GekeVenn: ANADARKO

Back in 1990, Colorado's governor Roy Romer created a committee called Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), a nonprofit with the task of distributing lottery proceeds to state parks, trails, and open spaces. The GOCO committee was made up of conservation, business and political leaders from across Colorado. Today, GOCO's current executive director is Chris Castilian, a former internal lobbyist for Colorado oil and gas company Anadarko.

According to the Denver Post, while working as a government relations manager for Anadarko, “Castilian was a key player behind the formation in 2013 of Coloradans for Responsible for Energy Development, an industry public-relations front group that in its first three years of operation raised $30 million from drilling companies to flood airwaves with pro-industry messages and to send canvassers into local municipalities to combat ballot initiatives aimed at restricting drilling across the Front Range. “

Anadarko is Colorado's largest energy company and it owned the gas well and pipeline linked to the explosion of a house in Firestone, Colorado that killed two people in April of 2017. While publicly “saddened” by the tragedy, the company subsequently lobbied the state capitol opposing a bill requiring that energy companies disclose the locations of their oil and gas wells. The bill was later killed.

Castilian, who had previously worked as the director of the Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners, and later as Colorado governor Bill Owens' deputy chief of staff, had left Anadarko before this explosion occurred and, in response, was publicly critical of the company's safety protocols.

Another in-house lobbyist for Anadarko, Mark Hanley was an Alaskan state representative who resigned to accept a position with the company in 1998.