Business Innovators Radio - The Inspired Impact Podcast with Judy Carlson-Interview with Sydney Mauck, Anschutz Military Collections Specialist, History Colorado

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Sydney Mauck serves as the Anschutz Military Collections Specialist at History Colorado, where she is dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories held within the museum’s extensive military collection.A Colorado native, Sydney developed an early appreciation for the state’s rich history, particularly that of the renowned 10th Mountain Division, through the influence of her father and grandfather. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Denver, with minors in History and Psychology, and a concentration in museum studies.Her passion lies in working with museum collections to interpret and present human experiences through exhibitions and public programs.Sydney’s professional background is rooted in museum collection management. She gained hands-on experience through internships with the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Zoo, and the National Park Service at Kalaupapa National Historical Park, Molokai, Hawaii. These opportunities deepened her expertise in handling and interpreting artifact collections for public engagement.From 2020 to 2021, Sydney contributed to History Colorado as both an intern and a contractor before joining the organization full-time in 2022 as the Anschutz Military Collections Specialist. In this role, she oversees a collection of more than 10,000 military artifacts and works to ensure its accessibility to the public. She also manages the 10th Mountain Division Resource Center, which History Colorado administers in partnership with the Denver Public Library.https://www.historycolorado.org/https://www.facebook.com/10thmountainrc/*************************************************************Judy Carlson is the CEO and Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group, where she helps couples create personalized, coordinated financial plans that support the life they want to live – now and in the future.As an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner, Judy specializes in retirement income and wealth decumulation strategies. She is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, licensed in life and health insurance, and certified in long-term care planning.Judy’s mission is to help guide clients with clarity and care, building financial plans that focus on real planning built around real lives.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/The Inspired Impact Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast-with-judy-carlson-interview-with-sydney-mauck-anschutz-military-collections-specialist-history-colorado

Welcome to the Inspired Impact Podcast, where dedicated female professionals share how they inspire impact every day. Authentic stories, passionate commitment, lives transformed. I'm your host, Judy Carlson. Welcome to today's episode of the Inspired Impact Podcast. Today's guest is a fascinating woman, Colorado Native, who has so much Colorado history wrapped up in her, her family heritage, and her career. I'm so excited today to introduce you to Sydney Mock. Welcome. Hi, Judy. Thank you for having me today.

You're welcome. This is awesome. So tell your story. I want to hear about all of this history and where it started and your heritage. Absolutely. Because like definitely growing up, um, My family is big into history, and I would go into my heritage, but that definitely influenced, like, my career trajectory into eventually pursuing a career in museums in public history, about myself to start with. I, Colorado native, I grew up in Lawnmont, Colorado. I'm even a fourth generation, Lawnmont, like, citizen and family. My family has lived in, like, the Laumont area since, like, the early 1920. when my great-grandfather's family moved west from Kansas. Big family started out as farmers and ranchers there. He was one of 14 siblings. And so I get this a lot because of that, because my

grandfather has 64 first cousins. And so you can find a mock up and down the front range because that. And so people will reach out to me all the time at the museum. They'll, you know, they'll email me with a question and be like, by the way, are you related to so-and-so? And I'm like, probably there's a good chance. There's a big, a lot of us out here. Yeah, but we've been out here. I feel like a long time now at this point. My grandfather, both grandparents on my dad's side grew up in Lawnmont. My grandpa grew up on a cattle ranch just outside, like east of town now where there are apartment high rise is going in he'll point out where like the family farm used to be which is crazy um he and my grandma both grew up going to law not high which right

there on main street um and this is also too where like my journey starts with like pursuing some career and my current role as a military history collection specialist is that we definitely talked growing up a lot about like what both my grandparents great grandfathers did in like world war two So both of them had served. My grandpa had been born by then. He was born in 1940 before my great-grandfather got drafted. But we had memorabilia and souvenirs and uniforms all around the house that they had saved from their wartime service. And so, you know, so you start those conversations like, what is this?

What did he do? One of them was a Jeep driver in Italy towards the end of the war. So he was with, like, probably, I think, I believe, like the fifth army, like, just going up through northern Italy working as a cargo driver and a train, you know, in the motorpool. While my other one, he was in the South Pacific. He was assigned in the Army. Also, funny enough, like a motor pool driver, like he drove cargo trucks, but was there in the Philippines and then later in Japan. And so talking about that history, like, we have a lot of his keepsakes that he had brought back.

