The Right Person at the Right Time: A Conversation with 35 Mile Board Chair Sophia Mayott-Guerrero

A Generous Handoff

When Joe Pezzillo helped elect Sophia Mayott-Guerrero as the new Board Chair of 35 Mile Foundation, he was stepping down from board chair to an ongoing board member role. Recruited for his extensive experience in technology, business, and the arts, Pezzillo had been board chair since 2022, helping to guide the organization through more change than most boards ever see — structural shifts, technology evolution, legal battles, and the slow, steady work of building something durable.

Mayott-Guerrero doesn't take that lightly.

"The tenure during which he's been the chair, and before that just on the board, is frankly a little intimidating. The amount of changes that have had to happen, the culture shifts, the work scale and difference that he has stewarded this organization through — it's really incredible."

— Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Board Chair, 35 Mile Foundation

Pezzillo is staying on, and Mayott-Guerrero is grateful for it. The institutional knowledge he carries — built over decades — is, as she puts it, basically impossible to get without that kind of time. What she brings, though, is exactly what this particular moment calls for.

Raised for This Work

Mayott-Guerrero is an experienced political strategist and advocate with over a decade of leadership in grassroots organizing, policy development, and campaign strategy. She served as Director of Advocacy and Strategic Alliances for the ACLU of Colorado, has worked on rural-focused policy at Conservation Colorado, runs a strategic consulting practice, and served on the Lakewood City Council from November 2021 - November 2025 where she led the Housing Policy Commission.

She was raised in Colorado's San Luis Valley — in Alamosa — in a family deeply rooted in the hippie, anti-war, Chicano, and civil rights movements. Those foundational values have never left her.

They also give her something rare: a firsthand understanding of what it means to grow up without reliable internet access.

Familiar Terrain

Broadband arrived late to Alamosa. When it did, it was slower, glitchier, and more expensive than what people in Denver or along the Front Range were experiencing. For Mayott-Guerrero, that meant limits — on the advanced coursework she could take online, on the programs she could run, on the world she could access from where she was sitting.

The real thing that she had access to was Tumblr. Which helped her know that there were other queer people in the world, that there were other radicals in the world, that there were other progressive-thinking, loving, creative people, and that they existed out there. Plus, she knew that there was going to be a home for her when she left Alamosa. And you can't know that without access to the internet if you're somewhere where that information is not already where you live.

Later, working on rural economic development at Conservation Colorado, she saw the same pattern play out at a larger scale. Rural communities dependent on single industries — coal, oil, and gas — faced economic devastation when those industries shifted. Reliable internet, she understood, was the difference between a community that could adapt and one that couldn't.

"Having good internet allows folks to find remote working jobs, to further their education without having to leave home. It gives a level of resilience and a level of upward mobility for the whole system — each individual at a time."

— Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Board Chair, 35 Mile Foundation

When she first began conversations about joining the 35 Mile board two years ago, the organization's model — direct internet access combined with foundation-like grantmaking aimed at digital equity — struck her as something genuinely uncommon.

"The model of 35 Mile is so unique. We're direct service providers, we provide direct access to the internet, but then also the aspects of the philanthropic mission as a combination. That was just so unique to me. Such an exciting way to approach creating more digital equity, more information equity, more access to participation for people."

— Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Board Chair, 35 Mile Foundation

She jumped on board pretty quickly.

Growing Consequences

Internet access in America is getting more unequal. And the consequences are becoming more serious.

The reliance on the internet for modern work, education, healthcare, and civic participation has become, as Mayott-Guerrero puts it, totally ubiquitous. It's the water most of us are swimming in.

"There's actually so many people who have still not had access to that water that the rest of us are swimming in."

— Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Board Chair, 35 Mile Foundation

Without the internet — especially outside of cities — knowing what exists beyond your immediate world is nearly impossible. That means limits on employment, on education, on healthcare access. It also means limits on participation. On knowing what's happening. On being able to respond.

When the Safety Net Gets Pulled Away

The current federal moment has made this all harder. Programs designed to close the digital divide are under pressure.

At the same time, misinformation is increasing. The ability to find accurate information and to stay connected to what's actually happening has never been more important, and the barriers to accessing them have never been more consequential.

"When the federal government is not part of the solution for reducing those barriers, those gaps get larger. The divide between people who are online and accessing this level of education and people who are a little bit more outside of that — we end up in these places where we're just speaking totally different languages."

— Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Board Chair, 35 Mile Foundation

And access isn't only about information. It's about agency. It's about the ability to remain informed and connected in a moment when those rights are under real pressure.

Our One-Two Punch

This is where 35 Mile's model becomes more than a service provider. Our ability to deliver connectivity directly — through our low-cost internet service — and advocate for the policies and funding that make equitable access possible, puts us in a position that very few organizations occupy.

"There's spaces for advocacy, and there's spaces for direct action — just handing people the internet. And the advocacy that's trying to prevent the further erosion of the systems that are trying to create more equity and access — that is this incredible one-two punch that is really rare to see, and really impactful. Especially in this moment where it can feel a little dismal."

— Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Board Chair, 35 Mile Foundation

Providing Digital Aid

One of the clearest signals of where Mayott-Guerrero intends to lead is in how she talks about 35 Mile's potential for rapid-response work — getting connectivity into the hands of people in distress, quickly, when they need it most.

She calls it digital aid.

The framing came out of her own family's experience. Her parents' home burned in the Marshall Fire. In the chaos of displacement — navigating insurance claims, managing prescription refills, handling bills that didn't stop coming just because the house was gone — reliable internet access wasn't a luxury. It was what made everything else possible.

"Those are all things that most of us now use the internet for. Access to the internet, access to devices — it's a modern aspect of recovery."

— Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, Board Chair, 35 Mile Foundation

Climate disasters are increasing. And with them, so is the number of people suddenly cut off from the digital infrastructure their daily lives depend on. When 6% of Oregon's population was displaced by wildfires in a matter of months, people still had jobs that required internet access, bills to manage, and systems to navigate — all online.

35 Mile has participated in some emergency response work, and is considering how to get more involved in the future. What Mayott-Guerrero is articulating is a way to understand it — and a direction for expanding it. Rapid response. Coalition-building. Getting devices and connectivity to people in crisis, in partnership with the organizations already on the ground. Something for us to seriously consider in the future.

And beyond emergency response, she sees 35 Mile growing its role in advocacy and convening — helping shape the national conversation around digital equity at a moment when those conversations are more urgent than ever.

Rolling Up Her Sleeves

Sophia Mayott-Guerrero grew up as the kind of person 35 Mile exists to serve. She built a career fighting for rural resilience, economic equity, and the right of historically marginalized communities to participate fully in civic and economic life. She understands, from the inside, what it costs when access is missing — and what becomes possible when it arrives.

She takes the chair at a moment when the digital divide is widening, federal support is shrinking, and the need for organizations that can both deliver and advocate is greater than it's ever been.

35 Mile is that organization. And Mayott-Guerrero is ready to play an important role in leading it.