked.

Through those countless hours of helping others, Heady-Smith learned the importance of respecting and caring for the places and people that are most important to him.

He moved to Glenwood Springs in 2006 after getting a job, shifting his life from the plains to the heart of the Rockies without knowing anyone. He gravitated toward what he knew, and within a month, he found himself volunteering with Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers (RFOV).

“I literally Googled ‘volunteer trail group Glenwood Springs,’ and I found RFOV,” he said. “I signed up for a project on National Trails Day on the Scout Trail, and I had a blast. I met dear friends that day that I still talk to today.”

Heady-Smith immediately connected with RFOV, drawn to both their commitment to stewardship and the opportunities to work with his hands in nature.

“I volunteered on the Glenwood project, and then the Monday morning after, they had project registrations for all the projects for me for the rest of the year,” he recalled.

Heady-Smith’s first trail maintenance project with RFOV happened nearly 20 years ago, and he immediately saw how seriously the organization took stewardship, with a strong focus on preserving the community’s relationship with nature.

“Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers always keep their stewardship aspect at the front and center of their mindset,” Heady-Smith said. “If anyone is asking, ‘Why are we doing this?’ there is a pretty clear answer: ‘Because we care about what we use.'”

After that first project, keeping Heady-Smith off the trails and away from volunteer events became nearly impossible. By 2007, less than a year later, he was leading crews during renovation events. That same year, he earned the Pulaski Award, given to the volunteer who participates in the most workdays. His dedication culminated in nine years on the RFOV board, including several as the chair.

“I did several projects in 2006. In 2007, I went through crew leader training and was able to lead crews. I started instructing crew leader training in 2008, and by 2011, I was on the board,” he said. “In those days, it was way before there was any real staff. It was basically an Executive Director and an administrative employee — and that was about it. There were a lot of committees, and everything was very volunteer-driven.”

Heady-Smith worked on various committees, helping RFOV with everything from retaining crew leaders to fundraising and vetting project proposals to take to the Bureau of Land Management.

“The current RFOV Program Manager has a saying that goes, ‘Stewardship is taking care of the things that you care about,’ and that really resonates with me,” Heady-Smith said.

Though Heady-Smith grew up on the Kansas plains, he didn’t have immediate access to nature the way we do in the Roaring Fork Valley. His first experience in untouched wilderness came in 1998, thanks to his father’s encouragement and the support of the Student Conservation Association (SCA).

He traveled to the Minnesota-Canada border for his first environmental conservation mission at Voyageurs National Park—and he fell in love with the stewardship experience.

“SCA is an opportunity for teenagers to do conservation work,” Heady-Smith explained. “I had never done anything like that before. We went to an army surplus store a couple weeks before because I literally didn’t have anything on the gear list. Spending time doing canoe-based backcountry work was such an amazing experience, and I think that was what initially lit the fire for wanting to continue acts of stewardship.”

Since that first environmental conservation mission in 1998, Heady-Smith has been hooked on the way outdoor volunteering allows him to see the immediate impact of his work—whether it’s building a trail or restoring a habitat.

“I have a desk job now,” he said. “But when I’m out there, working on a project, I feel like I’m doing something real, something I can see. It’s a way to stay connected to nature, and it’s a way to give back.”