Alumni

Craft-beer pioneer is still eyeing the next big thing

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:23:37 +0000

Craft-beer pioneer is still eyeing the next big thing Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/16/2025 - 09:23

Clint Talbott

Keith Villa, who invented Blue Moon Belgian White, thinks cannabis-infused beer might take off; he and his wife, Jodi, both CU ��ý�� alums, have launched an alcohol-free brewery that could help lead the way

Keith Villa did not set out to shake up the American beer industry. He’d aimed to become a medical doctor, but his love of biology led him to become a bona fide beer doctor. That led to the kind of career that happens once in a blue moon.

Or, rather, a Blue Moon.

In 1995, Villa invented what’s now known as Molson Coors Blue Moon Belgian White beer. Ultimately, it became the largest craft beer on the market.

Keith Villa (MCDBio'86) got his start in the science of beer by responding a job posting at Coors for someone to do molecular research on how to improve their yeast. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

After more than three decades at Molson Coors, Keith Villa and his wife, Jodi Villa, launched Ceria Brewing Co., which brews alcohol-free beer and is eyeing the potential for alcohol-free beer infused with cannabis. The Villas are still busy innovating, and their latest chapter is still being written.

It’s a tale with several plot twists, but one key player was the ��ý��.

Improving yeast

Before college, Keith Villa was inspired by his mother, who was a registered nurse at the Veterans Administration hospital in Denver. He resolved to become a pediatrician.

While in high school, Keith and Jodi met and began to forge their own partnership. They both enrolled at CU ��ý��, he in a pre-med program and she in architectural engineering. Both graduated in 1986.

As a student in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, he worked in the laboratory of Professor Emeritus Lawrence “Larry” Gold, who founded NeXstar Pharmaceuticals.

In the Gold lab, Villa was helping graduate students conduct original research. In 1986, shortly before he graduated with his bachelor’s degree, Villa responded to a job posting at Coors for someone to do molecular research on how to improve their yeast.

“And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly what I’m doing here.’”

Coors hired him more or less immediately, and he went to work trying to design a yeast that would make it cheaper to brew light beer. Although Villa was successful, the yeast was never used commercially, he notes.

After that project concluded, Villa told Coors he was ready to quit to pursue a PhD in biochemistry. Coors’ director of research and development made a counteroffer: Go to Belgium to join a PhD program in brewing, and Coors would foot the bill.

Keith and Jodi didn’t have a mortgage or family yet, so they said, “Let’s do it.”

Studying in Belgium

Belgium was an eye opener. Easy train rides to Germany, Switzerland and beyond widened their horizons to new beers, foods and regional dialects. He conducted his PhD research in Belgium and finished writing his dissertation in Colorado.

Villa’s bosses at Coors said, “Well, you just came back from Belgium. You know about these beers. Can you make something?”

“So that’s when I created Blue Moon,” Villa says.

The top executives at Coors had initial reservations about this new beer: Why was it cloudy and infused with orange peel and coriander, for instance? Eventually, however, Blue Moon became a billion-dollar brand, brewing 2 million barrels a year.

Keith Villa (in the CERIA lab in Brussels, Belgium) earned his PhD at CERIA and named his company in honor of it. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

By 2017, Villa had done “a lot of what I wanted to do in the brewing world,” and he retired from Coors. Soon, he and Jodi launched Ceria Brewing Co., which pays homage to Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest. “Ceria” also reflects CERIA, the acronym of the Belgian campus where Keith earned his PhD.

Initially, Ceria produced cannabis-infused beers sold through dispensaries in Colorado and California, and they were aimed at those who consume THC in moderation. But the products faced regulatory hurdles, not least of which is that the federal government doesn’t recognize cannabis as a legitimate business undertaking. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, even though individual states have legalized it to varying degrees.

'Bad movies, hot showers and vanilla'

Today, Ceria offers two non-infused alcohol-free beer styles: Grainwave Belgian-Style White and Indiewave Hoppy IPA. Grainwave is brewed with orange peel and coriander (sound familiar?) and is billed as pairing well with Mexican food, anything spicy, “bad movies, hot showers and vanilla.”

Indiewave, meanwhile, is said to pair well with “charcuterie, Middle Eastern cuisine, after-parties, rainy days, chocolate, your record collection.”

Ceria’s offerings are alcohol free, which differ from “non-alcoholic” beers. According to federal regulations, non-alcoholic beer must be sold with less than 0.5 % alcohol by volume. Alcohol-free beers must have 0.0%.

That distinction matters. One reason is that to infuse beer with THC, the psychotropic ingredient in cannabis, the beer must be alcohol free. And selling cannabis-infused beer could be, in Villa’s estimation, the next big thing.

Hemp-derived THC is a key ingredient. Hemp is distinguished from marijuana largely by the concentration of THC in each; hemp’s concentration is lower. In some states, it’s legal to distribute hemp-derived THC, and selling cannabis-infused beer there is more cost-effective for brewers and consumers.

In states where such sales are legal, Villa notes, consumers can buy cannabis-infused beer in many places, right next to alcoholic beers.

“And when you offer a consumer that choice, you see these beverages just start to take off,” Villa says, adding that there’s a sizable market of people who don’t want to drink alcohol, “or they want to switch back and forth, maybe alcohol this weekend, next weekend cannabis.”

“I would say that we were probably a little ahead of our time with what we did, because now when you look at hemp-derived THC, that really proves our original thesis that beverages with THC are a really great option for people that don’t want alcohol all the time, or they may find alcohol to be bad for their health.”

Now the Villas watch the national market and wait for regulatory changes that could help restart their efforts to sell cannabis-infused beer.

