Kelli Hepler – A true Agritourism legend in the Colorado tourism industry

by Heidi Kerr-Schlaefer

Kelli Hepler barely recognized that she was receiving an award at last year’s Colorado Governor’s Tourism Conference. She was busy uploading a photo she’d snapped of the last award winner when Hepler was named the winner of the prestigious Chairman’s Award and called to the stage.

The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) commended her and said, “Kelli Hepler is a true agritourism legend in the Colorado tourism industry, serving as a board member, and current president, of the Colorado Agritourism Association which she helped to establish back in 2014. She helped develop an award-winning Agritourism program in Delta County over 15 years ago and continues to work with local Agritourism providers. She has received numerous awards and recognitions throughout her 20-year career.”

It started when Helper was in the fourth grade. That was the first time she received payment for her work, being awarded $50 for designing the winning Crime Prevention Poster Contest at her school.

“Who says art doesn’t pay?” she likes to say.

Hepler has always been able to draw. Friends used to follow her around in her school years because she could draw Snoopy. “Please draw me a Snoopy,” fellow students would plead, and she would oblige them. Years later, Hepler is still drawing, although after 35-years in business, she’s progressed well past the Snoopy phase.

Having attended Colorado Mountain College, Helpler started her own company, Graphox Design & Advertising a few years out of school. Doing her own thing was something that seemed reasonable to the no-nonsense Hepler. After all, her dad had a tool & die machine shop, and self-employment was in her blood.

Being around strong, independent women throughout her life, including her grandmother and mother, also influenced Hepler’s entrepreneurial path.

While growing a business, Helper also raised a family. Through the birth of her two children, she never stopped working, even when motherhood was seen by some as a roadblock to a successful career.

Having married into the ranching business, Hepler became interested in Agritourism, the place where agriculture and tourism connect in the form of farm visits, for instance. At first, she faced opposition from farmers and ranchers who thought tourists would “leave gates open” and couldn’t be trusted.

Ironically, trust was the eventual key to Hepler’s success in agritourism. Her practical, can-do attitude resulted in a contract with Delta County, the region west of McClure Pass and south of Grand Junction. Soon, Hepler re-introduced the idea of agritourism.

Knowledgeable about farming and ranching, Hepler gained the confidence of growers in Delta County, evolving an agritourism program that would open up the area to authentic experiences for visitors.

“I didn’t want the farmers to clean up their farms and make them look like Disneyland. If a visitor got poop on their shoes, they got poop on their shoes—that’s farming!” says Hepler.

Her passion runs deep and is based on solid evidence that agritourism can keep a farm afloat for multiple generations. The average farm generates an extra $60,000 from agritourism. While not a fortune, it is often enough to keep future generations on a farm.

Hepler has personal reasons for wanting to keep this lifestyle alive. Residing in the small town of Delta, she commutes through picturesque rolling hills and over dramatic mountain passes, and she’d like to keep it that way.

Today, there is little doubt of Hepler’s impact on Colorado’s agritourism industry. Not only does she know nearly every farmer and winemaker on the Western Slope, Delta County has the highest concentration of natural and organic farms in the state, and thanks to Helper, nearly all of them have an agritourism component.

In addition to her business, Hepler has owned Prism Interpretive Services with her husband, Bob Marshall, since 1997. They provide roadside pull-out signage, museum signage, and other interpretive support and consulting services.

Hepler loves seeing how people respond to the brochures, logos, ads and interpretive panels she creates. For example, when driving over the Grand Mesa, Hepler is happy when she sees cars stopped and people reading the interpretive sign she designed.

Last autumn, on Color Sunday, a celebration of fall foliage on Grand Mesa, Hepler saw a person wearing a t-shirt she designed for Color Sunday more than a decade ago.

“That’s just a cool feeling,” she says of the sight.

Her work has put her in close collaboration with the Colorado Scenic & Historic Byways, a program she was excited to shed light on during her acceptance speech in November.

“It was totally unexpected,” says Helper of the Chairman’s Award.

This was not Hepler’s first award from the tourism office. She had received two prior in 2006 and in 2011.

As a “card carrying rabbit lover,” Hepler often talks to her pet rabbit Bixby during her workday. After all, she works, for the most part, as a lone wolf. Knowing the rabbit can’t talk back, she has learned that sometimes ideas need to be bounced off of real people.

“I am thankful for those angels in my life,” says Hepler.

It seems that the tourism industry is thankful for Hepler, who is already focused on her next project. She wants to teach farmers how to educate tourists about regenerative agriculture, a farming method that improves soil and has a positive effect on climate change. Regenerative agriculture is already being implemented at farms across Colorado.

“If we could just get people to understand it, they will only want food from those farms,” says Hepler.

Hepler’s excitement is palpable, and she has blazed a trail for rural and agricultural communities for greater success.

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