Board Member Bios
Charles Bedford
Colorado State Director
The Nature Conservancy
www.nature.org
A native of Fort Collins, Bedford is well-known in conservation communities for his leadership, strategic thinking, and ability to build positive coalitions. He was named state director for the Nature Conservancy in 2004. Prior to his work at the Conservancy, Bedford served as the director of the Colorado Board of Land Commissioners where he was responsible for the long-term management of over three million acres of state land and other real estate. He was also deputy legal advisor for Governor Roy Romer. Bedford holds a bachelor of science degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a juris doctor from the University of Colorado School of Law. He lives in Boulder with his wife, Tamera, and their daughter, Carter.
Steve Binder
Senior Managing Director and
Regional President-Emeritus
Wachovia Securities
Mr. Binder was engaged in the securities industry for over 36 years. His activities included municipal bond trading, investment banking (public and corporate finance) and senior management of the firm's brokerage division in the Central part of the United States. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado.
Jane Bock
Emerita
Department of EPO Biology
University of Colorado, Boulder
The city of Boulder and Boulder County have more open space per person than any other such place in the country. Precious resources found on this land must be conserved. One of the resources believed to be found on certain plots is tallgrass, which has four characteristic grasses: big blue stem, little blue stem, switchgrass, and Indian grass. Tallgrass grows as an interwoven system of plants, as opposed to a bunch grass, which is composed of many, obviously different, plants.
Twelve of the sixty-six plots used for this project were used to compare Boulder sites that seemed to be tallgrass with five other tallgrass sites in the Eastern Great Plains: Caylor Prairie in Iowa, Tucker Prairie in Missouri, ten small prairie sites in Nebraska, the Konza Prairie and one other site in Kansas, and the Osage Prairie in Oklahoma. These areas all are recognized tallgrass sites, or what is called the "true prairie."
Dr. Jane Bock, just by scanning the vegetation on the study plots, had seen similarities between the flora in Boulder and in the true prairie. They are especially similar when one is just looking at the families Asteraceae (daisies) and Poaceae (grasses). Since there was no statistical evidence to back up this opinion, Jane gathered data from Boulder and acquired data from the other five areas through her colleagues.
Gene Bolles
Neurosurgeon
Neurosurgery Consultants of Colorado, P.C.
Dr. Gene Bolles, is a neurosurgeon from Boulder, Colorado. He was hired as a private contractor as the chief of neurosurgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center where he over saw the treatment for thousands of US military casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Bolles was the surgeon who repaired the broken back of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
Dr. Bolles and his wife Judy live in Boulder, Colorado. Among his many interests and community activities, Dr. Bolles is on the board of the Boulder Philharmonic, and the board of the Boulder Dinner Theater, and has taken several expeditions to Irian Jaya bringing back his experience and giving lectures of his travels.
Richard Brown
Real Estate Developer
Richard N. "Dick" Brown graduated from the School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1954. He spent two years in the U.S. Army in Nuremberg, Germany, and returned to Denver where he worked in the insurance and securities business. Since 1970, he was involved in real estate development in Vail, Colorado, which led to the establishment of several retail businesses and ownership of commercial properties. Since 1980, Dick has been involved in banking in Colorado.
Dick has served as a CU Foundation Trustee from 1997 to present. He is committed to higher education and promotes the value of the University to the economic well being of the state. Dick has supported numerous scholarships on all CU campuses, and he serves on the board of the Center of the American West. He also served as a member of the UCB campaign committee from 2002 to 2004.
Dick has three children and eight grandchildren. His leisure pursuits include travel and reading.
Cathy Cameron
Department of Anthropology
Catherine Cameron is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department. She specializes in the archaeology of the Ancestral Pueblo people of the American Southwest. She conducts excavations in southeastern Utah at the Bluff Great House, a Chacoan site and at the Comb Wash Community, a post–Chacoan great house. These excavations explore the 10th to 12th century Chacoan regional system and its aftermath. Cameron has published a book on Puebloan architecture and a number of articles and book chapters on her work in southeastern Utah and prior work in Chaco Canyon.
