Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct date of TPL President and CEO Diane Regas’ upcoming retirement.

On Tuesday, nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL) announced the appointment of Carrie Besnette Hauser as its incoming President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), according to a TPL news release. 

Trust for Public Land is a national nonprofit with offices in 32 states, including Colorado, that works to connect everyone to the benefits and joys of the outdoors, including underserved rural, urban, and tribal communities. The organization works with communities to create parks and protect public land where they are needed most, according to the release. 

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“I’m really excited, it’s been a hard one to keep under tabs,” Hauser told the Post Independent. “We were just all waiting for today.” 

Hauser, Colorado Mountain College’s longest-serving president and CEO for nearly 11 years, announced in March that she would be retiring from the position effective Aug. 16. 

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Under her leadership, CMC was named a Hispanic Serving Institution, invested over $100 million in campus facilities and affordable housing, and increased graduation rates to historic levels among nearly every student group while closing equity gaps, according to the news release. For her historic tenure and accomplishments, Hauser will conclude her service with CMC as the first President Emerita in the college’s history.   

In April, CMC announced Matt Gianneschi as the sole candidate for its new president and CEO after an internal search for qualified candidates within the college. Having previously served as CMC’s chief operating officer, he officially assumed the position on July 1. 

Hauser was selected by the TPL board of directors after a national search for the organization’s next President and CEO, with support from the national search firm Boardwalk Consulting. The selection of Hauser was recommended by a transition committee of current and former TPL board members to the full national board, which voted unanimously to award the position to Hauser, according to the release. 

“I mean, it’s a core love for the outdoors,” Hauser said about her motivation for taking the job. “CMC does a lot in this space, our brand is to train students for hospitality and the outdoor industry in our mountain region … a lot of our students are trained in environmental science and sustainability studies … the nature of the college and all that outdoor brand drew me to the college in the first place.” 

In addition to an educational focus on the outdoors, Hauser has served on the Great Outdoors Colorado board, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife commission and the National Board of American Rivers.  

“It seems like a really natural next step, it’s kind of a continuation of a lot of that work,” Hauser said. 

Hauser’s tenure at TPL will begin on Oct. 1, 2024, during which she will be based in Colorado. She succeeds President and CEO Diane Regas, who will retire in October after Hauser takes over. 

“We are thrilled to welcome Carrie as our next President and CEO,” Lucas St. Clair, chair of TPL’s board of directors, said in the release. “Her passion for the outdoors, commitment to equitable access to nature, and extensive community leadership will propel TPL’s mission and team forward. Carrie understands the profound impact that access to the outdoors can have on individuals and communities, and her leadership will help us bring these benefits to even more people across the country.”   

Hauser said she felt her work at CMC has helped to prepare her for her new role, as both organizations share several similarities. One of her first duties will be to participate in a strategic planning process, which was also one of her first responsibilities at CMC. 

“I feel like I had a good experience there and had a sense of what works and maybe what didn’t work so well, and how to pull a big, distributed organization together,” she said, comparing CMC’s 11 scattered campuses to TLP’s roughly 30 offices all over the country. 

Although her work will require her to travel often, Hauser said the habit hits close to home.

“At CMC I have an office … but I’m not in it very much,” she laughed. “I get teased for how much I’m on the road … People say, ‘Well, where’s your office?’ And I say, ‘At’s a red Subaru ascent.'” 

Hauser’s leadership will advance key TLP initiatives such as transforming asphalt schoolyards into green spaces, ensuring a 10-minute walk to a park for everyone, preserving Black history and culture sites, partnering with Indigenous communities, making communities more resilient to climate change through landscape-scale conservation, and more, according to the news release. 

“I am so excited to join Trust for Public Land and its passionate team of staff, partners, donors, and community partners,” Hauser stated in the release. “TPL’s powerful and impactful purpose of ensuring that the outdoors and nature are accessible and beneficial to everyone is a positive and unifying goal that is so needed in our society. Whether collaborating to open a neighborhood park in a densely populated city, expand or connect hiking and biking trails, or preserve ranches with sprawling landscapes essential to migrating birds, animals, and thriving rural economies. TPL’s blended commitment to equitable outdoor access in both rural and urban communities make it uniquely positioned to elevate and expand the transformative power of the outdoors.”    

Since 1972, TPL has protected 4 million acres of public land, created 5,420 parks and trails, created over 200 Community Schoolyards projects and raised $94 billion in public funding for parks and public lands, the release states. 

Before stepping into her new role, Hauser said she plans to take a short vacation with her husband to travel and climb Mt. Whitney in California. After that, it’s all hands on deck. 

“We live in this beautiful, incredible place,” Hauser said. “The Roaring Fork Valley and a lot of the other mountain communities where CMC operates, (I wanted) to be able to protect them and to do this at a national level.”