So it seems like a medical first aid kit that has like a diffused Japanese grenade in it. Wow. A flag. Coins from the Philippines. A Filipino newspaper. Like all of those, you know, we talk about like war souvenirs and keepsakes that the GIs would bring back. And like that's what I handle a lot with my work. And it was like interesting to see like my family.

It held on to that after their wartime service. But yeah. Like so that got my conversation started early on. And I definitely like feels like it led to definitely like my grandfather's and my father's like interest in war history. Like they're big civil war buffs. They love we always watched like the World War II, Civil War, World War one programs that would come on TV. They love like the Turner Classic films, you know, like Patton, Sergeant York, like growing up watching a lot of those. But funny enough, like, you know, that side of though, like my grandfather didn't go in.

he was old enough that he did not get drafted into Vietnam by that point when like really when Americans were going to Vietnam. He was in his late 20s. He had two kids already. He really cool guy. He grew up. He didn't want to become a farmer. So he ended up going to CSU and got a degree in forestry because he thought he was going to work in the U.S. Forest Service. My grandma went to CSU, got a degree. I don't remember something, but something along the line. that like a sec like she got trained to be a secretary. They were high school sweethearts. Like they met in, you know, she was a freshman in high school. He was a junior. Like they met through youth group. And stayed together. I think it was like 57 years. Like adorable. And then he ended up working as

the one of a male man in Lawnmont. And so like spent like the entire life. He spent 30 years with the Laumont post office. And so, like, you know, talking to him, like, you really get to hear, like, how he got to witness that's just the town change, the front range change, front range change. Just the ultimate, like, just the development of it, especially with things like IBM going in, you know, being, having their facility there outside of Boulder and gun barrel there. Or like, for him, like, talking about how the Denver metro area really got developed with things like Rocky Flats being like an active, um, facility. out there. He had several friends go and work there at the plutonium manufacturing plant there. And so he's just like, yeah, it's been very interesting to just hear him talk about, like, yeah, how, like, how developed it is. And his dislike for how many people are here now. But yeah. God. And then, yeah, so then like my dad and my uncle, like, they were born. They grew up in one month. Also love for history in high school. But, you know, they also went different. routes where like my dad ended up getting like a business degree and worked at the university at Denver for his career in their like grant and research department. Yeah. So he was really big and like he worked. He was the guy who worked with professors to get their grants approved to go through

all the funding distribution, all of that. Like he was their guy. Wow. Yeah. But then like my mom, you know, my family, so the other half of my family and this is also where like a military aspect comes in. is that my grandfather on my mom's side, so her dad actually served in the military. So my mom, they're from Wisconsin, him and my grandma met in 93, not sorry, not there anything, excuse me, 63. It's really cute, actually. So, like, they met on Halloween, 1963. They're like, who?

If my grandma was like, who is this guy in a uniform? And then they hit it off. And then JFK gets assassinated a few months. weeks later. And they decided they're going to get married. My grandpa proposed the next day because he wasn't sure he was going to have to go to war or not. Like, you know, like very uncertain times. Like, who did it? Like, was this like part of the Cold War? You know, it's the Cold War era. Like, was it the Russians? They weren't sure what he was going to go because he joined the Air Force. So he was also like one of six kids. He was the youngest in his family and didn't want to be a farmer.

So he joined the military. He was in the Air Force as a, he joined as a mechanic, like he was a technician at the start with. Him and my grandma get married only like nine months later, which is super adorable. And then because of that, my mom and her brother and my family grew up being in different Air Force bases, like being transferred around. And finally spending most of their time in Box Elder South Dakota. And there my grandpa rose through the ranks of the enlisted men all the way up to the top to be a chief master sergeant. And so it was always as interesting because he was still today, like very active in like the veterans community. In the base itself, he worked on like the Minutemen missile projects, though. So he was a technician on the missiles themselves to make sure that they were working properly.

And then eventually rose the rank to oversee the guys. who worked on them, but also the ones who had the keys that if we went to war, they twinned the keys and pressed the button. And so he was actually stationed in Belgium for two years working at one of their sites out there. Yeah. And so with that, like after it, my mom, you know, she loved growing up in South Dakota, wanted to go somewhere bigger. And so she moved to Colorado in the 90s. And that's where she met my dad. They, you know, started their life here. They had my brother and me and my brother. And then I grew up in Lawnmont and spent my entire childhood there before moving to Denver. Wow.

So you weren't alive then when he was in Belgium? No, that was in the 80s. So it was not alive yet for that. But like so interesting. I mean, we kind of, him and I share love for like Europe and European living because I got to study abroad in Prague when I was in college. Oh, wow. Yeah.

