NAME: Krystyn Hartman

AGE: 47

FACTS OR FACETS: She loves rocks and she can write in Russian.

The tables have been turned on Krystyn Hartman. Instead of being the person who interviews people about their lives, she’s being interviewed.

She was slightly uncomfortable about this and you could tell, because she anxiously fiddled with a Ricola throat lozenge and its wrapper, feeling the paper while she answered questions.

Hartman, 47, is the executive director of the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra. Before she held this position, she was a freelance writer and marketing and public relations consultant.

She still gets her reporting fix by writing biographies. She interviews her clients, they tell her their stories and she transcribes her notes and writes a book about them — double-spaced, one-inch margins, a minimum of 100 pages.

People know Hartman through the symphony, but beyond her office in the Alpine Bank building, she’s a brave woman with an insatiable sense of adventure.

At 39, she rode her first motorcycle.

“I went and took the class, and three days later I was riding up the coast of California,” Hartman said.

Belinda Senteno, Hartman’s friend of more than 20 years, said she was concerned about Hartman’s motorcycle riding.

“I was afraid that the helmet would make her topple over off the motorcycle,” Senteno said.

Hartman is a rather petite woman.

“She’s a small lady, but has a big heart ... and I should add, a big brain,” Senteno said.

The story of Hartman’s life begins in Gallup, N.M., where she grew up on an El Paso Natural Gas plant. Her family had lots of land to ride horses on, she said. She doesn’t ride horses anymore; she has plenty of other activities to keep her busy.

She said she finds comfort in Grand Junction because it reminds her of the rocky, desert terrain where she grew up.

Hartman has one daughter, Melody, 26, whom Hartman raised as a single mother. In 2005, she married Bob Hartman, a petroleum engineer with the BLM who has two children of his own.

“We’re opposites but yet we have everything in common,” she said about Bob, the love of her life.

At their wedding, “I just had never seen her happier,” Senteno said.

Hartman’s favorite quote is by Emily Dickinson, “To live is so startling, there leaves little time for anything else.”

“I love that (quote) and that’s exactly how I feel,” Hartman said.

Hartman isn’t living life because it’s short. She said she just wants to experience all that can be experienced.

When Hartman was 18 and 19 she said she toured in Canada with a rock band called The Captives. In 1990 she spent a summer in Russia and Eastern Europe, she said.

“If I have an interest in something, I find a class for it,” she said.

She said she has taken classes in airplane flying, hang gliding, whitewater kayaking, fencing and fire safety. Right now she’s taking a class in clay hand building and is taking piano lessons.

She’s also a jazz singer and her CD “The Blue Side of Jazz” is available on Amazon.com, Napster.com and eMusic.com. She’ll sing at a Botanical Gardens concert this summer with a six-piece jazz band.

One class she’d like to take is flamenco dancing, but lessons aren’t offered here.

“Some day I suspect they will and I will be the first to sign up ... I want some of those sassy little shoes,” she said.

Despite how busy running a nonprofit can be, Hartman has found the time to go back to school.

She’s studying for a degree in physics from Mesa State College. She attends one class a semester while she works full time.

“Krys is obviously gifted,” Senteno said. “She also has always kind of reminded me of an Altoid, you know, ‘little and curiously strong.’ I always have seen her pursue opportunities where she can truly make a difference.”

Working for the symphony has taught her a lot Hartman said. She said she has a greater appreciation for the dedication of musicians.

Despite her love for music, there is more Hartman wants to experience. She has classes to take towards her degree and her own stories she wants to write.

She’s resigning from her job in June, so she can write her own stories.

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E-mail Samantha Stiles at sstiles@gjds.com.