970-317-2151 hello@ppos.co

Meet our PPOS Board Members

Board member Lawrence Rugar sitting with his dog

Lawrence Rugar, President

lrugar@ppos.co

Lawrence and his wife Carolyn moved to Pagosa Springs in April of 2021. Lawrence and Carolyn  moved to Pagosa to live close to their son Tim and daughter-in-law Laura who have been here for about 12 years and have added to the family three wonderful and happy grandchildren. Tim and Laura own and operate the Thingamajig Theater and The Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts.

Lawrence, by history, was a high school teacher and coach prior to entering the military service as an Army Ranger. Most of his post military experience has been in Corporate Risk Management with children and adolescent RCCF and psychiatric hospital,  acute rehab hospital, and high end senior living experiences. The later of which comprised of 50 large senior living communities in 10 states. Lawrence is a life long learner and as such joined the PPOS Board with the goal of reinforcing the PPOS mission and values which includes the development of life long learning instilled in our students for generations to come.

Headshot of Jesse White

Jesse White , Vice President

jwhite@ppos.co

Jesse and his wife Emily moved to Pagosa Springs in May of 2019. Emily had grown up visiting Pagosa from Santa Fe since she was a child and brought Jesse here when they started dating in 2008. They moved here with a shared love of skiing and the outdoors wanting both of their children, JJ and Ellie, to grow up in Pagosa Springs.

Jesse is currently employed as a Director of Engineering working remotely for Salesforce in San Francisco and building a career in Leadership. His focus is strategic growth for businesses, setting goals and objectives and achieving outcomes for stakeholders.

Headshot of Pamela Meade

Pamela Meade, Treasurer

pmeade@ppos.co

Pamela Meade is the President/CEO of Designs for Learning, a consulting company that supports charter schools with the complex and inter-related tasks of founding, developing, managing, and growing self-sufficient schools.  Pamela incorporates her management skills to coordinate Designs for Learning operations, spearhead strategic initiatives, and create systems and procedures for DL’s core services. She was a Business Manager with Minneapolis Public Schools, and for three charter schools in MN (including a founding staff member), and assisted PPOS with some pre-operational support.  

Pamela has a Master of Art Degree in Professional Communications (MPC) and a Master of Science in Conflict Management and Dispute Resolution (MSCM). She has worked in the fields of legal compliance, contract negotiation, project coordination, grant management, and school finance. 

Now living in Pagosa full time, Pamela, husband Sean and her 2 kids were part-timers since 2009, splitting their time living in Northeast Arizona on the Navajo Nation and enjoying weekends of skiing, music, and fun here in Colorado.  Her continuing work on the Navajo Nation supports Evaluation and Program support for Domestic Violence Prevention, Drug and Suicide Prevention programs and SEL Enrichment for youth and families. 

Bill Hudson, Secretary and Co-founder

billhudson@ppos.co

Bill and his daughter Ursala Hudson were part of the Pagosa Charter School Initiative — the volunteer group that researched and wrote the charter application for what became Pagosa Peak Open School in 2017.  That work involved 17 visits to small, innovative schools in Colorado and New Mexico, in search of an effective educational model for “the whole child” in the 21st century.
He is currently editor and publisher of the Pagosa Daily Post, an online community news website that he founded in 2004. In that role, he has written extensively about education issues in Colorado’s southwest.
Bill moved to Pagosa Springs with his family in 1993, and promptly founded the Pagosa Pretenders Family Theater, a unique family-centered theater company that won an El Pomar award for artistic excellence in 2004. He currently serves as president of Pagosa Housing Partners, a 501c3 non-profit working to address the lack of workforce housing in the community. He’s also on the board of the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD).

 

Catherine Siebel, Board Member