Thanks Ellen

You wouldn't be reading this blog if it wasn't for Ellen Winter.  Ellen joined GrassRoots six years ago and moved on last week.  With a staff of just four or five running two 24 hour TV stations, everyone not only wears several hats, but must also be damn good looking in all of them. 

Ellen, like pretty much everyone who works for the community at GrassRoots, operated studio and field cameras, edited video, directed live multi-camera shows, directed government meeting coverage, greeted guests, vaccumed, emptied the garbage and recyling, washed dishes, answered phones, chased down Pancho when he got freaked by the avalanche guns... 

But unlike everyone else, Ellen created, sold sponsorships, hosted and expertly field marshalled years of FreeRange Open Golf Tournaments, taught our non-profit partners how to create and post messages on the Valley Billboard, learned the unfathomable ways of our IT systems, and gave birth to beautiful Estella, all the while stopping thousands of shots on goal for the Mother Puckers, following and leading the boss into untracked Highlands glades, and making more friends than all the rest of us will make in our lifetimes.  Aspen is full of FOE's.

She did much more, added much more, to the GrassRoots story than all that.  She pioneered our entry into the world of digital file transfers and converting video into infinate formats.  She created the Carbondale 82 logo.  She unplugged the water cooler.  Ordered office, production and studio supplies.  Made us all laugh.  Made the Final Cut Pro Studio hum.  Furrowed her brow at each of us at some point.

She also deftly and professionally took over management of CGTV from Brad when he left for his walkabout (Brad is done discovering America, and flys off tomorrow for a couple of months Down Under).  That cool transition assured everyone that CGTV would continue as a smooth running government access channel for three jurisdictions.  That accomplishment is hardly obvious, but getting three different governments to share anything as facily as Aspen, Snowmass Village and Pitkin County share CGTV is a sublime management success.  We don't know anywhere else in the country where that works.

Most importantly though, Ellen created this website from scratch.  It's a big, complex website, featuring a seamless interface between our web server, GrassRoots' live stream and thousands of archived community programs.  When asked if she could build a brand new, totally custom website from scratch, she told the boss, in her minimalist Minnisota Nice, "Oh Sure."

Actually, Ellen didn't have a clue how to build a website.  But over the next few months, she self-taught and mastered the mysterious languages of HTML and ASPX, wrote thousands of lines of code, showed the software developers of our master control system that yes, their system could be integrated into a website, and created an exceptionally useful community tool; a resource where tens of thousand visitors per year, the vast majority of whom live outside the Roaring Fork Valley (in over 120 countries), have been able to watch GrassRoots programming, download our weekly schedules, find out who Jerry Bovino is, for some reason find special interest in staff photos, order DVD's, and otherwise learn all about GrassRoots.

She also created this blog.

Thanks Ellen.  Good luck and best wishes.  See you on the ice.