When Teddy Errico arrived in Telluride, CO in 1996 for a six-month internship, he wondered if he had made a terrible mistake.
“When I drove down Main Street Telluride … I looked around and thought to myself how this was the biggest mistake I could ever make,” Errico said. “I’m just in the middle of nowhere, and what am I going to do?”
28 years later, he is now the town’s Mayor.
Errico, BC ’91, was elected mayor of Telluride, CO, last November. The small town of just over 2,500 people is renowned for its world-class ski resorts, summer music festivals, and stunning landscapes. While Errico has lived there for nearly three decades now, his path to Telluride was anything but planned.
After graduating from Boston College with a marketing degree, Errico sold tickets for a professional football team temporarily, until he got a job with a small advertisement agency in midtown Manhattan.
But he soon decided the advertising business wasn’t for him and quit to enroll in Temple University’s Sports and Recreation Administration program.
In his final semester of the program, he was required to complete an internship out in the field. Having taken classes in travel and tourism, Errico knew the ski resort industry was on the rise, so he decided to seek an internship at a ski resort.
But the problem with finding work in an up-and-coming industry is that there’s not a lot of it.
After fruitlessly writing and applying to a laundry list of places, a small ski resort in Colorado gave him an offer.
“Telluride, being an independently owned, smaller ski resort, was willing to create a program for me because they knew they were getting a pretty educated person to come work for free,” Errico said. “They were willing to do that to help me because I would help them.”
The internship consisted of a little bit of everything, Errico said—his responsibilities ranged from advertising, working with sponsorships, and international market research to event planning and producing music events.
The program ultimately landed him a new full-time job at the resort as well as a new home in Telluride.
“Whether someone was 60 years old or 25 years old, we were all friends because we all did the same things,” Errico said. “We play hockey here, we play softball here, we play golf here, and people enjoy the good life. Everyone just had a different pace of life than I was used to, and I got absorbed into that pretty quickly and loved every second of it.”
Errico ran the events department of the ski resort for two years before eventually realizing he wanted a job that would integrate him into the Telluride community more. He went on to run the local theater for two years until the organization’s owner invited Errico to be his business partner in real estate.
“I always empower it to anybody in life, at any age … that if you work hard and you’re genuine, people will look out for you and people want to help,” Errico said. “Without my old boss to introduce me to the new real estate boss … and basically force him to hire me, I wouldn’t be in this position today.”
Getting involved in the Telluride community mattered to Errico as he began integrating himself. He worked as a coach for the youth hockey program, a volunteer for the local art and music organizations, and served as an elected member of the Parks and Recreation Commission—a position that gave him his first taste of Telluride’s government.
“I was able to be a part of that organization and what that did was, kind of, you know, opened my eyes up a little bit to how the government functions, what the government’s like,” Errico said. “And, to be honest, it opened up some unfavorable opinions of how our town was being run.”
It was those unfavorable opinions, coupled with his love for the community, that led him to run for mayor in September of 2023.
“I like to tell everyone, even as I’m mayor, that I generally hate politics, and I generally hate meetings, so I decided to run for mayor,” Errico said. “But I love my community, and although I might not be the person that everyone thinks has the answer, I generally thought I could do a better job and leave Telluride a better place than when I found it, and so I ran.”
Errico won the election by 10 votes and began his term in November. His first goal, he said, was to listen—to the community, his staff, council members, and sub-commissions—to get a full sense of the issues the town faced.
“I like to tell people, even now, that just because I was elected, that didn’t all of a sudden make me smarter, and that I have a lot of learning to do,” Errico said.
This listening period went on longer than he expected though—Errico had to learn other people’s perspectives and what was expected of him, he said. But now that he has a grasp on his role and the dynamics of his team, he is turning his attention to gaining the trust of the Telluride community.
“If you just jump in and try to make change, people aren’t going to trust you, and they’re going to be combative,” Errico said.
In the remaining three years of his term, he hopes to focus on solving mental health challenges, building a new gondola, creating more affordable housing for locals, building a new medical center, and preserving the lively culture that makes Telluride so special.
“We just have such a cool lifestyle, and part of my job as mayor is, how do we protect that while balancing the challenges of the real world?” Errico said.
Zoe Dohnal, the town manager of Telluride, works closely with Errico. Though the two have known each other for ten years, their work as partners only began last November.
“He’s always been passionate about this community, and I’ve seen that in a lot of different ways, but obviously when you put that mayor hat on, you have different tools to serve the community,” Dohnal said. “He’s definitely taken that responsibility with a lot of grace and a lot of passion, and he is a fantastic mayor for me to work with and for our community.”
Josh Johnson, a local photographer and long-time friend of Errico’s, said he appreciates Errico’s longstanding commitment to Telluride.
“Teddy doesn’t forget where he comes from, and he’s lived in this town a long time, and it’s awesome to have him as a mayor, because he’s kind of a historian of the last 30 years,” Johnson said. “The way he creates and uses his memory is really important to keep our town true to itself.”
But this passion extends beyond Telluride’s mountainous borders—Errico holds a special place in his heart for all of his past communities, Johnson said.
“When BC hockey did really well last year and made it to the big dance, he was so nervous and such a proud alum, and he’s like that in every aspect of his life,” Johnson said.
One of Telluride’s biggest traditions is the Fourth of July parade, where Errico sits on a float and waves at the town. Part of the tradition is for the community to throw water balloons and spray water guns at the mayor—a battering Errico took in stride.
“He just knows of the traditions here and takes it full steam ahead and is in no way above any of that kind of thing,” Dohnal said. “He’s just a ‘Telluridian,’ through and through, and takes part in all of that.”
Errico said he is proud of where his path has taken him but that it all ties back to striving for goals and giving back in return—values that were instilled in him back on the Heights.
“Reading the Boston College motto ‘Ever to Excel’ and serving your community and all the things they push there … you’ll be surprised how much that comes back to you,” Errico said. “You’re going to get knocked down, it’s just about picking yourself back up off the ground, dust yourself off and keep at it.”
Leave a Reply