So I didn't get to go as far west as Belgium, but like very similar experiences where he's like, I miss just getting to ride my bike and go get a bagget and like carry it back with me to the base, like things like that. Like the simple things where it's like, yeah, I wish I could go ride my bike and go get a nice, cheap bagget snack on the end of the day. Right. Wow. So the family history and all of the conversation, then you graduated from high school in Longmont and then what? Yeah. So growing up through school, history had always been my favorite subject because, you know, really because of the fact that we watched a lot of things. We had a lot of conversation about like just like US history, not even really specifically Colorado history, even though like we talked a lot about like the gold rush, just the development of the Lama area. But like one like really stuck out to me like experience was like and they still do this today. Like they try to fourth grade is the year in which Colorado students learn about Colorado state history. And so for my my school, we actually actually. visited the Lawnmont History Museum. And we got to participate in like an activity where we each

got assigned an artifact and they had to like research it and then research the person who owned it. And like I got assigned like an early version of a coffee pot that was like brought out here to Laumont and like got to research like the settlement itself because it was started by I believe like German citizen or like German Americans coming from Chicago. Wow. Yeah, back in like the 1870s. And so like that field trip experience really like started that fire in me, you know, that like interest and that passion. And I was always trying to like learn more about like just the settlement of the West. I love the Wild West. I think that's my favorite area of like history and study.

Growing up we would go. Mike like as kids like my grandparents took us to like New Mexico to go see where like Billy the kid lived in like the fort. down there or like going to mesa verde like that's always been one of my favorite national parks because of the history of like the ancestral pueblowans and like their occupancy of the site how they like almost like pretty much conquered living in such harsh desert environments there in southwestern colorado um and that just has blossomed so like i was taking every apiece course i couldn't high school and i was like okay i definitely want to somehow pursue a career in history I was never very interested in being a teacher, which is so funny because I feel like that obviously

that would probably be the natural course, you know. But I mean, it's taken me a long time. I was definitely very shy. It's anxious, like socially anxious. Sorry, my kitty is crawling across my lap here. And so like I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a teacher just because I was very uncomfortable with the thought of having to speak up in front of people, like having to like share, share information with those in that sense. But I love doing it. Like going to trivia is my, I love doing like trivia in like public speaking in that sense. I eventually grew into that. But so in college, I ended up, you know, because my dad had that connection to DU. I ended up going to DU because of them. It just like, it was fortunate enough to get a tuition waiver because he was a faculty member there. Okay.

Um, it was the best like, because do you is an expensive school. It definitely is. It's a private school. Like, it's not one with like, if I had any some kind of scholarship support, like, it's a tough one to go to. But because of that, my dad also knew like the faculty members and like the social sciences, um, the humanities departments. So I was able to meet with some of the anthropology professors before like starting that fall and in fall of 2016 and got to like talk with them about like where, you know, what, what course? what career path can I pursue with something in like history? And that's where I found the anthropology program there at the school. And so anthropology is the study of humankind. And with that, like, that's where you get archaeology. Archaeology is a subfield of anthropology. You have things like ethnographies, or so it's a cultural anthropologist. So you study humans in the modern era. You, that's a lot of it is like started early with like oral history. So going around and talking with like different community groups, cultural groups, trying to learn and understand their culture and their history and them themselves as people. So at first, then, I was drawn to actually archaeology.

I thought I would want to be out there in the field, digging, you know, like very Indiana Jones. Like, what can I, you know, you see the movies and you're like, what can I do? And so I started taking courses in that and like getting like just the base, the foundational knowledge for what it takes. But their program that at DU is great because you're required to take classes in every single subfield to really get an understanding of like where your research, where you would want to take your research. Because you had a capstone that you had to do to get graduate your senior year. And in that, I started taking museum classes like studying museum. studies. So I took one on like, it's called museums and their visitors. So like understanding like in like the studying of like why museums draw people in. Like how do we continue to, you know,

what needs to change to continue to draw visitors in. In that class, I got to help with like a museum exhibit in the small museum that they have on campus. It's like the D.U. Museum of Anthropology. And that was great because like I got experience like label writing. actually like the whole hands-on setup work, but also just like exposure to telling very complicated, potentially complicated or just like, yeah, I say complicated stories. Because the exhibit focus was, I don't remember what department we had partnered with. It might have been the psychology department. But it was an exhibit on like miscarriages.

