Raquel Wertsbaugh
CNAP Program Coordinator
Raquel Wertsbaugh is the Colorado Natural Areas Program Coordinator and has held this position since March 2014. Previously, Raquel was the area wildlife conservation biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in Salida, CO for eight years. Raquel has also been a private land wildlife biologist in Southeastern Colorado, working with agricultural producers, in a joint position with the Natural Resource Conservation Service. Raquel earned her bachelor degree in Wildlife Biology with a minor in Rangeland Ecology from Colorado State University. Her work as a wildlife biologist has included a focus on rare and at-risk species, ranging from boreal toads to bats.
Savanna Smith
Botanist and Volunteer Steward Manager
Savanna Smith is a botanist at the Colorado Natural Heritage Program and is contracted full-time to CNAP to provide botanical expertise and manage the volunteer steward program. She began this position in 2021; previously, she worked as a CNAP technician for two years. She has extensive experience conducting rare plant inventories and monitoring, with a focus on Colorado’s rare flora. She enjoys conducting field work in all areas of the state, from the grasslands along the Arikaree River all the way up to some of Colorado’s highest peaks. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Biology and a minor in Ecological Restoration from Colorado State University.
Brittany Nordentoft
Field Technician
Brittany grew up in Tarpon Springs, Florida, where she developed a passion for all things wild and growing. At 10, she began to backpack the Continental Divide with her father and fell in love with the mountains, though it would be a decade before she could make her home in them. She eventually moved to Orlando, where she earned her BS degree from UCF. While there, she worked for Seminole County Natural Lands - first as an intern and finally as a field biologist – for close to five years before pursuing that lifelong dream of living in Colorado. While pursuing an MS degree at the University of Colorado Denver, she worked as a research assistant in the Landscape Ecology and Atmospheric Processes Lab, studying phenology and the effects of climate change and snow patterns on plant communities. She completed her graduate degree in 2023 and spent a season as a natural resource technician for the City of Lakewood. She is passionate about the environmental sciences, specifically botany, plant ecology, and noxious weed management.
