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B. Travis Wright, MPS
CIO | State Honor Award recipient | published Rollins Pass & Moffat Tunnel historian | preservation commissioner | FAA-certified UAS pilot & FAA Safety Team DronePro Representative
B. Travis Wright, MPS, serves as the Chief Information Officer and General Manager of the Rockies Region at Velonex Technologies. He is actively involved in the preservation of history and artifacts in Grand County, utilizing technology and advocacy to support these efforts. His professional background includes a focus on commercial aerial photography and historical preservation initiatives.
Wright has received recognition for his work, including a State Honor Award from Colorado Preservation Inc. for his advocacy related to Rollins Pass. He is also the President of the Board of the Grand County Historical Association, highlighting his commitment to local heritage and community engagement. In addition to his professional roles, Wright is a keynote speaker and has been featured in various media outlets for his contributions to historical preservation.1234
Highlights
Rollins Pass holds 12,000 years of history; Paleoindians utilized the pass 65 centuries before the invention of the wheel. Later, wagon and rail magnates saw the pass as a “Great Gate” across the Continental Divide. Today, the area is listed as one of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places.
by B. Travis Wright, MPS, and Kate Wright, MBA
Join the preorder list at rollinspass.org
The finished work contains poetry about the pass from 1866, prose from present day, newspaper articles, scientific facts, stories about birth, death, and life, while answering many frequent questions that we have been asked over the years from travelers about the elusive mysteries of the pass and the surrounding areas. We touch on some of the earliest claims for gold in Grand County, how prohibition made the East Portal company town unique in Gilpin County during the construction of the Moffat Tunnel; the Winter Park Express, Yankee Doodle Lake, and nearly every area in between Rollinsville and present-day Winter Park.
The book contains over 160 years of photographs—each historical image was meticulously and painstakingly restored from the original. Our restoration process for a single image took on average 30 hours, with a handful of rarer images that consumed 125 hours each to remove stubborn creases, folds, dust, discolorations, scratches, tears, nicks, stains, and smudges. Every historical photograph has a match with a modern-day counterpart—printed in color.
This book reaches back to the beginning of time to describe the intricate formation of Rollins Pass and the story carries the reader through present day. We’re immensely proud of how this book turned out and we’re excited to share it with you.
This is our second book on Rollins Pass; our first publication from 2018 entered its third printing within its first year and we donated our first royalties to Colorado State University’s Archaeology Field School—they conduct field research and archaeology on Rollins Pass in the summers. We have also donated dozens of books to local libraries, preservation groups, county governments, and land managers.
I'm so incredibly honored and complimented that the FAA has selected my Part 107 drone imagery as part of their National Drone Safety Awareness Week media! My images are being used nationwide on websites, as Zoom backgrounds, smartphone screens, and as their sole PowerPoint presentation template as well.