So it was like women's and actually probably not psychology. It was probably the arts department. Because what we were displaying was the artwork that these women in their families, like, produced in therapy to process the loss of a child. And so, like, that was powerful because, like, I mean, that's all just, like, subjects of loss. And but then also, like, how you overcome that grief, how you choose to remember that child, like, how they move, you know, the moving forward while, like, still processing that pain. It was really powerful. And after taking that class, I was like, no, I think this is definitely like the route I would like to go to. Because when, you know, evaluating like what I liked about history, it's not like the facts itself or like analyzing tactics or like, you know, necessarily cause and effect for things.

But it's the more emotional like human connection side. like how are different people impacted? How are they choosing to share their stories? And then also looking at it in itself, how are we responsible to share the stories of others, especially like in this day and age, like rewriting the narrative. I took several courses on that.

Like, because, you know, history for the longest time is told in the perspective of the victors, but also told largely in this perspective of like white people. So like focus. which, you know, like, that's our history. Sure. But like understanding and looking at like, too, like how did it infect like African-American group, you know, African-Americans, Native Americans, especially out here in Colorado, looking at those from different lenses and trying to like understand it and get a more complex,

concrete, like view of things rather than just being like taking things for face value. So with that, and I'm like sure you kind of saw with my like resume, kind of took me, or in my bio, like, it took me all over the place. I started down the history. So I minored in history along with like museum studies, which was great because like you can kind of pair that because you need an understanding of like how to interpret like historical sources, how to tell stories. You need to understand that in order to tell, you know, create exhibits, to work with donors, to understand what objects you're working with in a museum collection when you're doing research. Right. Yeah. But I wasn't sure exactly like, you know, like what kind of

museum I'd want to work at. So I was fortunate enough to get an internship with the Denver Art Museum as my first internship. It was like sponsored by the Stern family because it was an unpaid internship, but I won a scholarship that would pay for the summer that I worked at the art museum. And through that, like, that was a really cool experience because I got to work in their education department. I was helping like do surveys of their school group programs. So I would get to walk the exhibits every day and observe how the groups were using these like interactive booklets that were created for them to like help the students engage with the different artwork that they would see. I would interview like pro um like teachers from these school programs.

I would talk with the students on top of like getting to do exhibit research. So then I was also assigned to like because at this time I mean this was 2019. So obviously before COVID things weren't closed yet, but their Martin building was still closed. The big gray castle portion of the building that you know downtown, that was under construction. They were redoing the interior of that. So I had to help with like research objects that would go into an exhibit in the new exhibit space once that building reopened. Yeah. Good timing, huh? Good, great timing. Yeah. And so that gave me, you know, like a feel for like what it's like to like find. Artifacts and curate them to fit like the themes that they had assigned for the exhibit and like interpret them. So trying to find as much info as I could on them and the artist to help them better help them write better labels for it, which was really a fun experience. Because I did, I worked with artwork was not necessarily artwork. It's more architecture and like art deco like pieces like furniture and things like that created by Geo Ponty.

who was an art, yeah, an architect and an artist in like the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. But he's also the one who designed the Martin building. So the castle building, he's the one who designed it. And so that's why I was big because he incorporated the environment and a lot of the things he did. He was fascinated with light and how like light could be reflected and like incorporated and even simple things like the windows in your house. were like, he loved geometric shapes as well. So like his furniture and even things down to the

Civil War had very, a lot of very distinct geometric designs and like the handles and the legs, which I think they're beautiful pieces. Like they work very well with that like modernist era of the 1970s. And so with that, that gave me experience where I'm like, okay, like I'm not the biggest fan of art. I will say like I'm actually more of a natural history, like history person. But to get that experience was just like a very well-rounded experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then from there, like again, like I said, like that kind of helped narrow it down because I never wanted to be an art historian either. So I'm like, okay, art museums might not necessarily be the route for me. And then after that, though, I actually got an internship with the Denver Zoo.

Oh my gosh. It was like so, so fun and like so like out there, you know, like kind of like not necessarily unheard of, but you would never think that, like, the zoo would have some kind of, like, ties to museums and history or education. But it does. And my internship was working in their education department again because, and I find this, like, throughout my career, like, I do tend to keep gravitating back to those educational roles. Like, I love the, like, informal, non-traditional, like, teaching setting, which I think is why I really enjoy museums. because the kids aren't forced to hold on to all of this information and have to regurgitate it, you know, right there like that. Like they can pick and choose what they learn from that experience.

And I enjoy getting to facilitate those experiences. And so I did that with the zoo because they have, they call it their biofax collection. It's a natural history collection. So it's things like skins. and skeletons and claws, like the organic pieces that come from the animals that use to engage the visitors at the zoo. Like, you'll see them out there with their little education carts. And they're like, hey, you want to come touch the skin of a giraffe?

