Mayor John Hickenlooper | Andrew Romanoff | Dr. David T. Conley | Patricia Schroeder | "The Coach" - Rick Marshall | Newbery Audiobooks

Mayor John Hickenlooper. A small businessman who had never previously run for political office, John Hickenlooper was elected Mayor of Denver on June 3, 2003, and inaugurated on July 21, 2003. Since taking office, Mayor Hickenlooper passed a citywide charter reform initiative to modernize Denver’s personnel system, overcame a $70 million deficit to balance the City budget while averting major cuts in services and massive layoffs, reached a deal with United and Frontier Airlines that enables both carriers to grow at Denver International Airport, implemented the most sweeping set of police reforms in Denver’s history, built an unprecedented partnership with Denver Public Schools, launched efforts to create a more business friendly environment in city government, initiated a citywide campaign to end homelessness, and ushered in a new era of bipartisan regional cooperation culminating in his successful leadership of the largest regional transit initiative in the history of the United States. In April 2005 - less than two years into his first term - TIME Magazine named Mayor Hickenlooper one of the top five "big-city" mayors in America.

Hickenlooper’s passion for Denver began in 1981 when his career as an exploration geologist brought him to Buckhorn Petroleum, where he worked for five years. After the collapse of the oil industry, he found himself with a healthy severance check, no immediate job prospects, and time on his hands. Inspired by a visit to a northern California brewpub, he spent two years developing the Wynkoop Brewing Company, the first brewpub in the Rocky Mountains. Today, the Wynkoop group includes seven Denver restaurants and a brewpub in Colorado Springs.

A respected entrepreneur, Hickenlooper was also involved with numerous downtown Denver renovation and development projects and is credited as one of the pioneers that helped revitalize Denver’s Lower Downtown historic district. In recognition of his efforts supporting preservation in Denver and downtowns across the country, Hickenlooper received a National Preservation Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1997.

Long before he had ever considered public office, Hickenlooper was active in community affairs, serving on numerous civic boards including Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Denver Civic Ventures, Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, the Denver Art Museum, the Association of Brewers, and the Institute for Brewing Studies. In 1987, he co-founded the Chinook Fund, a local foundation that provides seed grants to community organizations that emphasize social change. He also co-founded CultureHaus, the Denver Art Museum's 600-member young adult organization.

Leading a grassroots campaign to preserve the "Mile High Stadium" name in 2000 planted the seeds for his 2003 mayoral bid. An unlikely candidate facing a half-dozen seasoned political veterans, Hickenlooper made Denver history with his nearly two-to-one margin of victory. Mayor Hickenlooper began his term by assembling the most diverse team of city leadership Denver has ever known. Maintaining a commitment to diversity and excellence, Hickenlooper recruited corporate executives, local nonprofit leaders and government innovators from around the country, resulting in a team that is nearly two-thirds women and nearly two-thirds Latino/African-American/Asian.

In the almost two years since his election, Mayor Hickenlooper has increased civic engagement and participation throughout the city and Denver metro area, helping to bring the 31 metro mayors together to work on initiatives that benefit the entire region. His collaborative approach has built strong bonds and partnerships that transcend partisan and geographic lines. His integrity, honesty and sense of humor have renewed public faith and trust in City Hall, and his boundless energy and enthusiasm have generated tremendous optimism and confidence in Denver’s future.

Mayor Hickenlooper graduated from Wesleyan University, where he received a Bachelors degree in English in 1974 and a Masters degree in geology in 1980. His wife, Helen Thorpe, is a writer whose work has been published in the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, George, and Texas Monthly. They live in Lower Downtown Denver with their nearly three-year-old son Teddy.

State Representative Andrew Romanoff (D-Denver). Andrew Romanoff is the Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, the first Democrat to hold that post since 1975.

Rep. Romanoff was elected to the House in 2000 and reelected in 2002 and 2004. He represents House District 6, covering east Denver and Glendale. Before his election to the speakership in 2005, he served as the House Minority Leader.

