Council Members

Denver

ty.smith@coloradosilc.org

Ty Smith is a Colorado native and long-time peer (person with a disability), advocate, specializing in the mental health system, quality of life measures, and trauma informed care. He created and implemented Youth Voice, a cross-disability coalition that focused on creating youth subject matter experts, providing training for effective policy and advocacy activities, and providing on-going supports to encourage community engagement. At age 36, Ty has thirteen years as a state and federal public health policymaker and eight years as a peer provider in the Colorado behavioral health system, and is Bachelor of Science Candidate, Administering Nonprofits for Youth. He is currently the Chair of Colorado Statewide Independent Living Council (CSILC) and Chair of the CSILC Policy Committee,  a member of Securing Employment and Economic Keys to Stability (SEEKS) Chair of the Peer Subcommittee for SEEKS, member of Behavioral Health Planning and Advisory Council (BHPAC), member of Mental Health Disorders in the Criminal & Juvenile Justice System Task Force (MHDCJS), and member of Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) and sits on numerous committees.

It wasn’t until the day after my fifteenth birthday that I acquired my disability when I endured my first grand mal seizure. This led to me having monthly focal, grand mal, and nocturnal grand mal seizures. Shortly following, I got in a car accident due to having a seizure while driving just 10 months after acquiring my license at 16. I ultimately had to stop running track where I was the anchor for the 4×1 team, and stop playing football where I was set to be varsity running back for my high school team.

I moved out of my parents house in 2013 after struggling to get my high school diploma two years later than I should have. After moving and living in the city for the first time in my life, the relationship I was in went sour and I slipped into homelessness. This was a scary time for me as I had no experience with the city as I was a “mountain kid”. I would have felt more comfortable being without in the mountains during this time.

I was continuing to have seizures and my homelessness lasted nearly 3 years until I learned about my local CIL from a family friend, which was ironically within a quarter mile from where I had been staying for the whole 3 years of homelessness.

This is when my life began to turn back around. The center assisted with getting me into housing and a job cleaning the durable medical equipment for their rental closet. I gained advocacy to get a VNS (Vagus Nerve Stimulator) inserted in May 2016 to hopefully mitigate my seizures. After a year of tuning in the amount of electricity it emits, on October 27th 2017, I had my last seizure. I have now been seizure free for nearly 6 years and my life has taken me places I never saw myself going.

Dan Ashbaugh has lived in Colorado since 1970. His a partial paraplegic due to a trampoline accident at the age of 16. He served on the Board of Directors of the Disabled Resource Center CIL in Larimer County for over 10 years.

He is a software engineer at a major IT company for the last 25 years. He has a Software Engineering degree from Colorado State University and a Mechanical Kinesiology degree from the University of Northern Colorado. Prior to this he was a World Championship and Paralympic Alpine skier as a member of the US Disabled Ski Team.

Martha has about 40 years’ experience in working with people with different disabilities – in direct services, service coordination, advocacy, and independent living. She has worked in a CIL, a CCB, a Community Mental Health Center, a free-standing Medicaid case management agency, and an Arc Chapter.

Martha enjoys civil rights work, sharing information, connecting people, and watching the community grow when people talk to each other about what’s important. She lives in Hesperus, an unincorporated community west of Durango with about 10 people per square mile. Martha has lived with mobility issues and chronic pain for about 20 years. In addition to the SILC, she is a member of the Southwest Bar Association’s Access to Justice Committee, the board of directors of the League of Women Voters of La Plata County, the Durango Multimodal Advisory Board, and the Colorado Disability Funding Committee out of Lt. Governor Primavera’s office.