Like, that's what I was working with. That's the collection of like animal artifacts, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. And so I helped like, I was there to help revamp their like, storage tracking system because they had a, they have a lot of artifacts, but they needed, maybe had just acquired a new system in order to track all of those pieces. So I was like, applying what I learned in my museum classes to their institution, creating like tutorial guides

for their volunteers to follow. I was surveying and like flagging things that maybe need to be retired because they're in like, you know, a very poor state from being handled all the time for, you know, 10, 15 years, something like that. And I was doing that all the way up through until COVID started. Okay. Yeah. And with that, that's what I wrote my capstone piece on, like the applied museum methods in the real world at other cultural institutions.

It was a little tricky because I didn't get to actually argue it in, like, person. Oh. Yeah, but, you know, I passed and everything. but like I definitely didn't get that like final like senior year experience. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're very passionate. I'm sure that would have been a phenomenal delivery.

Thank you. Yeah. You know, they still enjoy it. And like they still enjoyed it. But like it was tough. Like obviously a bummer because we didn't. Yeah. It is what it is.

Yeah. And then like post COVID like those definitely. I had to get creative. with what I was doing in that time because like things were shut down. Museums were not open and like people were not, you know, like places were not hiring. Yeah. So literally during COVID, it took a long time to get out there. But that's when I got, I interviewed and got accepted for like a national park internship,

which eventually brought me out to Hawaii. But I had to wait a year and a half for that. So I got like, I got. like I got that maybe not a year but over a year like I got that acceptance offer in like April I had to wait to go in June of 2021. Yeah. It's amazing. It was so worth the wait. And because like in the meantime like I got to work for Colorado Parks and Wildlife at one of their state parks.

I was in their visitor center. So I was like doing visitor, you know, engagement. I was helping with public programs. I was getting to work with volunteers and just getting to be. outside. Like that was that was the fun thing is like getting to go hike go just make sure people were okay on the trails. Getting to see the wildlife because I love again natural history. I love the wildlife. I love not like educating the education of our natural world. So it was fun to get to share animal facts and plant facts and like the history like the geology

of the area. Definitely was a fun, fun job. I did that two seasons. So I did that in 20. 2020 and then again in 2021 after I came back from Hawaii. But then I also like at that time, not volunteered, I had an unpaid internship at History, Colorado. So I was working pretty much seven days a week. So I was working five days at my park job. And then my two days off,

I was at History, Colorado, working in their collections, serving, I was inventorying boxes. So that's what they have interns do, which is like great, because there's not a lot of us on staff. We need intern help to,

figure out like what is all in our collection and we're doing an inventory of our offsite warehouse because i love to liken this to people like it's very much like the warehouse at the end of raiders of the lost arc where it's just truly like shelves on shelves on shelves with cargo crates and boxes that you don't know what's inside so i was doing that and that was cool because you're like we're going through and we're seeing like old medicine bottles from like the early 1900s that still have medicine in it and like that's a whole thing where we're going to like we're going through and we're seeing like old medicine bottles from like the early 1900s that's whole thing where we like we there's a whole disposal procedure in place for that because like a lot of it's like cocaine. Oh wow. So we have like to we have to dispose of it in like because it's one

hazardous but also like yeah you didn't let people get a hold of this. But then things like clothing items, which were beautiful. And then like you know a lot of random things like it would be random like machine parts from like a giant like um crane like a crane that they would use at a mine shaft wow which is crazy um but my favorite piece that i found while during the internship was actually a duffel bag that belonged to in an internee at amache which i don't know if you're familiar with amache that was the one japanese internment camp here in colorado during world war two In high school, we actually didn't talk a lot about that. I hope that's something that's getting recorrected now as the curriculum changes,

but it really wasn't something that I started learning about until college, because we did a full unit on it. But yeah, so Japanese Americans, as they were getting relocated, rounded up and relocated, Colorado had one. It's in southeast Colorado. Like, Granada is the closest town, but it's far out there. Like it's far out there. But this duffel bag that I found like it had the Japanese script of the owner and then and then like the owner's name in, you know, Japanese scripts of the owner's name in Japanese and then the owner's name in English.

And then their their internee number, like their tracking number on it. And like it was in our collection, but I did like a whole little like blog post about it because it was just stored away in a box. And so that was like powerful to find. something like that and like advocate for it to be stored, you know, stored better and like brought to the center and to possibly be used in programs because like we have a display on Amache at History Colorado talking about that history. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. But then that too, like from that experience, it led me into then again working in a way with another relocation story during my time at Kala Papa National Historical Park in Hawaii.

