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Longtime business leader named to strategic relations post

Draper

Frances Draper has been named associate vice chancellor for strategic relations, effective Feb. 14. University of Colorado Boulder Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano appointed her to the post; she currently serves as executive director of the Boulder Economic Council, an arm of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.

"I am delighted that one of our region's most visionary community leaders will be joining the University of Colorado Boulder," DiStefano said. "Frances brings a strong background in relationship management, communications and government affairs that will extend and leverage CU-Boulder's strategic relationships, further align them with the Flagship 2030 Strategic Plan, and do so while serving our students, alumni and key communities."

As associate vice chancellor for strategic relations, Draper will manage university communications and government, community and business relations for the CU flagship campus. She will serve on the chancellor's cabinet and provide strategic advice to the campus's leadership on communications and external relations, and also will unite the efforts involved in further implementing CU-Boulder's Flagship 2030 Strategic Plan.

"I am delighted to be given this unique opportunity to join CU-Boulder's administrative team," Draper said. "CU faces a host of challenges: securing adequate funding, building and maintaining vital internal and external relationships, publicly leveraging the excellent work of the faculty and serving new generations of students. These challenges require highly innovative thinking, focused creativity and careful strategic communication. I look forward to helping the very capable CU-Boulder administrative team achieve these goals."

Draper has served as executive director of the Boulder Economic Council since 2006. Prior to that, she worked for General Electric in Boulder and Westminster, as a vice president in the business development (2004-05) and risk management (1998-2003) divisions, as well as in treasury and financial services (1995-97). She worked for 12 years (1982-94) for First Interstate Bank in Denver in marketing, strategic planning and financial analyst positions. From 1978-80, she served on the legislative staff of Harrison Schmidt, the junior U.S. senator from New Mexico.

Draper holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Stanford University (1978) and an MBA (1982) with an emphasis in marketing from the University of California, Berkeley. She has served on numerous local boards, including Boulder Rotary, the Boulder Innovation Center, CO-LABS Inc. (where she served as interim executive director in 2006-07), and the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship Affiliate Board within the Leeds School of Business at CU-Boulder.

As associate vice chancellor for strategic relations, Draper succeeds Michael L. Warden, who left the post in December to serve in a similar capacity at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Budget director brings state experience to role at Denver campuses

Lisa Esgar has joined the University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus as associate vice chancellor for budget and finance. She will oversee the departments of budget, finance, policy and fiscal analysis, and Student Financial Services.

Esgar comes from the Office of State Planning and Budgeting, where she has served as deputy director since 2007. She also served for 11 years in the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, ending as senior director of operations and finance.

She is a registered nurse and holds a science master's degree in nursing.

Small Business Development Center has interim director

Shawna Markiewicz, assistant to the director for the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, has been named interim director of the center.

A search for a permanent replacement for former director Matt Barrett has begun. Barrett recently accepted a position with Graham Advertising, Colorado Springs, after five years at UCCS.

The SBDC will continue to offer services including small business counseling, training seminars and events, Markiewicz said.

The nonprofit SBDC is hosted by the UCCS College of Business. SBDC personnel provide free counseling and low-cost training seminars to operators and potential operators of small- and medium-size businesses in El Paso and Teller counties. Successful business experts and entrepreneurs from the Pikes Peak region often conduct the seminars and workshops, sharing personal experience.

The SBDC is partially funded by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, the city of Colorado Springs, and the College of Business.

— Ron Fitz

Dropping names ...

Hartley

Ott

Laurel Hartley, assistant professor of integrative biology at the University of Colorado Denver, and her colleagues have a new paper out in BioScience this month. "College students' understanding of the carbon cycle: contrasting principle-based and informal reasoning" was highlighted in Science Daily and was the subject of a segment on NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow. ... Lisa Keränen, associate professor and director of graduate studies for the communication department at the University of Colorado Denver, published an essay, "How Does a Pathogen Become a Terrorist?" in Rhetorical Questions of Health and Medicine, edited by Joan Leach and Deborah Dysart-Gale (2011, Lexington). ... Brian L. Ott, lecturer for the department of communication at the University of Colorado Denver, was elected first vice president of the Western States Communication Association. He will plan the association's annual conference in 2013 and preside over its 2014 conference. ... Paul Stretesky, associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, has been chosen North American editor of a new international journal, Green Criminology. Previously, Stretesky was chosen book editor of a new Ashgate publishing series in this emerging field. Green Criminology: An International Journal on Environmental Crime and Ecological Justice is an international journal dedicated to a criminological analysis of environmental crime and ecological justice.

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