Born and raised in New Mexico, Orlando grew up in a family-built adobe house in northern NM
where he played with dirt, irrigated from acequias, fly-fished for wily brown trout, and spent
countless hours gazing at the stars of the Milky Way. He went on to UNM to earn a BS in
Applied Mathematics and a Master of Water Resources degree, which prepped him for 20-years
of service as a surface-water hydrologist with the USGS where he specialized in urban
stormwater studies, rainfall data-collection networks, and a touch of wildfire science. For most of
his adult life, Orlando has moonlighted as an experiential educator and coach; he is an AMGA
rock climbing instructor and manages rock-climbing programs for UNM, Kirtland AFB, and
Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions. He believes profoundly in the transformative impact of outdoor
experience and how this experience is instrumental in the human appreciation of natural
resources and their fragility. And he really likes bicycles.