Western U.S. conifer forests harbor diverse ecological strategies that enable species to persist across a wide range of hydroclimate conditions, along with wildfire and eruptive insect outbreaks. Assessing climate influences on future forest composition and carbon sequestration requires vegetation process models that have sufficient ecological resolution to simulate this range of ecological variability. Here we present progress towards incorporating multiple shade and drought tolerance strategies in a vegetation demographic model parameterized for Western U.S. forests. We used the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES) to simulate a mixed conifer forest dominated by ponderosa pine and incense cedar in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. FATES resolves plant growth and respiration at the level of cohorts, defined by size and plant functional type. Incense cedar is shade and drought tolerant, while ponderosa pine is shade intolerant and the canopy dominant. We synthesized literature values of plant traits that correspond to important physiological and allometric parameters in FATES and conducted a sensitivity analysis within the observed parameter ranges with respect to carbon and water fluxes. Model output was benchmarked against carbon flux, water flux, and leaf area index measurements from the Critical Zone Observatory/AmeriFlux CZ2 site during 2010-2012. Specific leaf area, Vcmax, rooting distribution, and allometric equations had the most influence on simulated carbon and water fluxes. Final simulated average annual gross primary production (GPP) over 2010-2012 (1156 +- 79.2 gC/m2/yr) was 3.8% lower than observed GPP (1202 +-138.2 gC/m2/yr). Simulated evapotranspiration (ET, 373 +- 25 mm/yr) was 62% lower than measured ET (993 +-158 mm/yr). Simulated leaf area index (LAI, 1.2) was within the range of measured LAI (0.5-1.5). Preliminary analysis indicates underestimation of ET is likely due to an overestimation of soil water drainage. Our final parameter set allows pine and cedar coexistence to emerge from a bare ground initialization, and additional sensitivity testing of parameters important for coexistence are in progress. Clearly, observationally constrained parameters are critical for simulating ecosystem dynamics in Western U.S. forests.