Community Table: Big Ideas
Image: stephen Griffin
RICHARD BECKER
With an MBA from the George Washington School of Business and an MD from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Aspen Valley Health’s new CEO brings 35 years of healthcare management and critical care expertise, along with three children and a psychiatrist spouse, to the community.
Image: stephen Griffin
NICK DeVORE
Presenting a slideshow at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies last spring about the progress he’s made in a quest to circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat he and girlfriend Ashton Tafoya call home during the summer season, Aspen’s itinerant mariner inspires ocean-sized dreams for landlocked locals.
CINDY HIRSCHFELD
Former Aspen Sojourner editor-in-chief turned globe-trotting New York Times travel correspondent becomes Rotary Club of Aspen’s new president in July. In this issue: a dispatch about how best to experience Aspen on foot and picks for off-leash rambles.
Image: stephen Griffin
AVA TURCHIN
Aspen fourth grader publishes How the Stars Became, a children’s picture book (illustrated by Lekshmi Murali) about a curious coyote that creates the night sky after accidentally shattering the sun, published by Aspen Life Books; buy it locally at Aspen Eclectic (635 E Cooper Ave).
Image: stephen Griffin
TOMAS PEVNY
Roaring Fork Valley orthopedic surgeon, and the ski town’s go-to guru for knee repair, brings an innovative ACL repair procedure (bridge-enhanced ACL restoration, a.k.a. BEAR) to clinics in Glenwood and Willits that gets local athletes back on the slopes and trails sooner by reducing time spent in the operating room and in physical therapy.
Image: stephen Griffin
BLAKE MARLEAU SNYDER
After performing hundreds of sight-restoring surgeries in Ethiopia in 2025, this native Aspenite ophthalmologist makes lemonade of a lackluster ski season, leaving that November to continue his humanitarian work with the Cure Blindness Project, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating blindness in underserved parts of the world.
