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Meet Our Board
Committed to the Cause
Paul Padyk
Founder and Board Chair
Paul Padyk, M.D. is an emergency medicine physician and medical director for CareFlight of the Rockies in Grand Junction, CO at the end of a 30 year career.
Traveling throughout the world, he has used many different kinds of toilets, including the foul and dangerous. Interested in social and environmental issues and wanting to continue problem solving after an intense clinical career, Paul is focusing his energy on public health, founding Toilet Equity as a solution to the problem of poor toilet access locally and internationally.
Contact Paul at info@toiletequity.org.
Avery Pope
Secretary
Avery graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2021 with two degrees in Public Health and French, and was named the Distinguished Senior for the College of Arts and Letters. Throughout her college career she focused on mental health, sexual health and the COVID-19 pandemic through research, community public health interventions, and internships.
Avery enjoys spending time outdoors, specifically paddle boarding, fly fishing, and biking. She is involved in Toilet Equity for the shared passion to preserve the health of the environment and the community that surrounds the Colorado River in the Grand Valley by eliminating fecal contamination and providing dignified toileting solutions.
Avery plans on becoming a Physician's Assistant and hopes to one day work in a Francophone country.
Bill Hilty
Bill Hilty, MD, is the Medical Director of the IMH St. Mary's Hospital Emergency Department in Grand Junction, Colorado. He is an energetic and thoughtful activist, connector, and leader, with passion for social justice. His first experience with board service was with a local church congregation, and he served more than 7 years in various offices including Board President.
He is currently an active board member and former President of the Board of the local nonprofit Center for Children, a sexual and physical abuse advocacy and healing organization. He has served as Chief of Medical Staff at St. Mary's Hospital, and in that role was a two-year member of the St. Mary's Hospital Board. When not at work, he has a great love for the outdoors, whether free heel skiing, climbing mountains, rafting, or cycling.
Kelly Thompson
Kelly has been a health care worker in emergency medical services for nearly 30 years, providing nursing care both locally and internationally. During her career, she has volunteered for many different local organizations and currently serves on the Boards for Voluntarios en asistencia social y médica- VASM, Perú and Grand Junction FireFighter Foundation.
A native to our valley, she is the Operations Director for CareFlight of the Rockies air medical program. Recognizing the problems of public health and gender equity caused by poor toilet access, she brings her managerial expertise, as well as her love of travel and foreign culture to Toilet Equity
Mike Luedtke
Chair-Elect
Mike is an attorney at Hoskin, Farina & Kampf, P.C., one of Grand Junction’s oldest and largest law firms. Mike has a long-term commitment to serving the disenfranchised and all-too-often marginalized members of the community.
During his academic years, Mike worked and volunteered as a vocational trainer of special needs adults, and interned with a disability law center and the Mesa County Public Defender’s Office. He has continued this spirit of service through guardian-ad-litem work as a young lawyer, involvement on church councils and committees, helping feed the homeless, pro-bono legal work, and he currently serves on two local, non-profit health care provider boards of directors and on a community college advisory board. His law practice focus is on health care law, information technology, and commercial contracting, representing and advising non-profits, business entity formation, and Colorado special district law.
Outside of the day-to-day work, Mike loves to spend time with family and friends, gardening, camping, fly-fishing, and archery elk hunting.
Terri Chinn
Treasurer
Terri began her career in public accounting with the international accounting firm, Arthur Andersen & Co., but soon began to specialize in healthcare finance, where she has worked for almost forty years. Terri has been Vice President of Finance for St. Mary's Regional Medical Center in Grand Junction since 2013. Before that, she was Chief Financial Officer for Lovelace Health Plan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and prior to that, she worked in various other financial leadership positions with health care organizations in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Terri earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree from Brigham Young University and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Utah. Her community and civic involvements include her current position as Treasurer for the Art Center of Western Colorado. She was Chairman of the Finance Committee for St. Joseph Community Health Care in Albuquerque from 2009 to 2013 and was a board member of the New Mexico High Risk Insurance Pool from 2010 to 2013.
Terri has one child, a daughter, who is a physician and who has worked at St. Mary's since 2019. Terri has two dogs, both rescues, and she loves to hike with friends, river raft, read, and garden. She loves living in the beautiful Western Colorado desert and wants to be part of keeping it pristine for future generations.
Meet Our Staff
Working to Make a Difference
Kaitlin Pettit
CEO
Kaitlin Pettit, Ph.D. is an environmental ethicist. She spent four years at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon getting a BA in Philosophy, as well as six years at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah getting her doctorate in Philosophy. She wrote her dissertation on corporate moral responsibility in response to climate change.
Kaitlin enjoys spending time outside with her family, especially on river adventures or in the garden with her daughter and dog. She sees the increasing evidence of climate change and works hard to make changes in her life each day to help combat its effects.
Contact Kaitlin at kaitlin@toiletequity.org.
Wendy Metzger
Project Manager, Colorado River Corridor
Following a 30-year career in Long Term Care as a Nursing Home Administrator, Wendy turned her sights from healthcare to Aquaponic farming and relocated to the Grand Valley in 2018. Not long ago, valuable fish poop provided most of the nutrients for her thriving aquaponic market garden of lettuce and greens in a controlled environment located in a 4800 square foot metal building supported by solar power. Her passion was strong, and her lettuce was tasty and healthy. Alas, the winter weather in Loma proved fatal for the farm as the roof collapsed on New Years’ Eve 2021.
Volunteer work was her next natural service path as she got involved with Church leadership, Mutual Aid Partners food distribution, Catholic Charities soup kitchen, and the We Shelter program organized by GV Peace and Justice. Working for Toilet Equity flowed naturally as her interest in serving those in need developed as her new passion.
Wendy is a graduate from Emory University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Her free time is spent taking her dog Radar on long walks, nurturing her flock of chickens, and, most recently, working on her pool game.
Contact Wendy at Wendy@toiletequity.org.
Kuiper Curtis
Project Coordinator, Colorado River Corridor
Kuiper was born and raised in Grand Junction, Colorado, and over the years grew to love its environment and community. They worked at Western Colorado Conservation Corps for 5 years, where their passion for natural resource conservation (and running a chainsaw) grew, and it inspired them to get their Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science. Kuiper is currently working on that degree through Oregon State University's online program.
Kuiper enjoys camping, canyoneering, and river-tripping with their partner and friends, as well as staying home watching Star Trek. They hope to continue to do what they can to conserve this amazing high desert environment and keep it accessible for all.
Contact Kuiper at info@toiletequity.org.
Former Board Members
Still Committed to the Cause
Randall Reitz
Randall Reitz, Ph.D. is the Director of Behavioral Medicine at the St Mary's Family Medicine Residency in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Across his career, he has worked with Coloradans who lack toilet equity, including migrant farmworkers in Palisade, homeless people in Grand Junction, and the hippies who populate the forests around Frisco. He has been the CEO of 2 healthcare-related non-profits and has been a board member of local, state, and national non-profits.
Randall was elected to Grand Junction's City Council in April 2021.