Henry "Woody" Eaton
Managing Partner
Colorado Building Group
www.c-b-g.com
Woody Eaton is a retired dentist (D.D.S. from the University of California, San Francisco.) He is currently a real estate investor. Raised in Boulder, and the son of retired CU Staff member Eva Bowman Eaton, Mr. Eaton has donated much time and energy to the Boulder community as well as the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has served on the Alumni Association Board of Directors, and participated in the selection of the President’s Leadership Class.
Woody was a founding member of National Bank of the Rockies in Boulder (now Vectra Bank) as well as a board member of the Bank of Cherry Creek in Boulder. Woody is an original organizer of the Boulder Buffalo Classic, a fundraiser for Arts and Science.
Along with his wife Leslie, they have donated a 23 acre parcel to the City of Boulder for an urban park. They have also established the Henry and Leslie Eaton Scholarship, a four year scholarship, a need based scholarship for Boulder High School Graduates. The Eatons played a major role in funding the Henry and Leslie Eaton Humanities Building on the CU-Boulder campus.
Hubert Farbes
Attorney
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP
http://www.bhfs.com
Mr. Farbes is a Shareholder in Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck's Commercial Litigation, Construction/Engineering, and Environmental and Water Groups. He focuses on construction law, natural resource law, regulatory law, and public utility law.
Mr. Farbes served as a Colorado Assistant Attorney General for three and a half years prior to commencing his private practice. In private practice, he has represented a wide variety of clients, including design and engineering, commercial development, manufacturing and agricultural (regulated) companies; lenders and insurers; air, water, and land regulatory agencies; local, regional, and state government; individual landowners; and public interest groups.
Mr. Farbes is a past President of the Denver Bar Association and a three-time member of the Colorado Bar Association Board of Governors. He has served as a Trustee of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, a member and chair of the Colorado Board of Parks and Outdoor Recreation, and a two-term member and President of the Denver Board of Water Commissioners. Mr. Farbes currently serves on the governing boards of the Denver Board of Health, the Stapleton Foundation, the Nature Conservancy of Colorado, and the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado.
Mr. Farbes was co-chair of Mayor John Hickenlooper's Transition Team for Denver's Public Works Department (2003) and co-chair of the Design and Construction Committee for Denver's Justice Center Task Force (2004).
Herb Fenster
Attorney
McKenna Long & Aldridge, LLP
Denver
Mr. Fenster is a partner in the law firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, where he has been in practice for forty-eight years; he is resident in the Washington, D.C. and Denver, Colorado offices. Mr. Fenster specializes in litigation, particularly, against the United States and on the subjects of procurement, environmental, administrative and tort law. He has had extensive experience in the negotiation, interpretation, and litigation of contracts for major weapons systems, as well as the procurement of research and development. Mr. Fenster has had extensive involvement in critical legal and regulatory issues arising in the award and termination of major weapons programs. He has lectured and testified extensively on the subject of government finance and accounting from both industry and government perspectives.
Todd Gleeson
Dean
College of Arts and Sciences
University of Colorado at Boulder
Todd Gleeson grew up among the orange groves of southern California when they still grew them there. He earned a doctorate from the University of California, Irvine in developmental and cell biology in 1979, and has been a member of the Boulder faculty since 1981. He is a professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology, where he has trained numerous undergraduates and 20 graduate and postdoctoral students, with whom he has published over 100 articles and abstracts on his studies of the metabolic consequences of muscle fatigue in animals. He earned Boulder campus SOAR teaching honors in 1985, and is an elected fellow of the AAAS. He served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs on the Boulder campus from 1997-2001, and has served as dean of the College since 2001. He owns two pairs of cowboy boots.