The Denver Post described Rep. Romanoff as one of Colorado’s most effective legislators. He steered 25 bills through the Republican-controlled House in his first two terms, including laws that expand the supply of affordable housing, provide treatment for substance abuse and mental illness, and protect the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

In the legislature's "off-season," Rep. Romanoff teaches political science at the Community College of Aurora. He has also taught at Red Rocks Community College and at the University of Colorado’s Graduate School of Public Affairs. He began teaching in Central America and speaks fluent Spanish.

Rep. Romanoff earned a bachelor’s degree at Yale and a master’s degree in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has a twin sister, a Democratic mother, a Republican father, and a border collie named Zorro.

www.andrewromanoff.com

Dr. Conley's presentation is: The Role of Librarians in College Readiness

This session will cover the following topics:

• Why and how do high schools need to change what they are doing in order to make more students college ready?
• What are the key knowledge and skills for postsecondary success, and what role should libraries and librarians play in the development of these skills?
• How would libraries and the role of librarians look different in schools designed to ensure more students are college ready?
• How can colleges be full partners in this process of making students more fully ready for college success?
• What are the policy changes that need to occur for high schools to enable more students to be college ready, and what can be done at the state level to support changes in the roles of libraries and librarians so that they play a key role in promoting college readiness?

David T. Conley is a professor of Educational Policy and Leadership and founder and director of the Center for Educational Policy Research at the University of Oregon. He served as the developer and executive director of the Proficiency- based Admission Standards System (PASS) for the Oregon University System, and currently conducts studies for the College Board to validate the standards used in the SAT, PSAT, and AP tests. Dr. Conley spent 12 years as a public school teacher and administrator before joining the UO faculty in 1989. He consults extensively with governmental agencies and education systems nationally and internationally. He completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at the Unviersity of Colorado at Boulder. His most recent book, College Knowledge: What It Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready, is the most comprehensive and detailed overview ever published on how to imporve secondary school prepartion and success for college. It includes research based insights, practices, and policies for all audiences trying to better connect secondary schools and colleges.

Former Congresswoman Patricia Scott Schroeder is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the national trade organization of the U.S. book publishing industry, a post she assumed on June 1, 1997. Mrs. Schroeder left Congress undefeated in 1996 after representing Colorado’s First Congressional District (Denver) in the United States House of Representatives for 24 years. For a brief period of time in 1986, she considered running for President but withdrew for lack of funds despite the fact that she ranked third in a Time magazine poll.

From January to June 1997, she held the rank of Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. In addition to heading the AAP, Mrs. Schroeder also leads New Century/New Solutions, an out-of-the-box think tank, for the Civil Society Institute in Newton, Massachusetts and serves on the Marguerite Casey Foundation Board of Directors and the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights Executive Committee. She also serves on various advisory committees dealing with literacy and issues affecting children and women.

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1940, Mrs. Schroeder graduated magna cum laude in 1961 from the University of Minnesota while working as an insurance claims adjuster to support herself through college. Mrs. Schroeder went on to Harvard Law School, one of only 15 women in a class of more than 500 men. She earned her J.D. in 1964 and moved to Denver, Colorado with her husband, James, who in 1972 encouraged her to challenge an incumbent Republican for the House seat representing Colorado's First Congressional District.

The mother of two young children at the time she was elected to the House, Mrs. Schroeder went on to serve 12 terms. During her tenure in the House, she became the Dean of Congressional Women, co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues for 10 years, and served on the House Judiciary Committee, the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, and was the first woman to serve on the House Armed Services Committee. As chair of the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families from 1991 to 1993, Mrs. Schroeder guided the Family and Medical Leave Act and the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act to enactment in 1993, a fitting legislative achievement for her lifetime of work on behalf of women's and family issues. She was also active on many military issues, expediting the National Security Committee's vote to allow women to fly combat missions in 1991 and working to improve the situation of military families through passage of her Military Family Act in 1985.

