After Colorado Senators raised concerns with Gov. Jared Polis’ previous nominations for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, the governor has named three new appointees to the volunteer board tasked with guiding the state agency’s policies and regulations. 

Polis announced the three appointments — in addition to reappointments for current commissioners, Gabriel Otero and Richard Reading — on Wednesday, June 3. 

This included Dr. Peter Maguire, a veterinary neurologist in Grand Junction; Rebecca Niemiec, a tenured associate professor at Colorado State University’s Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources in Fort Collins; and Johnny Le Coq, who owns and lives on a ranch north of Silverthorne. 

One of these appointments will replace Eden Vardy, who served the final meeting of his term in May. The other two are to replace John Emerick and Chris Sichko, who were nominated by Polis in June 2025 and Feb. 2026, respectively, but were rejected by the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee and withdrew from the process before the full Senate vote earlier this year. 

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is composed of 11 voting members who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the state Senate. State law requires that these seats be represented by a mix of sportspersons, outfitters, agriculture producers, recreationalists and representatives of the public at large. The Colorado agriculture commissioner and Colorado Department of Natural Resources executive director hold non-voting seats on the board.

Emerick and Sichko faced pushback from members of the sportspersons and agriculture communities, who argued it would skew the board toward anti-hunting, extreme wildlife beliefs. 

In the Senate committee, the lawmakers also argued that neither was well-suited to serve the seat they were appointed to. The Senators expressed concerns that Emerick’s history of activism on wildlife issues was inappropriate for the at-large seat for which he was nominated. Sichko was appointed to one of the sportspersons’ seats on the commission, drawing on his experience fishing and small game hunting. However, the lawmakers who voted against his nomination cited his lack of big game hunting experience as the rationale. 

Maguire was appointed to one of the commission’s sportsperson seats for a term ending in July 2027. According to a news release from the governor’s office, He is “an active big and small game hunter and angler,” having held hunting and fishing licenses in the state “for many years.” It adds that he has a preference for elk hunting, but also enjoys mule deer, pheasant and blue grouse hunting. 

Professionally, the release adds, he has more than 25 years of veterinary clinical experience and is the founder of SpecialtyVetCare, “providing advanced neurological and neurosurgical referral services across Western Colorado.” 

Niemec was appointed to one of the commission’s two at-large seats for a term expiring in July 2029. At Colorado State University, she founded and co-directs the Animal-Human Policy Center, a policy research center focused on the social science of human-animal relations, and is an avid recreationalist and state park visitor, according to the news release.

With a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Dartmouth College, she also previously served as the manager of the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Protection. Her research has been rooted in public perspectives on wildlife management, human-wildlife coexistence, and conservation policy, the release states. 

Le Coq was appointed to the production and agriculture representative seat held previously by Vardy, for a term expiring in July 2030. The news release describes him as “a longtime West Slope landowner whose family property encompasses more than 400 acres of grazing land,” and which “supports ongoing agricultural use.” The land, it adds, is protected by a conservation easement held by American Farmland Trust. 

Le Coq also previously founded Fishpond, a fly fishing and outdoor gear business, and Case Logic, a photo and storage accessories company that is now owned by Thule. He serves on the Board of Directors of Woodwell Climate Research Center and the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy, and is co-founder of Science on the Fly, which relies on citizen science to collect river water data to inform climate and research policy. 

Otero was named as the Parks and Wildlife Commission’s vice chair in May. His reappointment to a sportsperson seat will be for a term until July 2030. He started on the board in 2022. He lives in Fruita and is a fourth-generation Coloradan of Chicano heritage, according to the release. He is a big game hunter and angler with a career in energy development and public lands conservation, including his current role as senior campaign representative for The Wilderness Society, a national nonprofit focused on conservation and protection of public lands. 

In May, Reading completed a year as chair of the commission. He has served as a public at-large representative on this board since 2022. His reappointment will expire in July 2030. Reading recently retired from the Butterfly Pavilion, where he was the vice president of science and conservation, but still holds affiliate faculty positions at Colorado State University and the University of Denver. He has a Ph.D. and three Master’s degrees in wildlife ecology and the human dimensions of wildlife management from Yale University and spent 19 years at Denver Zoo founding and leading its conservation biology program, according to the governor’s release. 

“Colorado’s parks and wildlife deserve commissioners who bring real, lived experience to this work,” said Polis in a media statement. “In this round of appointments and reappointments alone, two active big game hunters from western Colorado are joining or returning to the Commission, joining yet another active big game hunter already serving, and now across the full Commission, every production agriculture seat is held by a rancher with working cattle on the land. These are Coloradans who hunt, ranch and have dedicated their careers to understanding how people and wildlife thrive together.”

All five appointments will begin, or continue, serving on the commission in July — with their first meeting on July 16-17 — before facing the Senate confirmation process during the 2027 legislative session.