Lucy Guercio
Owner
Caribou Ranch
Before moving to Colorado in 1971, Lucy Guercio led a successful career as a New York City fashion model. In the late 1970’s, along with her husband, James Guercio, she created the Caribou Ranch, the first destination recording studio in the country. She has served as the Chair of Art Auction and Major Monetary Gifts for KRMA’s annual auction, as the president of Meals on Wheels of Boulder, and as a Board Member for the Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, CO. She currently serves on the Executive Committees for the Waldorf Alliance/Roudolf Steiner Foundation, Meals on Wheels of Boulder, and the Center of the American West.
Caroline Hoyt
Co-Founder and Chief Designer
McStain Neighborhoods
Caroline Hoyt is the co-founder of McStain Neighborhoods, a successful Boulder county homebuilder, along with her husband Tom. She earned a degree in architecture from the University of Colorado in 1966. She has been actively involved in planning, developing and designing residential communities with an emphasis on green building and sustainability in Northern Colorado for 40 years.
She currently serves on the board of the Continental Divide Trail Alliance.
Her passion is creating communities that are beautiful, sustainable and contextually appropriate and which co-exist in harmony with the natural environment.
Carmine Iadarola
President
AquaSan Network, Inc.
www.aquasan.biz
Aquasan Network, Inc., is a water resources organization that specializes in the political, institutional and financial issues of water and wastewater management. Its President, Carmine Iadarola, started Aquasan Network in 1983. Mr. Iadarola has an extensive background in water and wastewater resources, but his multi-disciplinary background also includes finance, hydrology, water development, law, marketing, and engineering. Please see www.aquasan.biz/CJIweb.htm for his complete Curriculum Vitae.
Mr. Iadarola has practical experience working as a Sales Administrator for the Denver Water Department, providing research and analysis on water and wastewater issues for the Colorado Legislature and as an Interim City Manager for the City of Silverthorne, Colorado and currently serves as an Associate Professor in the School of Political Science at the University of Colorado, teaching courses relating to Certification in Administration of Environmental Programs. Mr. Iadarola is also unique in that he is one of a select few water experts, with a background in Public Administration, who has been qualified by the state and federal courts. His project background is wide ranging and varied, and includes work on the Two Forks Dam Agreement process, water demand and water asset studies for several Denver Metro Area municipalities, future water research studies for the cities of Lakewood and Littleton, Colorado, power plant water studies, water conservation studies, expert witness testimony for E-470 Highway Authority and easement, annexation and water line negotiations on behalf of developers, special districts and municipalities. Mr. Iadarola helped develop what was then the largest wind project in Colorado, at Peetz Table and is presently developing the largest wind project in Lassen County,CA and the largest solar project in Southern California.
Holly Arnold Kinney
Executive Director
The Tesoro Foundation
www.tesorofoundation.org
In addition to operating The Fort, Fort Trading Company, Tesoro Foundation and Arnold Media Services, Kinney is the vice president of the Colorado Chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier and serves on the advisory board of Colorado 's Department of Agriculture Colorado Proud program. Kinney is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), American Institute of Wine and Food (AIWF), Meeting Planners International (MPI), Denver Metro Convention and Visitor Bureau's Dining Committee, Denver Metro Convention and Visitor Bureau's Marketing & Communications Committee and Tour Colorado .
Susan Kirk
Regent Emerita
University of Colorado Board of Regents
University of Colorado at Boulder
Regent Emerita Susan Kirk’s term with the University of Colorado Board of Regents expired December, 2004. She was elected to the Board of Regents in 1992 and 1998. Susan Kirk graduated from Vassar College in 1955 with a B.A. in Sociology. She is currently working in public affairs for the firm Holme, Roberts & Owen, LLC. While a regent, she served on the University of Colorado Investment Advisory Committee and Academic Planning Committee.
