President/Treasurer: Lori Hawkins(photo taken from The Cheyenne Mountain Run, Oct 8, 2022-25K) 
Lori joined the Board in November 2021, but has enjoyed the park for many years. She’s run the Cheyenne Mountain Run 6 times!!! Lori recently retired after 20 years as Accounting Supervisor at Harrison School District 2, and has served as Treasurer, Editor, Timer, and Secretary for Pikes Peak Road Runners, so she is well-suited to the job of Treasurer. She has lived in Colorado for 30 years and can’t imagine living anywhere else!
Vice President, Past President: Pat Cooper 
Pat retired from Banking after working in the field for 28 years: she was an Agriculture Banker for 12 years and then moved into residential Mortgage lending for 16 years. She was raised on a Ranch in Northern NM and is a graduate of NMSU. After retiring, she finally had the opportunity to pursue her passion for the outdoors and since has been an active Volunteer at CMSP. Her primary activities in the Park are Native Plants, Bird/Raptor Monitoring and helps manage the Native Plant Gardens. Pat is an avid hiker, swimmer, traveler and golfer.
Secretary: Lori O’Hare 
Lori is a retired School Psychologist who began volunteering for State Parks in 1998 at Castlewood Canyon State Park. When CMSP was on the drawing board, she and her husband Jerry helped start the Friends of Cheyenne Mountain State Park in 2002. It was exciting to see the park built from the ground up. After serving as the Secretary for many years, she became Vice President in 2011. She enjoys doing special events and trail hosting at the park.
Past President: Jack Busher 
Jack is a retired teacher who spent 41 years in the education profession, the last 33 years in the Cheyenne Mountain School District as an English and Video Production instructor. Jack came to Colorado in 1972 from the Cleveland, Ohio area. He enjoys hiking, biking, backpacking, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing.
Realizing that the trails he was enjoying needed someone to take care of them, he volunteered with several organizations including the Volunteer Conservation Corps, The National Forest Service and the National Park Service.
Upon retiring from teaching in 2006, Jack took advantage of the newly opened CMSP as a place to continue his passion for trail work. Initially “just another volunteer,” he joined the Friends of Cheyenne Mountain, became a board member, and has been president of the organization since 2011.
He coordinates the park’s trail volunteers, and recently began a series of sawyer training classes so he can work with the newly organized Fire Mitigation Program at the park. Jack is also a member of the park’s History Committee. Another project was the writing and editing of the Park’s Trail Guide, which is a source of revenue for the Friends.
Membership: Ralph Cadwallader 
Ralph retired from Evans Army Community Hospital, Fort Carson in 1995. After 4 years working at Hospitals in Denver he began his second career as a Director, Material Services Consulting, Carefusion Corporation, San Diego, CA, retiring from that career in 2012. Living “next door to Cheyenne Mountain State Park” Ralph immediately began his volunteering at Cheyenne Mountain State Park. Ralph’s love of the outdoors and his past trail running experiences caused him to begin volunteering as a trail dog maintaining and building trails within the park as well as other parks in Colorado. His interest in fire mitigation caused him volunteer for the park sponsored 2013 sawyer training resulting in becoming a certified sawyer. He now is the crew leader on the very active fuel/fire mitigation crew, actively creating fire breaks with in the park and maintaining past mitigated areas. Ralph has been selected as “Volunteer of the Year” both in 2013 and 2014.
Grant Administrator: Jennifer Palmes 
Jennifer is currently a Director for a global cyber security company, and has worked for corporate technology companies for the past 20 year in various leadership roles. Before getting into the high-tech industry she was a High School History/Geography Teacher in the International Baccalaureate Program and she coached sports. A Colorado native, she grew up loving nature and the outdoors and during her time off she enjoys traveling, camping, hiking and leading electric bike tours through Garden of the Gods. Jennifer is a former CMSP volunteer, she was a member of the history committee, led interpretative hikes in the park and taught boater safety classes to the public.
Board Member: Bob Falcone
Bob brings a wealth of experience to our team and we are thrilled to be able to tap into his expertise. Bob was previously the president of the Friends of Cheyenne Canon Park in Colorado Springs, and was also a member of the El Paso County Parks Advisory Board for six years, four of which he served as its chair. Bob currently serves on the City of Colorado Springs TOPS Working Committee, is a member of the Trails and Open Space Coalitions Advocacy Board and the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance ‘s Advisory Committee.
For many years, Bob also wrote a weekly column on outdoor recreation for the Colorado Springs Independent, while also hosting and producing the award-winning weekly “Outdoors with Hiking Bob” podcast. He makes frequent appearances on local TV news broadcasts on topics related to outdoor recreation, and writes articles for other publications.
As a volunteer at Cheyenne Mountain State Park, he was instrumental in creating a Trails Ambassador program, which at the time, was the only such program in a Colorado State Park. An author, accomplished photographer, retired career firefighter and Air Force veteran, Bob has lived in Colorado Springs with his wife Joanne for more than 30 years. He can often be found hiking and photographing landscapes somewhere in the American Southwest and beyond, usually with his loyal side-kick, Coal the dog.
Rick began volunteering with CMSP before it was a Park. His first volunteer project was to remove over 1 mile of barbed wire in the vicinity of where Sundance and lower Talon trails were eventually built. Before the Park opened, he led community groups on hikes and introduced them to Park plans that were up for review. He also worked on all park trails with professional and volunteer trail building organizations prior to and after Park opening. Currently Rick volunteers with the Trail Dogs, Timber Tigers and Friends projects. Recently Rick retired for the fourth time! However he is working part time as a healthcare supply chain consultant. In addition to his time volunteering with CMSP, he also volunteers with other outdoor organizations.
As his final assignment, Ron was a Senior Program Manager for the Stanford University Medical Center Renewal Project; supporting Stanford in the design and delivery of its New Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Expansion in Palo Alto, California.
The son of a military officer, Ron’s first Rocky Mountain experience came by way of his father’s assignment to Fort Carson in 1974. Ron was immediately taken by the beauty and history of the greater Pikes Peak region and Cheyenne Mountain; which he considers home. Ron is a graduate of Fountain Fort Carson High School and Colorado State University.
Ron loves the outdoors, and enjoys hiking, fly tying/fishing, horseback riding and scuba diving. Living next to Cheyenne Mountain State Park provided a natural opportunity to get involved helping to preserve the parks spectacular lands and participate in planning the parks future in collaboration with Park leadership and the Friends. Ron is a member of the Timber Tigers and routine supporter of the Cheyenne Mountain Run.
Back row L to R-Jack Busher, Bob Falcone, Lori Hawkins, Ralph Cadwallader, Jennif
Front row L to R Pat Cooper, Lori O’Hare and Rick Upton. Missing Jennifer Palmes and Ron Rasmussen.