So I, sorry, I'm trying to think, I got the internship through the NCEP. It's like the National Center for, like, educational programs or education and preservation. I can't remember exactly. But I got matched with this historic park because they needed an intern for cultural resource management, project, a cultural resource management project. And I kind of did that in college with my anthropology, archaeology background specifically. So they, it was focusing on properties there that are at the park that are on the National Register for Historic Places. And so you can find that all over the country. Colorado has a ton of spots that have been designated as historically significant,

either for like the people that were there for the architectural style of like maybe the building, the time period in which it came from, or like again, like larger, like it's a cultural site, let's say for like a Native American tribe. And so for this case, Kalopapa was a, was a former leprosy colony in Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. So between like 1860, I don't actually. for almost 100 years between like 1860 and 1960 hawaians and it honestly was largely hawaians filipinos

japanese like um folks of Hawaiian and Pacific descent sure those who contracted leprosy were taken from their homes and sent to this island to basically die um because like leprosy especially like you know like the biblical connotations, like the history around it in itself, like for a long, long time, it was an untreatable disease. It was brought to the Hawaiian Islands by English and Portuguese sailors. And, you know, Hawaiians who are not exposed to that disease contracted it easily. And so what the government health officials did, and like unfortunately too, like English colonists used it as a way to kind of overtake the Hawaiian islands as well. If you contracted it, you received from your family, and you were sent to live on the island of Molokai, which is a small island

between Oahu and Maui, and out on this peninsula. So the way Kuala Papa, like Molokai was formed, you have the main island. And then you had a second volcano that came up and formed the peninsula. So the peninsula is less separated by a 2,000 foot cliff that keeps it separate basically from the rest of the villages and towns on the top side. Wow. Yeah. And so there is an amazing story of like resilience and perseverance and survival because these folks who are sent there, they're sent with barely any personal effects. The food that they're constantly being sent is, you know, spoiled. But they use the existing like settlements that were there from native Hawaiians because the native Hawaiians had actually inhabited that peninsula long before they were sent there.

And they used the existing like farms. So like tarot roots, sweet potatoes and stuff. So the native plants there and started their own settlement. And then the Catholic church came in and that really helped increase quality of life. So Catholic missionaries were sent there. they helped bring in, you know, build buildings, actual buildings for the patients to live in. They established a church. They established a hospital.

And then in tune, they brought in other missionaries. You have Protestant missionaries, Mormon missionaries. Like, you have a bunch of different religious, like, sex there that, you know, we're helping care for the leprosy patients. But the Hawaiians themselves, they, like, I wouldn't say, like, you know, threat. within the confinement and within the limitations of their own disease. But there were thousands of people there at one time. Wow. And it was active up through the 1960s because at that point they finally had little figured out a cure for it.

They could stop sending folks there. But there was still such a cultural stigma around having leprosy that they couldn't return home because their families basically disown them. But so working there, it was great because, like, I got to connect with, like, the employees there at the park. I was doing site surveys. So I was going around and, like, surveying cemeteries, buildings, like, just making sure that they were getting tracked in the database. Like, so checking to see if, like, a structure had fallen down and collapsed. Things like that. Monitoring, like, the great movement of the grave in, like, the graveyards is safe, like a tree is coming up out of a grave.

Wow. Yeah. But, like, such a cool three-month internship that, like, definitely like has shaped. It's my, definitely my approach to telling other people's stories, like being culturally sensitive, being respectful,

especially when telling the story of others, because like, it's not a happy story for sure, but like definitely an important one for them. Right. To be made known. Yeah. Wow.

So then you're now full time on staff at History, Colorado? Yeah. So like I came back from that, continued working as like an intern for another like six months before I got hired as a contractor. And then I got hired full time in June of 2022. Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Thank you. I'm coming up on three years here, which is exciting. Yeah. And like I'm definitely a special case, I guess in regards to like how my position came about because it is sponsored and funded by the Anschutz family. foundation. So you might be familiar with the Anshoutes Medical Center. It's all the same family, the same foundation. And they're very focused on like that civic education part and like using this position to like educate the public about like our Colorado state, Colorado's military history

and the history of like our servicemen's like service and veterans service, things like that. And so when I was brought on, we had a curator of military history that was my teammate. And so I was brought in to do a lot of the preservation work with the collection. So acting as like a collection manager for it. So I got to do a lot of what we call rehousing projects. So working hands on with a variety of different object types to make sure that they're being properly stored. And then also made accessible. Because in this day and age with technology, our whole focus is making sure that things are accessible to the public, both in person,

in digitally. So with these projects, my first one started as like a uniform project. Okay. So I worked with 650 uniforms to get them photographed, to get them dimensions taken. My volunteers were writing descriptions for them in our online like record database so that if somebody wanted to research it or like let's say one of our staff wants a uniform for an exhibit, they'll be able to actually look it up and see what we have, which will help narrow down their search. Wow. Yeah. And so I started with something like that.