She has served on a number of boards, including the University of Colorado Foundation board from 1987 to 1999, the Women's Economic Development Council, Colorado Historical Society, Pathfinder International, and Denver Center for Performing Arts Foundation, Paramount Theater Foundation, and Colorado Community Initiatives.
She and her husband, Dick Kirk, have sponsored several scholarships, including the Susan C. Kirk Scholarship for Women; Richard A. Kirk Scholarship; Investment in Excellence and the Global Forum.
David Lester
Executive Director
Council of Energy Resource Tribes
www.certredearth.com
David is president of the CERT Education Fund. Under a special CERT Education board, David provides executive direction to the CERT Comprehensive Indian Education Program, which encourages through its activities the development of Tribal human resources in science, engineering and business. Prior to joining CERT in 1982, David served as the Commissioner for Native Americans in the Department of Health and Human Services, a position to which he was first appointed under President Carter in 1978 and later re-appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1980. While at the Administration for Native Americans, David restructured its program from "core administrative" support of welfare services to Indians living below poverty into a development agency.
David graduated from Brigham Young University in 1967 with a degree in Political Science after serving a mission for his church in South America. As an undergraduate, he served as president of the Indian student organization, The Tribe of Many Feathers. Upon graduating, he joined the California Federal Savings and Loan as a savings section head. In 1968-9 David, under the presidency of Mescalero Apache leader, Wendell Chino, served as Economic Development Specialist for the National Congress of American Indians.
David is married to Millie Chestnut, a member of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, and has a son and a daughter.
Patty Limerick
Faculty Director
Chair of the Board
Center of the American West
Department of History
University of Colorado at Boulder
Born and raised in Banning, California, Patricia Nelson Limerick is a Western American historian, with particular interests in ethnic history and environmental history. She received her B.A. in American Studies in 1972 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her Ph.D. in American Studies in 1980 from Yale University.
From 1980 to 1984, Limerick taught at Harvard University as an Assistant Professor, before joining the faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is the Chair of the Board and Faculty Director of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado. She is the recipient of a number of awards and honorary appointments--State Humanist of the Year, 1992, from the Colorado Endowments for the Humanities; University of California, Santa Cruz 1990 Alumni Achievement Award; the Hazel Barnes Prize, the highest award for a faculty member at the University of Colorado; and Official Fool of the University of Colorado from 1987 to 2008 (the appointment was arranged to run one year longer than Coach Bill McCartney's fifteen-year contract). In 1995, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.
Limerick has published a wide variety of books, articles, and reviews. Her best known work, The Legacy of Conquest, has had a major impact on the field of Western American History. In addition to numerous scholarly articles and book reviews, she has written frequent columns and op-ed pieces for The New York Times, USA Today, the Denver Post, the Daily Camera, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Rocky Mountain News. A collection of her essays, Something in the Soil: Field-Testing the New Western History, was published by W W. Norton in March of 2000. She is a contributor to The Atlas of the New West, edited by William Riebsame Travis and published by W. W. Norton, and she and Travis are now at work on The Handbook for New Westerners, a cultural literacy and etiquette guide to life in the region.
Alan Olson
Attorney
Former Vice Chair of McDermott, Will & Emery
www.mwe.com
Al Olson serves as Vice Chair of the Center of the American West Board of Directors, and President of the Couse Foundation. He is of counsel at McDermott, Will & Emery, and prior to his retirement, he served as Vice-Chairman of the Firm and also as a member of the Firm’s Management, Executive and Strategic Planning committees.
Mr. Olson has been involved in the acquisition and disposition of businesses, including proprietary and not-for-profit institutions, for more than 30 years. Mr. Olson also is active in the Firm’s International Practice Group. His legal practice focuses on assisting Scandinavian enterprises doing business in the United States.
