About ForU
Our Mission:
To restore and protect the Uncompahgre River ecosystem while enhancing our community’s connection to the river.
Our Vision:
A healthy Uncompahgre River winding through verdant wetlands, forests, and the heart of our community where we live, work, play, learn, connect, and appreciate each other and nature.
What We Do
Friends of the River Uncompahgre (ForU) is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) non-profit looking to activate Montrose to become a river-centric community focused on our well-being as a collateral benefit to a healthy river and riparian area. We believe that a healthy river supports a healthy community, benefitting our population, economy, and environment.
Healthy Fish
Healthy Wildlife
Healthy Riparian
Healthy Community
Healthy Economy
Healthy Water
Riparian Restoration
Improving and protecting the habitat in the riparian corridor for recreation, wildlife, water quality, drought and disease resistance, and downstream agriculture.
Trail Work
Maintaining trails along the river to provide safe recreation opportunities. Given the importance placed upon expanding trails from a survey conducted as part of our work program.
Education and Outreach
Maintaining trails along the river to provide safe recreation opportunities. Given the importance placed upon expanding trails from a survey conducted as part of our work program.
River Caretakers
When we see problems, we work to resolve them and to spread the word when potential hazards exist. As development of property along the river is proposed, ForU will analyze potential impacts on our river and work to protect our water quality, recreation access/amenities and riparian health.
Our History
ForU originally formed in 2006 and accomplished much over a decade including:
- Organization of cleanups and revegetation projects involving students
- Adoption of a River Corridor Overlay Zone in 2009 as section 4-4-20 of the City Code
- Completion of the Riverway Master Plan in 2011
- Initiation of the FUNC Festival in 2015
- Support for land acquisitions for boating access, walking paths and habitat protection
Reactivated in 2023, ForU remains a volunteer-run organization continuing the work started nearly two decades ago.
Who We Are
Board of Directors:
Melanie Rees
Board President
Melanie grew up playing in cold, clear Appalachian rivers. The lure of the Rockies soon brought her to Colorado and a 40+ year career in economic development and workforce housing. Retiring to Montrose in 2016, she came to love the Uncompahgre – walking with her dog beside it, padding her kayak on the Town Run, and organizing a cleanup where others in the community could share their appreciation for our river. Melanie has made new friends along the river, enjoyed birding with Audubon, watched a mink swim a wave, and even tried surfing.
Amanda Clements
Board Vice President
Amanda has lived in the Montrose area since the early 1990s when she joined the Bureau of Land Management as an ecologist. There, she inventoried, monitored, and did restoration projects on the Gunnison, San Miguel, and Dolores Rivers, and many of their tributaries. Now retired, she has more time to boat the Uncompahgre, wander its banks, and lend a helping hand.
Torie Jarvis
Board Secretary
Torie has lived in Montrose fifteen years. Her family told her she could swim before she could walk, and she grew up swimming competitively and became a whitewater rafting guide as soon as she turned 18. Torie grew up in the southeast and headed to southwestern Colorado after college, where she spent summers on the San Miguel River before making her way to Montrose to be close to the Gunnison Gorge. Then Montrose built better river access and a whitewater park, and she now considers the Uncompahgre her home river. When she’s not floating, fishing, or surfing, Torie is a local government and environmental attorney with the firm Sullivan Green Seavy LLC.
Mike Cavanaugh
Board Member At-Large
Dr. Michael Cavanaugh is a veterinarian who has a variety of experiences in his career, having owned his own animal hospital, worked in the veterinary pharmaceutical industry
and served as CEO of the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA). Mike is semi-retired now. During his practice years, he held numerous volunteer leadership and committee positions within AAHA. He became a Diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (canine and feline) in 1996 and was recertified in 2006. Dr. Cavanaugh has been recognized by institutions such as Kansas State University and the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association for his achievements in veterinary medicine. He formed Cavanaugh Veterinary Consulting, LLC in 2020, where he works with veterinary practices and companies in the animal health industry to help them achieve their goals and the greatest success possible. Mike also works part-time at Second Chance Humane Society helping animals find forever homes. Dr. Cavanaugh and his wife of 43 years, Beth, live in Montrose, CO. They share their home with two border collies, Holly and Seamus, and recently adopted a kitten named Mo. They have two adult children, Kevin who lives in Denver and Caitlyn and husband Andrew who live in Tacoma, WA. Mike is an avid outdoorsman, enjoying camping, rafting and kayaking
in the summer and skiing, snow shoeing and ice climbing in the winter. He is passionate about keeping our rivers healthy and accessible for all stakeholders.
Rachel Gaines
Board Treasurer
Rachel has a wide background ranging from firefighting and music to underwater robotics and engineering. Though she works in the tech sector, her passions are the Arts and the outdoors. She enjoys learning most anything related to the natural world from soil and mycelial networks to ecological relationships between people and their environments. As a new-comer to the Uncompahgre, she enjoys fishing and is ready to try out surfing and rafting. Her other hobbies include snowboarding, as well as hiking and exploring with her three sweet mutts. She’s excited to help ForU help the river and the community by serving as treasurer and helping on grant and website work.
Martha Hut
Board Member
The Grand Canyon changed Martha’s life. After a trip with Grand Canyon Dories, she resigned from her career job in Tennessee and headed West. She landed in Winter Park, Grand County, Colorado where she lived for 45 years. As a ski bum, her working life took many turns including rafting guide on the upper Colorado River. She also was a founding member of Colorado Headwaters Land Trust in Grand County, CO, and shared the job as first director of the land trust.
Realizing that living in the high country was becoming more complex as they aged, Martha and her husband built a compressed earth block house in Montrose County, Co. They and their dog, Splash, became residents in 2023.
Martha has been fortunate to spend time rowing and enjoying our Western Rivers, as well as rivers around the world. Now she has the Uncompahgre in her backyard. She hopes to help the river maintain its’ natural state while she and others enjoy the river’s natural beauty.
Friends of the River Uncompahgre (ForU)
foru.montrose@gmail.com
Friends of the River Uncompahgre 