I moved on to them firearms because we have, with my position, like firearms get lumped in, even though like most of the firearms we have, not most. I would say about half of them are military related, but also half aren't. Okay. So like I had to like create new storage mounts for them, which was like a creative, fun creative process, taking what little space we had for them and creating custom built mounts. photographing them. I'm working on flags right now. So it's all they're those that's a really neat project because like you see small things that were like taken home by like Colorado soldiers like

in the Spanish-American War for example. Like we have a lot of like early like Filipino Republic flags that were handmade or hand painted that the soldiers brought back. And then all the way to like giant ones that have flown at like the capital like, 20, 30 foot flags that I'm like, how am I going to handle this? Truly, I still am like, how am I going to handle this? They're massive. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. But like with it too, like I just do a lot of public engagement work. I mean, like that's how we got connected through the rotary programs. Right. We do. My partner, my colleague and I, um, is his name was Dr. Chris Juergens. Like he's now the curator at the World War One Museum in Kansas City. Oh, really?

He graduated, moved on up. He was a great teammate to work with, like, because him and I together, like, would take the story of, like, the 10th Mountain Division, specifically around the state to classrooms in the front range, to groups like the Rotary Club. Because History of Colorado is the 10th Mountain Division Resource Center. So we partner with the Denver Public Library to be the official repository for the World War II Division and all of their artifacts. And so because of that, like, we have a lot. We get to show off in a lot. And that's a very specific Colorado story as well because they trained up in Leadville. Right.

So that's been great to like take that and like share that not only around the country, but around the world. We partner with several researchers from Austria, for example, who have come to history of Colorado who have used our available resources to like create films to write research papers. And one of them, like, he's researching the role of Austrians and Austrian immigrants in the 10th Mountain Division because, yeah. So a lot of folks, not a lot, but like a significant amount of like Austrian, German, Czech Republic, you know, Czechoslovakian like immigrants fleeing the Nazi regime, come to the United States. They get drafted into the army. And because of where their country, where their country of origin is, army officials assume they know how to ski. so they're sent to the 10th Mountain Division to train in the mountain troops. And like they don't know how to ski.

I was going to say the statistic out of like the 200 Austrians who served, 90% of them came from Vienna. And like Vienna is on the plains of Austria. Like I've been. There's like no mountains in sight. Like it's like if they came from like Greeley or something, you know. It's crazy. Oh my gosh. And but because of that though, like,

we made such a good impression on him and like he was so impressed by the work that we're doing we got invited to speak at a school in grots, Austria in the summer of 2023. Wow. Yeah. So like they do an international summer school program there. And we were invited as guest lecturers to talk about how museums in the United States teach military history. And we were a great case study for that.

Yeah, for sure. Wow. Yeah. And so like I've gotten to go to Austria and Germany because of it. And like I got to go to Italy only a few weeks before that to do 10th mountain history. They always do like a they do a reunion tour every few years. And we got to attend the reunion tour and like connections with like descendants and like actually visit the battle sites and like really share with the descendants like the history of the 10th. Because you know, like and this is something we talk about. And this is something that's focused on my work is like. like helping their families connect with that history. Right. Because the veterans didn't talk a lot. I mean, even to this day, like modern day veterans don't talk a lot about specific parts of their experience.

Sure. You know, you find that they talk about maybe more about what basic training was like, like the friendships they made, like, but not obviously the combat that they seen and like what they witnessed. And so getting to travel the battlefields with the descendants and getting to educate them like, what actually happened here was like very. powerful. And that influenced us to create an exhibit. So in 2023, we opened a, it was called Winter Warriors. And it was a huge 5,000 square foot exhibit on the history of the 10th Mountain Division. And it coincided with like their foundation, their activation, them being physically designated the 10th Mountain Division. And so it was from beginning to now, using everything we have in our collection, which was huge. Because like, I want to say 90% of that exhibit was stuff from our

collection. Wow. Which you, today, you can't quite say that. Like, you know, we're not fortunate enough to do that sometimes. Like, we're doing an exhibit here soon for the 250th anniversary of the United States. And, like, we're going to bring a. some great pieces from like different museums around the country to talk about that. But obviously that doesn't come from our collections. So when hosting Winter Warriors, that was just a great feat. Yeah. And I'm very proud of getting to work on that exhibit. I got to help pick artifacts. I got to help write labels. And then I helped lead a lot of the school group programs. So I believe I educated almost 2,000 high school students in the nine months that they was open on the history of

