Change in leadership underway at Gunnison Mentors

After 20 years as executive director for Gunnison Mentors, Tina McGuinness is stepping down, transitioning power to Andrew Butterfield. The two have worked closely for years as Butterfield has weaved his way through mentoring and program directing.

McGuinness joined forces with Mentors in 1997, seven years after the program’s initial establishment working through the county’s Juvenile Services branch.

“We called ourselves a mentoring organization at the time, but very little of our funding and very little of our program focus was on one-to-one mentoring,” said McGuinness. “The board decided to move away from peripheral programs and focus our energies on building just youth mentoring. That was really the start of our growth.”

At the time, the program only had three employees, and McGuinness was working just 12 hours a week as a case manager.

When the program split from Juvenile Services in 2006, and McGuinness was promoted, they moved into their own space, and she hired Megan Jelinek as executive director.

“Tina’s incredible. She’s been my mentor over the years,” said Jelinek. Jelinek and McGuinness built mentors into what it is now. After 20 years of partnership, their bond still supports Gunnison youth.

McGuinness used her degree in education and masters in public administration to break into what has become her passion project.

“I always wanted to run a nonprofit that was related to children and youth,” she said. “I moved to Gunnison and did what everybody does when they first move here; cleaned cabins and worked at the ski area,” she said with a laugh. 

McGunniess, while following in the footsteps of the rest of the Gunnison Valley population, was also doing some grant writing on the side, and was hired as employment training representative for what is now Colorado Work Force until her kids were born.

“Then I got the job with Gunnison Country Partners (now Mentors),” she said.

Though McGuinness is technically passing the torch to Butterfield, she is still staying with the Mentors until July 2027 to help oversee the programs and financial aspects of the organization. She says she’s going back down to 12 hours, rounding out her career with Mentors the way it started.

“Andrew has been a mentor for us, he’s an incredibly compassionate person. We had watched him work with youth and develop strong relationships with the families and the kids,” said McGuinness. “Everybody on the staff really liked Andrew, plus he’s bilingual. We have a growing population of families whose native language is Spanish, and we wanted to honor those families and be able to communicate better with them.”

As part of McGuinness’s transition plan, Butterfield spent 2 years as a case manager to solidify his understanding of mentoring, and then after that he spent a year as program director to learn the program management side of things.

“We have such great staff, they’ve been here through all these changes,” she said.

Now that Butterfield has taken over the majority of the responsibilities, he has started writing grants and learning the financial aspects from McGuinness.

“It was a long transition plan, I know, but it has worked out. He’s been here to really understand our values and our organization, and get to know some of my contacts throughout the state,” McGuinness said.

Butterfield officially became the executive Director on Jan. 1.

“This organization is my family, it is my heart,” McGuinness said.

Butterfield grew up in Johnstown, coming to the Gunnison Valley to ski, hike and fish with his parents.

“I knew at a pretty young age that I was likely going to end up here,” he said.

After graduating from Western Colorado University with a sociology degree, he worked on the mountain and did other seasonal jobs including raft guiding and landscaping, and became a mentor in 2011. After a few years as the lift operations assistant manager, Butterfield decided to go back to school. He was stuck between graduate school acceptances, and simply pursuing another bachelor’s degree at Western. He decided to go back to undergrad to focus on Spanish.

“I wanted to use my degree and do something that was productive for the community,” he said. “I just felt that learning Spanish and being fluent would be far more helpful in this profession.”

To really care for the people in this community, basic communication is essential. After pursuing his second degree, Andrew worked for Project Hope before heading to Peru to teach English and raft guide. He loved his work, but something was always missing,

“I always knew I wanted to work with kids,” he said.

Butterfield still teaches Spanish classes for Project Hope every Tuesday morning.

“Such an important part of our community is the Spanish speaking population,” he said. “You have to be able to communicate with them to really understand their needs and have a welcoming environment. Thirty-three percent of our staff are fluent Spanish speakers.”

Butterfield has been working full time at Gunnison Mentors since 2022, and was brought on with the intention of filling the executive director role.

“Most directors don’t have such a long plan for exiting.I feel like she’s been really responsible in the leadership change and very conscientious and intentional,” Jelinek said. “She’s been training Andrew since he’s been with us.”

Butterfield and McGuinness’s symbiosis has kept Mentors thriving.

“Mentoring is prevention,” Butterfield said. “The work that we do here is to support the youth in our community. It’s a big testament to our community, the amount of support we have, through the thousands of community volunteers over the years”

One of the more recent programs that have been implemented in recent years include the “Right of Passage,” a therapeutic mentoring program.

“It stemmed from an identified need for systems involving youth and youth at highest risk for substance use for mental health concerns. We noticed there is an influx in particular with middle school boys in Gunnison. Traditional court systems and judicial systems weren’t addressing the needs of these youth,” said Butterfield, praising the program. “Some of the youth have come back as peer advisors. We are adaptable to the needs of our community.” Butterfield said, highlighting another community program, bringing up the volunteers the mentor program brings in to watch the children of teen-moms so that they are able to focus on school work and get their GED’s.

“It’s been really helpful having Tina as my mentor.” Butterfield said.

Mentors is an essential part of the Gunnison valley. We are a community that needs each other. What this valley has seen in the last year is that resilience, and radical togetherness, overcome hardship. “We feel that every youth deserves a positive role model in their life, and every person needs someone to mentor them in order to be successful.”

McGuinness and Butterfield both stressed the fact that they knew, early in their lives and careers, that what they were passionate about was helping kids. It’s amazing when a community has just one person like that, but Gunnison is lucky enough to find that drive and sense of purpose in every corner.

“Tina and Andrew have been a good team and are going to continue to be,” said Jelinek.

This summer, Mentors is setting up a coffee shop in a tiny home to be called “The Hope Bean.” The shop will be run and managed by Gunnison kids through the Summer Work Crew.

If you, or anyone you know has an interest in mentoring, Gunnison Mentors is always looking for volunteers to help get kids off the waiting lists.