{"id":25207,"date":"2024-10-23T17:51:18","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T23:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-welcomes-a-new-general-services-director\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:12:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:12:00","slug":"cortez-welcomes-a-new-general-services-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-welcomes-a-new-general-services-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez welcomes a new general services director"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Casey
Casey Simpson. (Courtesy City of Cortez)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The city of Cortez announced on Oct. 22 that it hired a new general services director, a position that had been vacant for a few months.<\/p>\n

The new hire is Casey Simpson, a Park City native and graduate of Fort Lewis College.<\/p>\n

He lives near Summit Ridge now, on a small farm with his wife and daughter. They have an orchard and raise Dexter cattle in the county, according to a news release.<\/p>\n

Having grown up in Park City, he learned to love the outdoors and \u201cits small community feel,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n

When he graduated high school, Fort Lewis College felt like a natural progression for the outdoor enthusiast \u201cdrawn to \u2026 the rugged wilderness of the southern San Juan Mountains,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n

In 2006, he officially earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in history from Fort Lewis College. Upon graduation, he became a backpacking guide while simultaneously building custom homes in the mountains outside of Fort Collins, Simpson said.<\/p>\n

Simpson called himself a \u201clearner for life,\u201d so it\u2019s no wonder he went back to school and got a master\u2019s degree in education from Regis University in Denver.<\/p>\n

He ultimately went back to Fort Lewis, too, and underwent a one-year, online Principal Leadership Program to get his principal licensure.<\/p>\n

After, he got his start at Southwest Open High School as an instructor.<\/p>\n

Three years later, he was promoted to the position of academic lead, where he worked on the curriculum side of things. Not long after that, he was promoted to the executive director position at the alternative, outdoor education-centric school in Cortez.<\/p>\n

His last day at Southwest Open High School is Dec. 12, days before he steps into the new general services director role.<\/p>\n

Simpson said he has already agreed to stay on the school\u2019s board in the short term as a nonvoting member, and that he intends to make sure everything\u2019s in place at SWOS before he moves on.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll also continue serving on the board of the Four Corners Recycling Initiative.<\/p>\n

As far as the director role goes, Simpson said he\u2019s most excited to keep growing, learning and meeting new people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city staff is so kind, and have been already; especially the leadership team,\u201d said Simpson. \u201cThey have a lot of knowledge and I\u2019m excited to learn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, he looks forward to expanding his \u201cleadership toolbox\u201d in a community where people work toward shared goals and know one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to bring a new set of eyes and ideas to what the city already does pretty well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know Casey personally but I have always heard good things about him,\u201d said Cortez Mayor Rachel Medina. \u201cI\u2019m excited that we were able to find someone who is already invested in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simpson will start on Dec. 16 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25207","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=25207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78844,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25207\/revisions\/78844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25207"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}