Katalina Villarreal: Jeffrey Grimmer, you are the executive director of the Adam Palmer Sustainability Fund.
Geoffrey Grimmer: Correct. And I should tell you I'm an elected official in the town of Eagle; I've been on that council kind of on and off since 2015, but I got back on it when Adam Palmer passed away.
Grimmer described the impact of Palmer’s death in Eagle’s community and explained how the Adam Palmer Sustainability Fund grew out of his legacy.
Grimmer: The town was in a bit of a crisis 'cause we lost two council members in that single avalanche. Luke Carton, who is the founder of Mountain Towns 2030, is a Park City sustainability director. He's kind of done it all. He called me up after Adam passed and said, "Grimmer, please don't put a plaque in the park for Adam Palmer. He would never want his name on some cheesy plaque." He said, "What you should do is come over to Park City, and we'll show you how our Park City Community Fund works, including our Climate Action Fund, and why it's so important to our net zero targets." And we went over and met with him, and that was cool 'cause Adam and I had actually been in Park City together for Mountain Towns 2030 back in 2019, which was the first year with Jane Goodall. You wouldn't believe it. And so from that vantage point, I was able to kind of rally the community around this idea of a Climate Action Fund. That's definitely one of the solutions that we would propose from the film to any community, is to think carefully about having your government partner with a 501 (c)(3) who can kind of work inside out to secure state and federal grants.
Villarreal: And you guys are bringing a film to Carbondale called The Casual Enormity of Adam Palmer.
Grimmer: Yeah. We're super psyched to bring this film to Carbondale. It's subtle, but I think we have this really interesting relationship with Carbondale, and so we're really excited to share this film: 77 minutes about an incredible climate action leader.
Villarreal: So he passed away in 2021 in an avalanche, and has the documentary been in the works since then to highlight his life, or when did that take shape?
Grimmer: It just kind of took shape in the last 12 months or so. The Palmer Fund was introduced to a climate film director, Todd Anders Johnson. We got to see his first film, Cresta Alta, and were super impressed with the way he told that story. We felt with Adam we had a good story, and we just wanted to find a good storyteller, and so Todd's been that.
Villarreal: Can you tell me what the Adam Palmer Sustainability Fund works towards?
Grimmer: Yeah. So most of our work is guided by a framework called drawdown; it prioritizes different pollution reduction solutions in a community. So for Carbondale, your big ones are gonna be transportation, right? So that may be a little bit heavier on your plan, you know, than maybe, hmm, like at Crested Butte. They don't need to deal with that as much. But I think within each of these mountain communities, there are big buckets, and your number one bucket for sure is energy source. Holy Cross Energy is featured in the film – and for good reason – and you get to follow the journey of Megan Gilman, who's been appointed by Governor Polis to the Public Utilities Commission, and she's a former Holy Cross board member and also just an old friend of Adam's.
Villarreal: Then there are panelists. Can you tell me, will those people be speaking before or after the film?
Grimmer: Yeah, the panel goes on about 8:10. And Erica Sparhawk, the mayor of Carbondale, and she is also a former colleague and collaborator with Adam Palmer from some of the early days of regional sustainability efforts. So she's an absolute OG. And then a guy named Peter Hurt is the legal director for Wilderness Workshop, who does tremendous work at the regional, but also at the state and federal level. He'll be really fun to hear from. He and Adam went on bike rides across America, so that'll be interesting to hear. And then Elizabeth Velasco is a dear friend of mine and is also the state representative from House District 57, and she's a total badass. I'm gonna try to get her to talk a little bit about environmental justice and making sure that we have a vision forward for these communities that involves many different perspectives.
Villarreal: And that's kind of the attitude that Adam carried through life, was to just go all in.
Grimmer: Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. If not you, who's it gonna be? I think, like, one thing that makes this dude cool is his dad won three Purple Hearts. So he was raised by, like, the positive version of soldiers' resolve, you know? He just had, like, tons of tenacity and, I mean, he just goes after it. Everything he goes after is, like, success, and he's bringing people with him, which the whole thing is amazing.
