{"id":21490,"date":"2025-07-11T19:40:53","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T01:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-accelerator-program-for-entrepreneurs-gets-new-executive-director\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:06:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:06:54","slug":"southwest-colorado-accelerator-program-for-entrepreneurs-gets-new-executive-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-accelerator-program-for-entrepreneurs-gets-new-executive-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs gets new executive director"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Heather
Heather Otter, right, will take over as executive director for the Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs from Elizabeth Marsh, left, in August. (Courtesy)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Heather Otter has been appointed as executive director for the startup mentorship nonprofit Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

In August, Otter will take over SCAPE\u2019s executive director position from Elizabeth Marsh, who served for more than 11 years. She said she wants to continue Marsh\u2019s work to stimulate Durango\u2019s local startup economy and foster economic growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really dedicated to helping emerging businesses scale, grow and have access to what they need,\u201d Otter said. \u201cEspecially in what can be a competitive environment, I want to make sure that our emerging businesses here in Southwest Colorado have the tools and the funding they need to accomplish their dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

SCAPE is a 501(c) nonprofit organization that seeks to mentor fledgling business startups in the Southwest by offering them resources such as education, guidance and exposure to local investors, Marsh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have about 60 businesses in our portfolio, and have helped them raise about $60 million,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of what we do is getting the company to the place where it makes sense to invest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marsh said that SCAPE partners with 65 local investors, and that the organization helped local companies such as Farm to Summit, Base Medical and Timber Age, get their starts.<\/p>\n

Otter currently works in the Colorado Region Nine Economic Development Office, which is how she learned about SCAPE.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the work that we do in the economic development district focuses on job creation in one way or another,\u201d she said. \u201cThe partnership between SCAPE and Region Nine has been in existence for quite some time, over a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otter has a background in education and has worked to start small businesses of her own. But as a long time Colorado resident, she is excited to help grow the community she loves by bringing in more businesses, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lived in Southwest Colorado for over 35 years,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of my excitement and enthusiasm is just that many of our startups, our entrepreneurs and our businesses contribute greatly to the communities that they live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

sedmondson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heather Otter takes torch from SCAPE\u2019s Elizabeth Marsh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77332,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21490\/revisions\/77332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21490"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}