By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice
“I don’t think I’m surprised by their decision at all,” Rich Guggenheim said three days after the Colorado Department of Agriculture fired him. “I expected this decision.”
On May 8, CDA Deputy Commissioner Jordan Beezley signed the termination letter, effective immediately. Guggenheim had been the plant health programs manager since 2021.
Guggenheim posted the termination letter on X the same day it was delivered, tagging Vice President JD Vance, Associate Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and the DOJ Civil Rights Division.
As RMV first reported in December, the dispute started with a single chat comment during a November managers meeting and the whistleblower complaints that followed.
In February, CDA moved to dismiss his whistleblower complaint.
In March, he was placed on paid leave and faced pre-termination proceedings.
In April, the case turned on an email CDA says does not exist.
Six days after the letter, Guggenheim filed a formal appeal asking the State Personnel Board to reverse it. Beezley told him on April 15 that a decision was about two weeks away. It took three.
The trap door
The termination letter cites three findings. Each one points back to the same document—a 2025 Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey performance report for a USDA-funded program. The training section listed “Equity and Diversity” and “Inclusive Leadership” alongside agricultural workshops.
Guggenheim flagged the language for removal November 1. He submitted the report to USDA on December 4 with the language still in it. The ezFedGrants timeline RMV reported in April shows USDA returned the report the same day for edits, and the DEI references were finally removed before a January 7 resubmission.
CDA’s termination letter focuses on the 34 days between Guggenheim’s November 1 flag and his December 4 submission. It calls that span a failure of supervision.
The letter does not engage with the question Guggenheim has been raising since the case began.
The training had already happened. Guggenheim’s argument is that federal funds had already paid for it—that whether the DEI language stayed in the report or came out, the spending was done, and a clean report would have left out activities the grant covered.
CDA’s own investigation contains a competing account. Aja Bos, the employee who prepared the report, told investigator Suzanne Pariser that a USDA colleague flagged the DEI references in September and that she removed them. Bos said no grant funding was used for DEI training after the 2025 executive order.
Guggenheim laid out his side in a May 11 interview.
“The training was still provided, and the funds from the federal government were still extended to provide the training. The training should have never been provided with the use of federal funds.”
He came back to it again.
“Because if I had never said anything and just reported it, it would have come back on me anyway. And I said something and it still came back on me.”
The ezFedGrants case narrative shows the CAPS 2025 report cycling through submissions and federal returns. CDA’s termination letter cites Guggenheim’s December 4 submission—the one with DEI language still in it—as grounds for his firing.
What the letter does not address
CDA’s position is that the report was Guggenheim’s responsibility regardless of who directed him to submit it. “Even if such an email or communication existed, the content of the report was ultimately your responsibility,” the termination letter states.
But CDA has never said which account of the spending is right. Since December, neither the termination letter nor any CDA public statement has addressed whether the department reviewed the underlying spending, whether USDA raised concerns about the submission or whether the DEI training entries have been removed from future CAPS reporting templates.
RMV sent Beezley nine questions about the termination, the federal grant compliance issue and the procedural framework for the decision. CDA Director of Communications and Public Awareness Olga Robak responded for the department.
“The Colorado Department of Agriculture does not comment on personnel matters,” she wrote.
CDA did not answer whether USDA has communicated with the department about the report, whether the DEI training language remains in CAPS reporting templates or what Guggenheim’s three months on paid administrative leave cost taxpayers.
Guggenheim kept returning to the department’s silence.
“Why aren’t they concerned about the fact that federal funds were being used? Why were they completely okay with the fact that federal dollars are being used to pay for this stuff and trying to cover it up?”
“The problem for the state wasn’t the fact that the training was provided. The problem for the state was the fact that I exposed federal dollars being used to provide the training.”
The appeal
He didn’t wait.
Guggenheim submitted his Consolidated Appeal to the State Personnel Board on May 14, signed by him and listing attorney Steve McKenna. Under Rule 8-16, dismissal of a certified state employee triggers a mandatory evidentiary hearing before an administrative law judge—the Board cannot decline it.
He wants his job back. The appeal asks the Board to reverse the termination, return him to the plant health manager position with back pay, wipe the disciplinary record and rule that CDA fired him for protected whistleblower activity. His earlier whistleblower and discrimination claims are folded into the same filing.
On the termination itself, the argument is that firing was too far. Board Rule 6-11 requires an appointing authority to weigh how much time has passed since any prior discipline, and Guggenheim’s last corrective action was more than two years old when Beezley signed the letter.
The conduct in question, the appeal says, “does not involve dishonesty, violence, theft, or other categories of misconduct typically supporting termination”—and CDA never showed that a written reprimand or suspension would have fallen short.
It also goes after the investigation. The February 5 report by Flynn Investigations Group senior investigator Suzanne Pariser found the three allegations “more likely than not” accurate. Guggenheim’s appeal argues Pariser applied a weaker “plausibility” standard to the November 6 finding and never interviewed him on two of the three allegations—something the report concedes on its own page 17.
The Pariser report also makes no legal finding on retaliation and allows that “a judge, a juror, or a decision maker for CDA might reach conclusions different than those made by this investigator.”
What’s left open
Guggenheim said the firing didn’t change how he reads what happened or whether he’d do it again.
“I don’t feel like I compromised any integrity saying any of the things that I said and doing what I did. I hope that this brings some investigations and accountability to the department and the state.”
He announced his campaign for Senate District 25 on April 22 at Satire Brewing in Thornton—just over two weeks before the termination letter arrived. RMV covered the launch. He said in the May 11 interview he believes the timing of the firing was no coincidence.
“They knew that I was running for the legislature. They were afraid of that. So if I was an employee, I’d have access to that, and I could use all of the information that I get as an employee and bring it into the legislature to affect policy. They saw that as a threat.”
The claim is unverified.
The CAPS report question—whether Guggenheim had any good option once the training money was spent—is one the termination letter never takes up.
He doesn’t think there was.
“Even though they are the ones who told me to submit the report. That’s the irony of it all.”
![FD863768-0ACF-495E-9D21-2EF784DFFA6B[1]](https://rockymountainvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/FD863768-0ACF-495E-9D21-2EF784DFFA6B1-300x300.png)