Andrew Currie, Founder

Advisors and Consultants

Bill Silberstein, Legal
Michael L. Platt, Legal
John C. Graham, Accounting & Tax
Tom Hoffman, Accounting & Tax
Marty Zeller, Land Planning
Paul Heffron, Consultant

Andrew Currie
Founder, Conservation Havens LLC
Founder & CEO of Email Publishing Inc. (1996-1999)
Founder & CEO of Cyberspace Development Inc. (1993-1996)

Mr. Currie founded Email Publishing Inc., his second software startup, and as CEO led the company to become the leading provider of large-scale personalized message delivery and email subscription management in the publishing and software industry with clients including CMP Media, USA Today, Forbes, Netscape, and Intuit. MessageMedia acquired Email Publishing (since acquired by DoubleClick DCLK). In 1999 Andrew, along with his co-founders, was named Boulder, Colorado Esprit Entrepreneur of the Year.

He served for years as a director of the software company Gold Systems, Inc. (www.goldsys.com) and trustee of the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County. He currently serves as Vice Chair of Colorado Conservation Voters and co-founded and served as Chair for Social Venture Partners Boulder County (www.svpbouldercounty.org). Andrew has a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern Mississippi and is an alumnus of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization.

He is currently founder of Conservation Havens LLC in which people who value wildlife conservation and who enjoy outdoor recreation purchase ownership in a ranch property. The property is used on an exclusive scheduled basis as a 2nd home for recreation and the owners protect the entire property with a conservation easement. Andrew lives on 35 acres of Ponderosa pine forest in the foothills of Boulder County and enjoys hiking, biking, music and world travel to view and learn about wildlife.

 Legal: Real Estate & Conservation Easements

Bill Silberstein
Partner, Isaacson Rosenbaum P.C.  Denver CO

Mr. Silberstein is Chair of IRWL’s Conservation Law Practice Group and a member of the Real Estate and Transactional Practice Group. Mr. Silberstein works with members of the tax department in structuring conservation easements and other conservation-oriented business and estate plans. His team approach brings together accountants, appraisers, land planners, and biologists to achieve the client’s conservation objectives. He has assisted land trusts in non-profit incorporation, and obtaining and maintaining of tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable status. The Conservation Law Practice Group has assisted clients with over 300 conservation easements

Mr. Silberstein is recognized as a leader in land conservation law and the preservation of open space in the Rocky Mountain region. After graduating from the University of Colorado School of Law, he handled his first conservation easement during his initial year of law practice. He discovered that he could combine his passion for land conservation with the firm’s expertise in real estate and tax law. Mr. Silberstein serves as counsel to Colorado Open Lands, Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, Great Outdoors Colorado, Aspen Valley Land Trust, and Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts and has represented many landowners and other local and national land conservation organizations in transactions resulting in the preservation of tens of thousands of Colorado’s most beautiful acres. Recent land conservation projects handled by Mr. Silberstein include:

• The Evans Ranch, Evergreen, Colorado, which remains one of the country’s leading protective development preservation projects. The conservation easements are held by American Farmland Trust. The project also involved the use of protective covenants.
• Phantom Canyon Ranch, Phantom Canyon, Colorado, a protective development with a conservation easement held by The Nature Conservancy.
• Upper Elk River Valley, Routt County, Colorado, a valley-wide conservation plan with multiple property owners.
• Representation of landowners or land trusts in more than 200 conservation easement transactions, including the Mt. Powell Ranch in the Blue River Valley, the LaGarita Ranch on the Rio Grande, White Rock Farm on Boulder Creek, the Arapahoe Ranch near the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area, the Last Dollar Ranch on the Dallas Divide, and the Centennial Ranch on the Uncompahgre River.

Mr. Silberstein is a frequent lecturer and author on conservation easements and the tax aspects of open space preservation. Mr. Silberstein served as an intern with the National Wildlife Federation while at the University of Colorado. Mr. Silberstein serves as pro-bono counsel to the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts assisting with legislation, lobbying, speaking and writing, and he served for six years on the Board of Directors of the Land Trust Alliance.