Mr. Olson has spoken numerous times on various aspects of acquisitions to professional and business groups, including Congresses and Executive Sessions of the American College of Healthcare Executives, various state hospital associations and the University of Chicago Federal Tax Conference. He has published a number of articles relating to his field of concentration and book chapters, such as "Sponsorship Changes" and "Mergers and Acquisitions in the United States." He is a member of the American Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Association.
Mr. Olson obtained a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Colorado in 1962 and a juris doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1965.
Cody Oreck
Cody Douglas Oreck is a designer and philanthropist with a passionate interest in creating a sustainable future for the West while honoring its history. She holds degrees from Louisiana State University and the Sorbonne. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Chautauqua Association, etown's Town Council and is deeply involved with The Nature Conservancy.
A former landman in the oil and gas industry, Cody curates an historic home in an old organic apple orchard in Boulder. She and her husband, Bruce, are currently building a zero-carbon footprint house in the Mapleton Hill Historic District-mainly just to learn if it can be done!-and if so, affordably and aesthetically to make it easier for future builders. The project combines years of preservation work with a belief that alternative energy and conservation are one of the few clear choices ahead.
William Reynolds
President
The W.W. Reynolds Companies
www.wwreynolds.com
Bill Reynolds is the president of The W.W. Reynolds Companies, which he founded in 1966. The W.W. Reynolds Companies specializes in investment development, as well as property management.
Bill grew up in Boulder in the Mapleton Historic District. He began his career selling real estate in Aspen, Colorado. Some of his past developments, which he still maintains ownership of, include the Table Mesa Shopping Center, the Sunrise Center at 30th and Arapahoe, Pearl East Business Park (35 acres along the Boulder Creek), Prospect Park East in Fort Collins, LakeCentre, 2500 55th Street, Airport Plaza One, Tierra Centre, Walnut Gardens and Gunbarrel Business Park West.
Bill is very active in the Boulder community. The W.W. Reynolds Companies helped initiate the University of Colorado’s Real Estate Center, a rigorous graduate and undergraduate program. Bill is an alumnus of the University.
Lynn Ross-Bryant
Associate Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of Colorado at Boulder
Lynn Ross-Bryant teaches courses in religions in the U.S., women and religion, religion and nature in America, and religion and literature. Her current research is in the area of nature and religion in America with a focus on national parks as sacred sites. Her publications include Imagination and the Life of the Spirit and "The Land in American Religious Experience."
Robert Sievers
Director
Analytical, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Chemistry
University of Colorado at Boulder
Professor Sievers is studying analytical chemistry, pharmaceutical science, aerosols, microparticles and nanoparticles, supercritical fluids, and thin film deposition. Fundamental and applied studies of the formation of nanoparticle and microparticle aerosols are underway. Carbon dioxide-assisted nebulization provides superior aerosols for various forms of spectroscopy, such as electro-spray ionization, mass spectrometry and atomic absorption. Sievers’ students are collaborating with pharmacists and physicians in the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, to develop new methods for delivery of aerosol particles useful in direct and painless administration of therapeutic drugs by inhalation. The drugs are dissolved or suspended in supercritical fluids, and unusually small aerosol particles are formed by rapid decompression to facilitate delivery of the aerosol particles to the most distal alveoli and to allow rapid uptake by the lungs. Formation of fine aerosols is expected to become increasingly important in the treatment or vaccination against influenza, infections, cystic fibrosis, asthma, and diabetes.
The simultaneous stabilization , drying, and micronization of vaccines, antibodies, proteins, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatory pharmaceuticals and other products of the biotechnology revolution are under study. Two of the fourteen "Grand Challenges" identified by the Gates Foundation and the NIH Foundation as critical to world health are being addressed by the Sievers group: needle-free administration of vaccines (by pulmonary or nasal aerosols), and vaccines that do not need refrigeration for long term storage.
Juli Steinhauer
Professional Musician
Co–Chair of the Conference on World Affairs
Juli was a voice major at the University of Colorado and has been singing professionally for 50 years. She has been a guest soloist both nationally and internationally with college jazz ensembles and she performs locally. She lectures on American popular music with Professor Emeritus of Music, Dr. Wayne Scott.