Indy is a native of Colorado Springs, Colorado! She is the CEO for The Independence Center, the Center for Independent Living serving Cheyenne, El Paso, Kit Carson, Lincoln, Park, and Teller counties. Before joining The Independence Center, Indy served as the Director of Finance for Discover Goodwill. Prior to moving to work in the non-profit sector, Indy had 15 years of experience in the public accounting and financial services industries. She holds a Master of Business Administration degree from The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Colorado State University. Indy spends her free time, camping, 4-wheeling, volunteering, and attending theatre shows. One of the many quotes that inspires her is “by doing what you love, you inspire and awaken the hearts of others.

Scott Lindbloom has been on many states policy tables, currently Colorado SILC, and applying for other offices related to ADA. Previously Arizona SILC, ADA advisory committee, Arizona’s Disability Law. And then in Nebraska Scott was on the Department of Human Services advisory committee. Scott has been presented: Advocate and Champion of the Rural Arizona Disability Community award by Congressman Tom O’Halleran. Scott is very passionate and enthusiastic when it comes to accomplish his goals.

Hello my name is Edgar Morales and I am an ILS Skills Specialist at The Independence Center in Colorado Springs. I have been doing this for 23 years. (14 in Florida, 9 in Colorado Springs. I love helping people be more independent, especially our youth. I am bilingual (English and Spanish) I love traveling and amusement parks. I also like to draw.

Sage Sigman is a Colorado Native with lived experience with mental, developmental, and physical disability and the intersections therein but also with intersections in homelessness and housing insecurity, LGBTQIA+ identities, age, class, and justice-involvement. These intersections have left their mark on how he experiences disability and given him drive to serve the community and advocate for disabled members of the community as individuals and in the policy sphere working to build a more accessible world. He works as a Peer Mentor at Metropolitan State University of Denver and in this role advocates for disabled students and helps students to self-advocate. He is active in both housing policy and policy concerning the disabled community within the State of Colorado. He lives by a philosophy that “no person should be left behind in our community” and works to ensure that persons with disabilities live in world where they are never left behind. “Service above all else” is his motto.

When Courtney met her idol Minnie Mouse during her Make-A-Wish trip to Disneyland at 7-years-old, she embraced the famous mouse and exclaimed “I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet you!” No one expected the diminutive sightless little girl from New Jersey to grow up to care for herself, but with a ton of determination and an amazingly supportive family, and maybe a little Disney Magic thrown in, Courtney is thriving in a beautiful life, working disability advocacy in Colorado, and planning for a dreamy lifetime together with her husband Scott and stepson Matthew.

Courtney graduated from Metuchen High School in New Jersey, and the Independence Training Program at the Colorado Center for the Blind. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Statewide Independent Living Center (SILC) of Colorado. Courtney has held numerous positions as a behavioral therapist supporting people of varying physical, mental and emotional abilities; working in school environments for others with vision impairments; and providing patient support in several healthcare environments. Currently, Courtney is an Independence Specialist with Atlantis Community in Denver.

In her leisure time, Courtney enjoys the many outdoor activities that her adopted home state of Colorado offers to her with family and friends, catching up on her favorite binge-worthy TV, and any form of socializing which typically leads to Courtney supporting and entertaining those around her with her tough Jersey girl attitude and humor.

Matt is the State Representative from the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), and Office of Community Living (OCL). He has held a variety of roles in Colorado’s Long Term Services & Supports (LTSS) system throughout his career including work with Program Approved Service Agencies (PASA), Community Centered Boards (CCB), and Single Entry Points (SEP). These roles have strengthened his fervent belief that everyone deserves a chance to define happiness and success for themselves, and that everyone’s story is important. In his role on this SILC, Matt hopes to help bridge the gap between community-based organizations so that Coloradoans are able to access a strong network of care when needed.

Susan Dameron is passionate about equity and diversity in employment and education. She currently works as a Supervisor for the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation in Durango, Cortez, Montrose and Delta. Susan has been with DVR for 3 years and has over 17 years of experience in Higher Education and TRIO programs. She has earned a Bachelor’s in English, a Master’s in Education: Teaching, Learning and Leadership, and a PhD in Education: Curriculum and Social Foundations from Oklahoma State University.