 Legal: Securities, Corporate, Intellectual Property

Michael L. Platt
Partner, Cooley Godward    Broomfield, CO

Mr. Platt specializes in the representation of emerging growth companies and the investors that support them. His experience in the representation of emerging companies ranges from start-up incorporation and counseling to day-to-day representation of public companies. He has assisted his clients with venture capital financings, technology and licensing matters, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate partnering and other strategic relationships, and employee benefit and equity ownership plans. Mr. Platt has been counsel to companies operating in a variety of industries, including computer hardware and software, communications, biotechnology, and medical devices.

As counsel to investment banks and venture capitalists, Mr. Platt has assisted clients with public offerings, managed private placements, venture capital financings and general securities law compliance matters such as venture fund distributions and other securities matters.

Mr. Platt received his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he was elected Order of the Coif. Mr. Platt is a native of Colorado and attended the University of Colorado in Boulder. He received an undergraduate degree in Business at C.U. where he was awarded the College of Business Dean’s Undergraduate Leadership award and was elected Beta Gamma Sigma. Mr. Platt is admitted to practice before the Colorado and California bars.

 Accounting & Tax

John C. Graham
CPA, CFP Johnson, Kightlinger & Graham   Boulder, CO

John has been providing tax and planning advice to individuals and small businesses for over 17 years and is currently a partner in a Boulder CPA firm.  He has been actively involved with the Colorado Gross Conservation Easement Credit since its inception in 2000. During that time he has: Placed a conservation easement on land he owns, Helped prospective donors understand the process including potential pitfalls, Helped prospective donors evaluate a proposed donation to determine whether it is eligible and appropriate, Prepared income tax projections to evaluate the tax consequences of an easement, Helped sellers of credits to find buyers, and Prepared 40+ US and Colorado income tax returns to report the above.

Tom Hoffman
CPA CBIZ Accounting, Tax & Advisory Services Denver, CO

Thomas R Hoffman is an attorney and CPA with 25 plus years experience, dealing primarily with wealthy individuals and their related entities.  He has extensive experience with real estate clients, including investors, developers, commercial property managers and home builders.  In the course of that experience he has been involved in a number of transactions involving donation of easements or other partial interests in real property to charities, and has been involved in the structuring and tax planning for such transfers.  He has also been involved with clients on conservation easements and the federal and Colorado tax consequences.  He has taught classes to both CPA’s and attorneys on real estate tax planning.

 Land Planning

Marty Zeller
Conservation Partners   Denver, CO

Marty Zeller is President of Conservation Partners, Inc., a land conservation and rural planning firm specializing in community-based strategies that protect lands with high conservation or natural resource values. Conservation Partners works with landowners and land trusts throughout the Rocky Mountain West to develop conservation plans and strategies tailored to financial, family, tax and conservation objectives. CP has assisted many communities and counties throughout the West in developing open land plans and implementation programs to protect special community resources in ways that constructively engage landowners. A number of these plans have received regional and national awards. In addition, Conservation Partners works with half a dozen charitable foundations to develop programs that improve the capacity of land saving organizations and promote more effective land stewardship.

In 2003, Marty also established Colorado Conservation Connection, a tax credit exchange company that matches sellers and buyers of conservation easement tax credits under Colorado’s innovative tax incentive program. Prior to starting Conservation Partners, Marty was a principal at Design Workshop, a large land planning and landscape architecture firm. He also spent ten years as vice president of two statewide land trusts, Colorado Open Lands and the Vermont Land Trust. He is frequently asked to speak on conservation and land use issues in the West.

 Multi-owner Recreational Ranch Consulting

Paul Heffron
J. Paul Heffron & Associates; Founder, Co-owner and Manager Jackson Ranch in North Park Boulder, CO

Mr. Heffron founded and serves as manager for the 12 owner Jackson Ranch property in North Park, CO (Jackson County). Paul has decades of experience designing and managing a successful multi-owner recreational ranch property.

 Wildlife and Land Conservation

Conservation Havens LLC maintains a close relationship with and solicits advice and input from leading science-based conservation groups including The Nature Conservancy of Colorado, Colorado Conservation Trust, Wildlands Project, Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, Land Trust Alliance and land trusts throughout the state.