Juli has been working humanitarianly in Vietnam with her husband, Regent Emeritus Dr. Peter Steinhauer, since 1989. She is also on the board of the American Music Research Center and Co-Chair of the Athenaeum of the Conference on World Affairs as well as Co-Chair of the Conference on World Affairs. She is a sixth generation Coloradan.
J.C. Thompson
Former Professor and Dean of Northwestern University
Former Professor and Dean, Oakton Community College
Jack Thompson and his family share a fondness for the West. They have lived in and traveled throughout the region for much of their lives. One of Jacks best memories as an undergraduate at CU was a course on the history of the American West taught by Professor Clifford Westermeier. Since then, he has enjoyed reading and discussing essays and books on a variety of western topics.
Jack graduated with a B.A. in History from the University of Colorado on a Marine Corps ROTC scholarship in 1964, served as an officer for four years and later returned to CU to complete his M.A. in American History in 1970. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1976, again in American History. He subsequently taught in the History Departments at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. The latter part of his career was as a Professor and Dean at both Northwestern and Oakton Community College in the Chicago suburbs. After retiring from academia in 1997, he opened a bonsai store with a colleague and acted as the volunteer curator of the bonsai collection at the Chicago Botanic Garden for a number of years. He moved back to Boulder in 2002, where he is pursuing his long-time interests in art and music. He is also involved as a board member for the CAW and serves on the board of the College of Arts and Sciences. He is an active Rotarian.
Rebecca Watson
Attorney
Hogan & Hartson LLP
www.nature.org
Rebecca Watson has more than 20 years of legal and policy experience in the fields of natural resources, federal environmental law, energy, and recreation. She focuses her practice on energy and emphasizes public land, federal environmental issues and government relations. She represents clients developing renewable energy - solar, geothermal and wind - and conventional energy - oil, gas and coal - on federal land.
Rebecca served as the Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) for Lands and Minerals Management in Washington, D.C. in the George W. Bush administration,where she provided policy guidance to three bureaus administering public energy resources including the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages 261 million acres of public land. She also served in the first Bush administration as Assistant General Counsel at the Department of Energy.
She has lived and practiced law in Wyoming, Washington, D.C., Montanna and Colorado. She is a three-time graduate of the University of Denver with Bachelors of Arts (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa), Master and Juris Doctorate degrees.
Sid Wilson
President
A Private Guide
www.aprivateguide.com
Sid Wilson is President of A Private Guide, Inc., a licensed group tour and event transportation service company headquartered in Denver, Colorado since 1991. Mr. Wilson is past board chair and one of the original founding members of the Beckwourth Mountain Club. He currently serves as the Denver Public Library Commissioner, Board of Directors of the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, Denver Mayor's African American Commission, Trustee Denver Zoological Society, board of directors Colorado Scholarship Coalition, president board of t rustee s for the Oscar Micheaux Film Festival Foundation, past chair of the Board of Directors for the National Academy Foundation's Academy of Hospitality and Tourism for Denver Public Schools, past board chairman of the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, and on the Colorado Historical Society s African American Advisory Council. He has previously served as the Board Vice Chair of Historic Denver, Inc., and as a member of the Historic Preservation State Review Board,www.aprivateguide.com
Tish Winsor
Winsor Communications
A graduate of Lawrence University with a degree in history, Tish Winsor was formerly a history teacher in Illinois. She and her husband, John divide their time between Boulder and a ranch near Cody, Wyoming. They owned and operated newspapers in the Midwest before moving to the Rockies.
Tish has been active with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other conservation groups; she knows a great deal about Wyoming's economy, society, and politics. A lively and committed volunteer, Tish was the Chair of the Board of the Women of the West Museum for a number of years. She is now on the board of Atlas and the Center of the American West at CU.