A leader in the cause of education and a champion of free speech, Mrs. Schroeder was never a single-issue candidate. As Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property she was one of the most knowledgeable members of Congress on copyright issues and a strong advocate for protecting intellectual property rights and for reinforcing the creative incentive for developing intellectual property. She continues this advocacy in her leadership of AAP.

Mrs. Schroeder is the author of two books: Champion of the Great American Family (Random House, 1989) and 24 Years of House Work...and the Place Is Still a Mess (Andrews McMeel, 1998). She is in the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.

"The Coach" - Rick Marshall. Coming soon

David Rapkin has been a leading producer in the audio publishing industry since its retail beginning in the 1980s. As a Grammy® award-winning independent producer he has generated hundreds of fiction and non-fiction audio titles for Listening Library, Random House Audio, Simon & Schuster Audio, Putnam Audio, Audible.com, and other industry leaders. David is a specialist in producing and directing the works of bestselling adult and children's authors for audio. Some of the children's authors include: J.K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket, Walter Dean Myers, and Kimberly Willis Holt. In the adult publishing arena, David has worked with John Grisham, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Elmore Leonard, Patricia Cornwell, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Hawking, and Louis L’Amour. Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire by J. K. Rowling, a program produced by David Rapkin in 2000, received a Grammy® for best children's audio. In 2003, David Rapkin was the audio producer of both the Grammy® nominated Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix and the unabridged audio Madam Secretary: A Memoir by former Secretary Of State Madeleine Albright. Audiobooks produced by David Rapkin are constantly represented on audio bestseller lists. His Louis L’Amour, John Grisham, STAR WARS, and Harry Potter productions have sold millions of copies. He and his wife, a media consultant, and their son Asher, a computer systems salesperson and professional musician, live and work in New York City.

Elaina Erika Davis, a graduate of The Juilliard School, has made numerous off-Broadway theater and television appearances including guest starring roles on Law & Order, Third Watch, Spin City, Guiding Light, All My Children and the feature film, Contact. She received critical acclaim for her rendition of Cynthia Kadohata’s 2005 Newbery Award winner, Kira-Kira and Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. Her other notable audiobook recordings include The Emperor Was Divine, Adaline Falling Star, Flower Net, and In A Class By Itself.

Judith Ivey is a two-time recipient of the Tony Award, a two-time recipient of the Drama Desk Award, the Obie Award, and countless others for her stagework. Most recently she was honored with the Sydney Kingsley-Madge Evans Award for 2004 from the Dramatists’ Guild, and she has been inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame. Ms. Ivey’s film credits include Devil’s Advocate, Washington Square, Mystery, Alaska, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Love Hurts, Harry and Son, Compromising Positions, and most recently, What Alice Found. She starred in four television series, the most memorable being Designing Women and she was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in Hallmark’s What The Deaf Man Heard. Other TV film credits include The Long, Hot Summer, Decoration Day, Half A Dozen Babies, and Rosered. Ms. Ivey’s most recent credit as a director is Bad Dates at the Laguna Playhouse, starring Beth Broderick. Ms. Ivey recently directed the very successful production of Steel Magnolias at the Alley Theatre and she has also directed the off-Broadway play, More, starring Yeardley Smith, which she restaged for the Falcon Theatre in Los Angeles. Ms. Ivey directed Two For The Seesaw at the Westport Playhouse, The Go For It Guy at the Aspen Comedy Festival, and Soccer Moms at Fleetwood Stage. Judith will be touring the U.S. in Irene O’Garden’s Women On Fire during the 2005-2006 season.

Judith Ivey, an audiobook veteran, has recorded dozens of stories for children and adults. She has won AudioFile Earphones Awards for her narration of Love, Rudy Lavender by Deborah Wiles and My Louisiana Sky by Kimberly Willis Holt.