Meet our Speakers

Leon's passion for music and his ancestral histories inspired him at a very young age to research and study the origins of music.

As a composer, songwriter, and consummate performer, he is well known for his Native American flute styles and for concerts with world-class musicians and symphony orchestras.

His storytelling on "The Indigenous History of Music" has reached hundreds of audiences all over the country. He has also spent over a decade as a public speaker.

Oakley Van Oss is an educator, mentor, and advocate for creating opportunities where students can discover who they are and what they can become.

With 27 years of experience teaching in public high schools, he has designed and led learning experiences ranging from wilderness expeditions on the Green and Upper Colorado Rivers to international adventures in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru, and Ecuador.

At Summit High School, Oakley serves as a construction and welding educator and the unofficial chief volunteer wrangler, cat herder, and trades promoter — building bridges between students, community members, and industry partners. His passion is helping young people find confidence, purpose, and belonging through authentic experiences and meaningful relationships.

Maisie Bryant is a 13-year-old from Summit County who won the TEDx contest at Summit Middle School — and who gets very nervous speaking in front of large groups. She is taking the red dot anyway.

Social anxiety affects roughly one in eight people, and Maisie knows it from the inside. She talks about what it feels like to circle the edge of the ice rink instead of practicing in front of others, why avoidance costs you opportunities you never see, and the strategies that actually help — borrowing confidence until it becomes real, leaning on people who don't judge you, and facing the situations you would rather skip.

She is a competitive figure skater who performs in ice shows, and she has the backing of her friends and family. Her goal is simple: to spread awareness, and to make the next person who feels watched feel a little less alone.

Travis Tallent has spent the last decade helping the world's biggest brands — including Aspen Snowmass, Microsoft, LEGO, adidas, and Capital One — win in the age of AI search.

Along the way he noticed something: the algorithms reshaping how the world finds everything left rural mountain communities behind.

Now he's the founder of MountainTowns.com, a community and membership pass connecting explorers with the hidden-gem businesses AI can't find.

Kurt Kionka is the Project Director for the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), where he leads the massive I-70 Floyd Hill to Veterans Memorial Tunnels Project — transforming a congested, weather-battered eight-mile stretch of the I-70 Mountain Corridor and modernizing how Coloradans travel.

With over 23 years of multi-disciplinary experience at CDOT, Kurt's journey began in 2003 as a student intern doing public outreach for the I-70 corridor in Denver. Since then he has steered numerous complex infrastructure challenges, most notably leading the high-stakes US 36 Emergency Rebuild in 2019.

A proud Colorado native, Kurt earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University. When he isn't managing multi-million dollar highway projects, he is exploring his home state with his wife and two children — skiing, visiting state parks, and enjoying the Denver Zoo. Fun fact: in 2001 he won the Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right.