About our Staff and Volunteers

Advisory Board

Monique Bourdage, Co-Director

     Monique Bourdage is the founding director of Girls Rock Denver. In 2007 while finishing a master's thesis on the electric guitar and the social construction of gender, she decided that Denver needed its own girls rock camp. She played percussion in the school band in 7th-9th grades, but didn't touch an instrument again until the age of 30 when she attended Ladies Rock Camp in Portland. She is currently studying in a doctoral program for Media Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Katie Rothery, Co-Director

     Katie Rothery is a founding member of Girls Rock Denver and an avid supporter of the local music scene. She has worn many hats in her three years of volunteering year-round with GRD while primarily focusing on community outreach, development, and administration. She truly believes that strong girls make a strong community. She resides in Denver and has volunteered with several other local organizations including the Denver Post Underground Music Showcase and the Denver Handmade Society. She attended the Girls Rock Camp Alliance conference in March 2010, and she hopes to learn to play the banjo so that she can one-day fulfill her dream of performing in an all-female octogenarian jug band.

Lauren Gale

     Lauren Gale is a 25-year-old musician from Golden, Colorado. She joined GRD as a volunteer with our 2010 camp and continues to build awareness for our project year-round as our official social networking guru. She has lived in Denver since she was 18 and recently earned a Bachelor's of Science in Music Industry Studies from the University of Colorado at Denver. She played bass in Speakeasy Tiger, a female fronted dance rock band that was honored by playing Monolith Festival at Red Rocks Amphitheater and nationally on Vans Warped Tour 2010. She currently plays bass for Monroe Monroe and Faces of Radio. Lauren also teaches private bass and guitar lessons and mentors rock bands at Band Dynamics, a school for young musicians. With her overwhelming positive attitude, she's dedicated to making the music industry a more inviting place for women of all ages.

Jennifer Goggins

     Jennifer Goggins is an active "transferred" musician from Ohio who found her niche in the local Denver music scene by volunteering her time and talents to GRD. She became involved in GRD during our inaugural camp and served as a mentor, band manager, and vocal instructor at our 2010 camp session as well. She resides in Denver and travels the globe handling security for a prominent pop band and other notable glitterati. Being able to give young women a positive music experience is important to Jennifer, and she hopes GRD will continue to garner community involvement and support as it grows here in Denver.

Sara Miller

     Sara Miller is a local drummer, educator and activist. She has been volunteering for GRD since its first camp session in 2009. She is the drummer/percussionist for the triumvirate of power known as Dangerous Nonsense. Dangerous Nonsense is an all female, feminist, socially conscience "art-metal" band currently preparing to record their first full-length album. She has been a musician for over 10 years and spent 5 years studying with the founder of the Colorado Drum Institute. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver and is currently getting her doctorate degree in Human Sexuality. She is a safe sex educator, gynecologic teaching associate, and victims' advocate in Denver.

Kendra Pierce

     Kendra Pierce is a Colorado native, wife and mother. She first became involved in GRD as a camper parent (her daughter has attended both our camp sessions) and quickly volunteered as a morning assembly leader, band manager, and year-round organizer. She loves the opportunity to help empower young ladies and watch their growth in such a short amount of time. She sang in choir in junior high and high school and will begin bass lessons in the near future. She has worked a variety of jobs both paid and volunteer and currently works as a marketing assistant at Band Dynamics while residing with her family in Englewood, CO.

Brandi Smith

     Brandi Smith is a local Denver zinester who grew up in the metro area and loves supporting and empowering girls to express themselves. Her zines have been distro'd out of Microcosm Publishing and Stranger Danger Distro. She has been leading zine workshops for girls for five years in Denver and has taught the GRD Zine Worskhop for the past two summers. Brandi volunteers her time as a Zine Librarian for the Denver Zine Library and helps keep zine culture alive in Colorado. She wants to support girls expressing themselves in music and in writing and thinks the best way to do that is to help create space for them to ROCK!

Janet Turnmeyer-Suh

     Janet Turnmeyer-Suh is a Colorado native and an avid supporter of all things local. She joined GRD as a guitar instructor for our 2010 camp, and she hopes she can more than give back what GRD gave to her this summer -- confidence, empowerment, and positive energy. She has volunteered for several other local organizations, schools and community events. She is a self-taught guitarist who has been playing for over ten years. Janet aims to become an elementary school teacher and is currently working towards earning a fellowship for her education degree. She resides in Denver with her family of two energetic boys, the stubborn, red headed cat and her lovely lobster (her lady!).

Shannon Webber

     Shannon Webber is a local musician, songwriter, singer and performer. Committed to the GRD vision of empowering young women and girls through music, she has been enthusiastically involved with the organization since our first camp session as a band coach, volunteer coordinator and now year-round member of our advisory board. She greatly appreciates writing music with other women because it's an intelligent, open process; it's an utter blast; and because women often have the most important things to say. She currently plays with two Denver bands, the all-grrrl phenomenon "Dangerous Nonsense" and the fun synth- "creamo" band Sew Buttons on Ice Cream (SBOIC). Being a Denver native, Shannon had the honor of playing flute with the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra in high school. She also volunteers as a victims' advocate for a local anti-violence organization and works at a local college.

Rhiannon Wisniewski

     Rhiannon Wisniewski now calls Denver home after growing up in Cleveland, OH. She has supported GRD since it's inception and joined our advisory board after volunteering at the 2010 camp. Rhiannon has played music ever since she can remember. She has been involved with dozens of bands over the years in many genres, particularly metal, gothic, electronic, progressive, experimental, and folk/Americana. She has performed and recorded electric/acoustic guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, vocals, sitar, saxophone, mandolin and Theremin. She currently works as an aerospace engineer and plays bass in a Denver-based technical death metal band called Aeon Descent. She and her husband Nick, who provides guitar/bass repair and maintenance for GRD, live in West Wash Park.

Laura Yribia

     Laura is a founding Board Member of Girls Rock Denver and has volunteered with us since 2008. She is a songwriter who has played bass, guitar and performed vocals with Denver and New York City-based bands Garrett's Leaf, Gut, Red Lion and The Victory Splits. Laura has also been a band coach and songwriting workshop leader at the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls in New York. She lives in Miami Beach, FL and works for the Knight Foundation.

Founding Volunteers

Linda Ruth Carter

     Flannery O'Connor was quoted, "Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." Sometimes when trying to catch up on the never-ending rush of often sub-par new music, I get the same idea about any program that might encourage yet another band to form. But then I think about how easily girls can get discouraged and feel as if things are out of their reach even without deliberate stifling. And then I remember how powerful and transforming a force music was to me as a girl, and in fact is still changing my world to this day. I believe that if a girls rock camp had been around for me when I was young, I would've really dug the chance for a place to rock out with other like-minded girls. Truly, a little encouragement and a lot less stifling can make all the difference in that difficult-to-negotiate decade of 8-18. The very best of anything we do always started out with an opportunity, the courage to try, and the confidence to keep at it. And that's why I am a volunteer of Girls Rock Denver, and happy to do what I can to help the cause.

Seth Donovan

     Seth has hung out and worked with youth in various camp and creative settings for the last 12 years. She plays cello in the local Denver music scene and loves connecting new people, new forms, and social justice work to music. She's also pretty tired of the rhetoric that you have to have money, a certain gender, education, or pop culture looks to be an amazing musician. She currently works for a couple of non-profits that work on connecting the arts to social justice work and supporting youth in developing cultural power.

Girls Rock Denver is indebted to the countless unnamed volunteers and musicians that make our work possible. Our staff and volunteers are local educators, musicians, youth advocates, parents, and community members. Check back for camp staff bios.