Name: May Soricelli Albrecht
City of residence: Berthoud
Occupation: Town of Berthoud trustee, owner of Streams of Living Water and Signal Fire Communications & Consulting
How long have you lived in Berthoud?
I’m a Northern Colorado native. I grew up in Loveland and graduated from high school in Loveland, but Berthoud is definitely dear to my heart. My kids and I have been here for 13 years. One day, we were driving through Berthoud and realized, “Oh my gosh, we’re supposed to sell our house right now and live in Berthoud.” There was just this calling to be here. Ever since, it’s been the most incredible, amazing adventure.
What do you do for work?
Right now, it’s many things. I’m doing a lot of professional development and self development. I just finished an executive leadership class for women through Yale, and I’m building businesses on the side from home because I have a young one at home right now. I have grown kids and young kids, too. I’m trying to find that balance of building businesses at home so that I can support not only being a mom, but also being a community servant.
Ultimately, my dynamic experience has led to a mentorship role for me, where I’m now helping other businesses learn how to adapt to this world in the crazy times we’re living in. That, and being effective with communicating, engaging with their government, sharing resources, working together and collaborating on visionary ideas. I’m building that business currently.
Also, on the side, I’ve been building a business for art therapy. My hope is to help those who have been rescued from trafficking, as well as foster children through art therapy. Talk therapy is not always as easy for those groups, and art and creativity can really help the brain process and rebuild positive pathways. All of the projects I have been working on are a conglomeration to support my two big loves, which are raising a family and serving my community.
My communications business is called Signal Fire Communications & Consulting. It was on pause while I was having a baby and running for office again. I’m relaunching it, and it’s going to be both a communications business and a consulting business for other businesses, but predominantly for first responders and emergency services. My other business is called Streams of Living Water. That’s the mentorship role I’m taking on with some other women in helping them build their businesses. Both things I’m very passionate about.
What is your role with the Berthoud town board?
I’m on my second term as an elected official/trustee. In the last six years that I’ve been on the board, it’s been a growing role. It’s definitely changed, but it’s a lot of the same basic roles and responsibilities, which are oversight of our town administrator, policy setting and making sure that the functionality and sustainability of our town is secure, as well as our resources. Ultimately, it’s about working with town staff to facilitate high-level objectives and advocating for the community. That’s the main role, but it’s grown into much more, especially as Berthoud has doubled in size.
There’s been a much greater need to engage with the community on a regular basis, be in the trenches and know all of our leaders, know the nonprofits, know the business owners and truly engage with the citizens. It’s finding a way to help bridge that gap where they’re getting their needs met and their voices heard. It’s become an almost full-time job, it feels like, and it’s a labor of absolute love because these are people who mean the world to me and add so much value to our community.
We go through a ton of big projects, whether it’s acquiring water resources or new parks or infrastructure needs, like sidewalks and road repair. One of the biggest loves that I have right now, that our current board has done, is conservation of farmland. Hundreds of acres of farmland have been conserved. To me, it’s our way of fighting back against development and securing property that can be preserved for generations.
I also strive to see revitalization and enhancement efforts of our downtown and intentional economic development. Having worked in economic development for other municipalities, I see the value of tourism and downtown vibrancy. Our small businesses thriving is a huge love of mine, so for me, it’s about engaging with them on a regular basis, making sure we find ways to capitalize on visitors, creating a tourism type of opportunity and helping them find their voice and their way to advocate. Right now, our businesses are working on developing the Main Street program and finding a way to have that staple in the community and that pillar of opportunity to grow and increase events. That’s probably a really small fraction of the things I do on a daily basis, but those are the ones that mean the most to me.
In what other ways are you involved in the community?
I’ve fallen into most things through happenstance. When we first moved to Berthoud, I was a stay-at-home mom, and I really wanted to get involved in my community. I went to the local paper and said, “Hey, can I deliver papers or something?” and the editor ended up having me write stories. Through that, I started writing for all of the different amazing people in our community, like our fire department, our historical society and our schools. I got to know all those people, and I ended up winning five Colorado Press Association awards as a journalist during that time. I found my love of photography, the written word, advocacy and cheerleading these amazing components of our community.
From that, I learned about a lot of controversy in our town government. As a mama bear, I was like, “We really need a mom in there to help bring some peace and unity back to this community.” So jumping in there with both feet, I ran for mayor in 2018. I didn’t win, but I ended up building such an incredible connection to different resources in the community.
The fire chief ended up hiring me as a full-time public information officer in the fire service, and that was probably my favorite adventure that I’ve had. I spent five years in the fire service, responding to calls with firefighters and reporting to the news and the public about what was going on. The extensive training and being on incidents really taught me the whole emergency side of being prepared for different events that could happen, and also how to help people in their hardest times. It was the most incredible, eye-opening experience to go from a stay-at-home mom to being in the trenches of the first responder world. I built amazing professional networks from my experience there.
