Gen XYZ: Colorado's 25 Most Influential Young Professionals.

• Author: Visocchi, Tom
• Position: Top 25 young professionals

Now in its third year, the feature we've dubbed "Gen XYZ" for the age-group or "generation" it represents--the under-40 set--has boomed in popularity and participation numbers, to the simultaneous delight and consternation of the judges who pour over the nominations to come to a consensus on the year's top 25 young professionals, and then from that group select a top five who are profiled in more detail on the following pages.

This year, a record 261 nominations were submitted online at www.cobizmag.com. The judges were made up of ColoradoBiz magazine's editorial board along with representatives of Denver's Young Professionals group and Regis College.

The judging criteria: professional achievement, impact in the community, obstacles surmounted, and the drive exhibited by the nominee in his or her career. It's obvious there is much subjectivity involved, and there was ample discussion among the judges as to how exactly a "most influential young professional" should be defined and how certain attributes should be weighted.

The only fitting Gen XYZ answer, it seems: We know them when we see them. We think you'll agree on that after reading about the winners and their achievements.

--Mike Taylor, Colorado Biz editor

Amanda Adams wants people to be excited about a career in mining. That includes everyone from Girl Scouts on an educational excursion on Dinosaur Ridge to new hires at MWH Global, where Adams works as a senior geological engineer.

Adams didn't even want to be an engineer when she was growing up. "My dad is a structural engineer," she says. "I thought, I don't know what Dad does but I'm sure it's boring."

Her downfall was that she really liked geology, which, as it turned out, was not boring at all. She graduated from Colorado School of Mines with a bachelor's degree in geological engineering. She went to work for a small geotechnical company in Denver, then joined MWH Global in 2008.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

MWH Global is a wet infrastructure and environmental engineering firm. Adams explains that she works at the intersection of mining and water. In one recent project, she designed a tailings storage facility for a copper mine in Peru. Tailings, the waste materials left over after minerals are extracted from ore, have to be stored in an environmentally safe way.

For the past two years, Adams has been the global leader of the Young Professionals Group (YPG) at MWH Global. YPG has nearly 600 members in 40 chapters in 10 countries. The goal is to help young professionals at MWH improve their skills, gain experience and connect with each other. The group is geared to people who have fewer than 10 years of experience in the work force.

"You don't want to have a job that is just a job," Adams says. "You want to build a network of people, and have fun activities." The group provides training and networking events, and also performs volunteer work ranging from planting trees in Denver to maintaining trails on Mount Bierstadt. YPG also works to make sure young professionals in other countries feel connected. MWH Global has more than 7,500 employees worldwide, with headquarters in Broomfield.

Adams is also the current president of the Denver chapter of Women In Mining, which was founded in 1972. "I love this group," Adams says. "It's a group of really fantastic women employed at mining operations." The nationwide organization provides education to the public about the importance of the mining industry.

The Denver chapter is committed to educating kids about minerals and careers in mining, and does this through volunteer activities such as Girl Scout Dinosaur Discovery Day. The Girl Scouts Learn about rock formations and mining at the annual event. Volunteers set up booths and use visual aids such as a shadow box containing a cell phone, makeup, toothpaste and other items.

"All these need minerals that come from mining," Adams says. "It's a fun way to learn more about Colorado's mining history and share my passion for how important mining and energy and water are, and share that knowledge with kids." (If you are playing at home: The cell phone has gold; makeup has talc; and some toothpastes have sodium bicarbonate.)

Other kid-related activities include the MWH Climate Change Education Program, where Adams coordinates and leads visits to local schools to teach them about climate change and the water cycle. She has also participated with Goodwill Youth Services and other organizations on career panels, encouraging young people to develop workplace skills.

"She is passionate about sharing her love of geology with young people, and promoting careers for women in engineering," says Brea Olson, communications manager at MWH Global. "This passion is not only for her chosen career, including sharing that passion with local youth to encourage them on a path for success, but also for advancing the role of young professionals in the workplace."

--Nora Caley

Karl Falk thinks his Air Force experience has helped him in his current career, which is negotiating real estate short sales. Falk is president and CEO of Summit Mitigation Services, which helps title companies and real estate brokers handle negotiations of short sales. A short sale is a property sale in which the proceeds are not enough to cover the balance of the mortgage. It's a preferred alternative to foreclosure, and one that involves working with others toward a goal.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"In any industry there is a wide variety of ethics and personal beliefs, and coming from the Air Force Academy there is a strong sense of ethics, and having a vision, and leading other people to believe in that vision," says Falk, who graduated from the Academy and then served in the U.S. Air Force for six years.

The "other people" are 28 contractors for SMS, who work in virtual offices nationwide, plus the title companies, listing agents and banks working to develop a solution when a property is approaching foreclosure.

"We are good at navigating the jungle," Falk says. "We are very good at getting to the real core of the issues and creating a transaction."

Some of the issues center on the disagreement of how much a property is worth. Certain lenders, Falk says diplomatically, are more difficult than others, Other times the borrower has taken out several loans, making the process more complex.

Every short sale is different. To help predict the degree of difficulty of a short sale process, Falk developed a mobile app, MyShortSaleScore. The tool gives real estate professionals the ability to predict the amount of difficulty of a short sate transaction, and also allows the user to manage the short sale business wirelessly via the cloud.

Falk initially designed the app as an internal tool to help determine whether to assign a short sale to a new negotiator, or to one who is more experienced. The team looked at 2,000 short sale transactions and came up with criteria that predicts the short sale's difficulty. "Not every short sale is created equal," Falk explains. "There are some that are very hard to negotiate, and some are very rudimentary."

SMS was launched in 2010. Business has grown, and the company has a high average closing ratio. "Karl and his team close well over 80 percent of the short sales they negotiate, significantly higher than the national average of less than 50 percent," says Jessica Henley, a friend and public relations professional. "More home closings mean less homes going into foreclosure, which is a win-win situation for everyone: Realtors, buyers, sellers and the entire Colorado economy."

Falk wants others to learn more about short sales and other real estate details. He is a policy adviser to the Distressed Property Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that worked with the Federal Housing Finance Agency to develop new guidelines for the short sale market. The new guidelines, which will take effect November 1, are designed to provide clarity to borrowers and services on the complexities of short sales that have a pending foreclosure or auction date.

Falk, who lives in Monument, volunteers with Pikes Peak Boy Scouts Council. He also works with Homes for Heroes, a program that provides veterans with real estate education and reduced rates to help them with the transactions related to the purchase of their homes.

Falk hopes to have about 40 negotiators by...