Colorado's part in World War II. Wow, that's fascinating. When I listen to you, what really strikes me for young people especially is you just didn't go to college or high school. You just didn't go and do the mainstream thing. No. You were passionate. You persevered.

You churned. You just dove into all the different potential facets. Yeah. And it seems to me, and maybe you can confirm this, but you're in your lane because of it. Absolutely. No, you're absolutely right about that. My colleagues and I talk about this a lot. Like, this isn't an industry if you're not passionate for it.

Like, this isn't the job for you. Like, it's a tough one to get into. It's incredibly competitive. Like, I mean, I was working as an intern for almost three years before I got my full-time job. And I think I love it's work worth doing. Yeah. Because like you said, I'm passionate about it. Yeah.

Like, it excites me. My friends and family love to joke that it's like, you're the one person who actually enjoys going to their job. Yeah. That's great. Because it is. Like, every day is a new adventure. sure. Every day I get to learn something new or get to interact with a new, you know, a new donor or a new patron. And it's definitely like not for everybody. Right. No, and it's contagious. Your passion is

contagious. So it permeates through all facets of what it is that you're doing, whether you're talking to students, like you said, talking to a donor or a sponsor or finding a new artifact or building an exhibit around something. Totally. Like, even recently, like, this is just like, one of the reasons, like, it makes the work worth doing is that I help with our career exploration program at the museum. So introducing high school students and specifically college students to jobs in the

museum industry. Helping, like, because I didn't get that. I didn't have to figure that out to, like, my junior year of college. Right. So helping them make those connections and just, like, explore, like, what if this is something they're passionate about, what could they do with it? Right. And like, it's awesome getting to actually see like the like, you almost like light bulb turn on. Like seeing in their eyes have everything like click.

Yeah. And make sense when you're going through like the behind the scene, you know, in the storage area. You're talking about the different work we do, the different programs we host. And then finding that like one area that they're like really engaged, you know, passionate about. Like we've had that. We're like we've had interns now come. out of that because of the connections we've made in those programs. And like, it's just fostering that passion in future generations is really, really exciting to me. Yeah. Wow. I mean, this has been

fascinating. I love listening to you, tell your stories. You have really learned so much in your short years of life. And I can't wait to see where you're going to go next. Thank you so much. Yeah. Me too. I'd love to think that's like, I'd like, I'd love to think that's like, I get creative and with where I find opportunities and how I can transfer my skills and knowledge into something else. So I look forward to like whatever might come next. Yeah, I can tell that's so exciting. So if people wanted to get more information about you or History, Colorado, what would be some of the best ways for them to do that? Yeah. I can give you my, obviously like at the end, like if you, on me, you post this on your website, I can give you my email address to like,

If people are curious, they can reach out to me. Okay. They can visit our History, Colorado website. It's just HistoryColado.org. Okay. That's where you can find all these new great updates about exhibits that we're hosting. Our staff are constantly posting articles about stories from Colorado's state history. We are also, we host a lot of public events.

I hope, and I can definitely share this with you, like this is your audience would like this. I believe I'll be hosting a guest like an evening lecture this summer at our Colorado Center for Women's History. Okay. Yeah, it'll be on the Women's Army Corps and their role in World War II. Wonderful. Yeah, it's an evening program. Tuesday night. I know it'll be in July.

I don't have a set date yet. Okay. But I can share that with you. Sure. Yeah. Folks are interested in learning more about just again, Colorado history. I will be, yeah, giving a talk on that. That's awesome.

Woo-hoo. Come and see you in person. I love it. Come see me in person. Come chat and let's talk history. Oh, wow. This has just been a delightful time spending this conversation time with you. Thank you so much.

And for sharing your life, your passion, your heritage, your family. You're welcome. Looking forward to seeing where life continues to take you, Miss Cindy. Thank you so much, Judy. I know I appreciate it. it. This has been a lovely afternoon. And yeah, thank you for having me today. You're welcome. Thanks so much for joining us for the Inspired Impact Podcast. To listen to past episodes, please visit theinspiredimpactpodcast.com.