Beatriz Oliva Soto Ruvalcaba (she, her, ella) is originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, through her childhood and youth she grew up in a bi-cultural setting between Mexico and the United States navigating the broken US immigration system. She has a Bachelor Degree in Architecture from the Instituto Tecnologico de Chihuahua and practiced architecture for over 15 years.
She has been at the intersection of community building and working towards a stable climate for the past two decades. Beatriz is a LEED certified architect and has worked on a variety of energy related projects, from Net-Zero affordable housing and commercial buildings to high performance custom homes, sustainable developments in the pacific coast of Mexico, as well as providing professional development workshops with the US and the Mexican Green Building Councils. Beatriz developed a bilingual program on building science for just transition and empowerment of construction workforce, which she ran for the Community Office of Resources Efficiency in Pitkin County, Colorado.
In 2021 Beatriz was appointed to serve on the Colorado Environmental Justice Action Task Force representing Disproportionately Impacted Communities in Congressional District 3, the recommendations set forward by the taskforce have currently been endorsed by Colorado Gov. Polis and will begin to be implemented across state agencies. She was also a proud member of the US delegation at the World Forestry Congress in Seoul, South Korea in 2022, where her work elevating diverse and minority voices in conservation and the future of the US mountain west resort economies was shared at a global scale.
Beatriz is former Director of Defiende Nuestra Tierra for The Wilderness Workshop, also a co-founding member of Voces Unidas de las Montañas, first political non-profit organization in the central mountain region, made up of Latino and Latina leaders that helps create opportunities for local leaders to speak and advocate for themselves. She currently is the Director of Protegete, a statewide program from Conservation Colorado, who has the mission to elevate Latino driven solutions to protect our lands, water, air and fight for environmental and climate justice. You can find her volunteering in local schools to encourage Latinx youth to see themselves as leaders in STEM fields, become stewards of the land and to understand the importance of their voice in environmental and social issues.
