As a dedicated birder, JoAnn Hackos is pleased to have the role of Conservation for Evergreen Audubon. JoAnn and her husband Bill have been active EA members, leading Christmas Bird Counts, taking part in the Breeding Bird Atlas scouting, and volunteering at the Evergreen Nature Center for several years. Now that they are retired, JoAnn is even more involved in the work of the Chapter, leading the Chapter’s conservation efforts and serving as Evergreen’s delegate to the Colorado Council of Audubon Chapters. She brings considerable skills and abilities to the Board, in addition to her birding expertise.
JoAnn started out in academics. She has a doctorate in English Literature and Rhetoric. After graduate school, she taught at Central Michigan University and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. In 1977, JoAnn joined the faculty at the Colorado School of Mines as the director of the Technical Communication program. In 1980, she and Bill launched Comtech Services, to assist major companies worldwide in making technical information more usable and understandable for their customers. In addition to traveling worldwide to work with clients, including four trips to China, they have regularly hosted and sponsored Content Management Stretegies conferences in the US and Europe. A prolific writer, JoAnn has authored seven industry texts that are the standards for university degree programs in Technical Communication and she is widely regarded as an industry leader in the field.
JoAnn’s passion, however, is birding. “In 2011, we did a personal Big Year, traveling extensively throughout North America, including St. Paul Island and Nome, Alaska,” explained JoAnn. “Our total species count was 436, not close to the 700s of the famous Big Years, but pretty good for a couple who were running an international consulting firm at the time.”
JoAnn and Bill focus many of their yearly activities on birding, traveling regularly to birding conferences and hotspots and completing treks which have led them up and down the North American coasts, through Newfoundland, and along the Lewis and Clark trail, among other many other adventures. JoAnn also enjoys cooking a wide variety of dishes, especially those inherited from her Italian grandmother, and is known for preparing the chili in great quantities for the Christmas Bird Count “Tally Rally” dinner every year. She is a voracious reader and enjoys working on jigsaw puzzles.
JoAnn and Bill live in the Soda Creek area of Evergreen where they often find themselves entertaining their two adult sons and eight grandchildren, including a set of triplets, who keep them very busy. She is pleased to report that a few of the grandchildren have even shown an interest in birds.