Holland was born in Massachusetts, USA. His family moved to Denver, Colorado, in the early 1960s, where his father secured a faculty position at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He grew up in Denver and Littleton, Colorado. While attending high school in Littleton, I helped to organize and participate in the first Earth Day celebration in 1970. After high school, Holland attended the University of Denver (DU) and earned an Environmental Science degree (BS), having been inspired by the issues raised by the environmental movement in the 1970’s. While at DU, he helped to establish the DU Environmental Awareness Group. Holland then earned a graduate degree in Mine Land Reclamation (MS) from Colorado State University. He was inspired by the vast environmental impacts of mining across the Rocky Mountain States. Holland has worked on mined lands in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.

Holland has accumulated forty years of experience in mined land reclamation and natural

resource management. He has been involved in applying state and federal regulations. He helped to ensure compliance with mined land regulations in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, reviewing and commenting on permit applications and reclamation plans. For a number of years, in New Mexico working for the NM Mining and Minerals Division, he managed a team of biologists, soil scientists, hydrologists, geologists, and engineers, coordinating permitting efforts with State, Tribal, Federal agencies, and the Public. He gained a familiarity with the application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act to determine threats to groundwater, surface water, soil, and air related to mining.

Holland retired in 2023 from the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division and moved from Santa Fe, NM, to the San Luis Valley, Colorado, as a means of connecting with a more rural community and getting back to the Mountains of Colorado, where he and his wife have both spent a lot of time. Holland is looking forward to pivoting his professional experience in mined land reclamation to ecological restoration and the rehabilitation of agricultural lands and watersheds of the San Luis Valley. This will require working with local educational organizations, government, and public organizations involved in water, soil, and plant conservation.