Heather Garbo

Heather Garbo is a Denver-based mama with a love for all things local. After a decade of working in communications, she merged her love of the written word and local living when she began working at Downtown Colorado, Inc., a tiny nonprofit with the big mission of providing community and economic development assistance to Colorado communities. Finally a chance to support the local indie businesses she loved — other than with her own personal bank account!

Heather is passionate about community engagement and gets excited about things like walkability, placemaking, neighborhood sense of community, and shopping local. She has organized a multitude of community and economic development conferences and events to provide ongoing education to hundreds of Colorado local government and business leaders. She has written grants for nearly half a million dollars in federal funds to support community and economic development activities in communities statewide — funds that would not otherwise have entered the Colorado economy. And, she holds a masters degree in sociology with a focus on sense of community.

Currently on hiatus from community work to spend more time with her two young boys, Heather continues her personal mission of community-building and supporting small business through her blog, www.denverdweller.com, which provides inspiration for better local living, including Denver resources to live and shop local, and strategies for building stronger neighborhood communities.