Through those days and ever since, I’ve connected with a lot of our nonprofits. Our nonprofits are the heartbeat of our community. When we went through historic fires and COVID-19, I got to connect with them more intentionally to find ways to get resources to people in need, and especially to our business community. There are many nonprofits in Berthoud that mean so much to me, so I’ve really just jumped in and found ways to collaborate.
There’s also a Northern Colorado regional effort called United to Stop Human Trafficking, and that’s a really important mission to me. I’m able to volunteer with them to assist with the cause. As a town board, we gave a proclamation of support for those efforts in our town to make sure that we’re doing what we can to keep our community safe and work with those efforts to stop human trafficking.
I also did a stint as the executive director for the Berthoud chamber, and that was incredible. It was so difficult because we had just come out of COVID-19 and hadn’t had a Berthoud Day, which is our signature event, and businesses and the community were hurting. It was important to kick off the biggest Berthoud Day that we could have to get our businesses rejuvenated, revitalized and reengaged in the community and bring back that life that I think was just really sucked out of everybody at that time. We ended up having a really successful Berthoud Day; it was the biggest one to date. Now it’s grown even more, which is beautiful.
My children have been through all of the schools in Berthoud, as well as homeschool, so we have been really connected to our schools and the amazing programs they have. I’m also currently serving as the Youth Advisory Commission liaison to champion the voice of our youth. As of June, I’m happy to announce I will be a Leadership Northern Colorado graduate, bringing regional resources, insights and connections to our Berthoud community.
What do you love most about Berthoud?
There’s so much, but ultimately, it’s that Mayberry feel, like everybody knows everybody. Even though it’s grown, you still feel connected, and if there was a need, everybody would pull resources and come together to meet that need. It’s the most generous community I’ve ever been a part of; it’s just truly altruistic and beautiful. It’s the most beautiful place I could ever imagine living. To me, it’s the most beautiful place in the world. I think it’s sacred territory that’s worth preserving and protecting.
I love our people. I love the beautiful charm, and I’m absolutely obsessed with our history. It’s incredible. You think of a small farm town, but Berthoud always had these cutting-edge people here, so it wasn’t just a podunk farm town. We had astronomers here in the 1800s, and we had these incredible elite bankers and intellectuals. The year that women got to vote, a woman ran for office in Berthoud. There are always these exceptional humans in our history, and the more I dig in, the more I geek out and go down that rabbit hole.
When we first moved here, I used to call Berthoud Town Park “ghost town park” because it was so dated. When I got on the town board, I was like, “This is our namesake park. We have to revitalize it.” To have it look so beautiful and be so well loved now, and to hear kids laughing and see people enjoying the water feature, is so rewarding. So I do love Town Park. It’s definitely precious to me. And our adaptive park that’s being built in the new development is going to be absolutely incredible. It’s such a beautiful thing to have in our community, all because a brave mama stepped up to make a difference.
If you had a friend or a family member visiting for the weekend, what are some things you would take them to go do?
There are so many places to walk. We would go walk the Hillsdale trail, which has breathtaking views of the mountains, and then walk downtown and visit all the shops and have coffee and lunch and go shopping, then take a historic tour to appreciate the quaint charm of our community. We might also stop by the fire station and meet some of the amazing heroes in our community.
I also love being at TPC Colorado, mostly during sunset. If you come to TPC, you have to come at sunset and just realize how precious this land is that we have.
If there were younger people visiting, they’d love the rec center. My kids’ friends love going there. It’s an amazing amenity that we have now.
What does your family do for Mother’s Day?
As a family, we’re pretty spontaneous. My favorite spontaneous thing my kids and I do that we would totally do on Mother’s Day is what we call “cheap Jeep dates.” When I was working for the fire department, I had to get a vehicle that was four-wheel drive because I was constantly getting stuck in the snow, or we’d be going into the mountains. So I have a Jeep Gladiator that’s very effective for hauling kids and having adventures. We just get in the car and take the top off. We don’t have a plan; we just end up somewhere and have an adventure. That’s probably what we’ll do for Mother’s Day if it’s beautiful out.
What words of encouragement do you have for the community?
We live in such crazy times, and I want people to understand that as we come together and share resources, they multiply. No matter what is going on in the world, our towns can really have a connection and fight for one another, regardless of their beliefs or background. Find a way to have that vitality in your community.
To me, small-town charm is obviously quaint and cute, but it’s mostly about people taking care of each other. It’s mostly about behaving like a small town. How do we really look out for our neighbors? How do we respect one another? How do we show up and volunteer and make a difference with whatever gifts we have?
We can really buck the system and not be a part of the chaos and find a way to bring beauty to where we’re at and thrive together. It really can make a huge difference. It takes a village. It takes all hands on deck to make something beautiful.
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