As Villa observed, “We socialize with beverages, and you can’t toast a bride and groom with a gummy.”

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Top photo: Jodi and Keith Villa and their daughter, Catherine (right), co-own Ceria Brewing Company. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

Charting the rise and fall of great sea powers

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 17:29:31 +0000

Charting the rise and fall of great sea powers Rachel Sauer Thu, 09/18/2025 - 11:29

Bradley Worrell

CU alum’s book examines how the fate of the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States as economic and political powers has been deeply intertwined with their ability to project power via the seas

Colin Flint, a ��ý�� PhD geography graduate and professor of political geography at Utah State University, researches the rise and fall of great world powers.

It’s a topic beyond simple academic interest to Flint, who was born in 1965 and raised in England during a period of seismic change in the country.

“At the time, Britain was still struggling to figure out that it wasn’t the world’s greatest power anymore, so my socialization and political coming of age was in a declined power,” he says. Additionally, Flint says being raised in the busy ferry port of Dover made a powerful impression on him by highlighting the country’s long history as a maritime nation.

Colin Flint, a CU ��ý�� PhD geography graduate, researches the rise and fall of great world powers.

“Dover definitely has influenced me, being so close to the water,” he says. “My high school was on a hill overlooking the harbor, which at the time was the busiest ferry port in the world, with ships going back and forth to France and Belgium. So, the notion was very much rooted in me that Britain drew its power, historically, from the sea.”

At one point, Flint entertained the idea of joining the Royal Navy before setting his career sights on academia. He obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Britain, then pursued his PhD in geography at the ��ý�� thanks to fortuitous connections between his undergrad mentor and CU ��ý�� Department of Geography Professor John O’Loughlin.

“I moved to United States of America in 1990 to attend university, and the literature at the time and discussions were all very declinist. It was very much, ‘America has gone down the tubes,’” he says. “Broadly speaking, I moved from a declined power into a declining power, or so I thought at the time.”

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Flint says the idea of America as a declining power was largely replaced with a triumphalist narrative that saw the U.S. as the world’s only remaining superpower.

Ideas about what makes a country an economic and political superpower—and how a country can lose its status as a hegemonic power—had been percolating in Flint’s brain for years when he recently published his book Near and Far Waters: The Geopolitics of Seapower. The book specifically looks at the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States for context on how the countries used sea power to project their economic and political influence across the globe.

Flint spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about his book, while also offering insights on how current events are shaping the outlook for the United States and the world. His answers have been edited for clarity and condensed.

Question: What is the context for your book’s title: Near and Far Waters?

Flint: There are legal terms about coasts and the exclusive economic zone around the country’s coastlines, but I’m not using it in that way. I’m thinking about an area of ocean in which a country has interest and influence over and off its coastline.

"Near and Far Waters" by CU ��ý�� alumnus Colin Flint focuses on the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States for context on how the countries used sea power to project their economic and political influence across the globe.

That is an important piece of ocean for a country because there’s resource exploitation, but it’s also a matter of security. If a country wants to protect itself from potential invasion, it needs to control those waters off its coastline—it’s near waters.

Some countries, once they’ve established control of their near waters, have the ability and desire to project beyond that, across the oceans into what would then become its far waters. If you think about Great Britain in the context of the British Empire, once it fought off European threats to its coastline—its near waters—it was then able to develop the sea power to establish its empire. It was in African far waters, it was in Indian far waters, in Middle East far waters and so on.

Another good example of this would be how the United States of America, over the course of history, pushed other countries out of its near waters. The Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are good examples, where Spanish and British influence were ended over the 1800s and 1900s. And then by establishing control through annexation of Hawaii and the purchase of Alaska, America developed its Pacific near waters, too, which it expanded upon through the course of World War II, pushing the Japanese back and establishing bases in Okinawa, Japan; the Philippines; and Guam, etc.

Question: One of your chapters is titled ‘No Island is an Island.’ What do you mean by that?

Flint: I was talking about how the projection of sea power requires the control of islands. Often, the geopolitical goal and benefit of controlling an island is not the island itself—it’s how it enables projection of power further, or how it hinders other countries’ projection of power by being near sea lines of communication that you can have a base to try and disrupt. For example, when Hawaii became part of the United States, it allowed the U.S. to project power across the Pacific. Again, it’s not the island itself—it’s the projection of power across an ocean.

Projecting sea power is about more than just having a strong navy.

Question: If one country’s far waters extend into the near waters of another country, that would seem to be a recipe for conflict, would it not?

Flint: That is the kicker, of course, that a sea power’s far waters are another country’s near waters. And it has historically led to conflicts and even wars. It’s always involved violence—and not just between great powers and lesser powers, but also violence against the people living on islands or in coastal lands where sea powers are looking to establish dominance and exploit resources.

Question: China has been rapidly expanding its navy in recent years. Is it simply beefing up its sea forces to protect its near waters, or is it looking to supplant the U.S. as the dominant sea power? Or are there other motives at play?

Flint: You often see in newspaper articles written in the United States and maybe other Western countries that China has the biggest navy in the world. This always makes me laugh because, yes, it’s got hundreds and hundreds of tiny little coastal defense vessels, but even now that it has two aircraft carriers, it does not have the ability to project power like the United States of America, which has 11 carrier groups. So, I think that should always be recognized.

The other sort of trope that’s often wielded out there, which I think we need to question, is: The West is worried about China developing a navy, because it will allow China to disrupt trade networks. Well, wait a minute. China is very dependent on imports, especially of fuel or energy. Additionally, it is the world’s largest trading economy, and it’s worried about the robustness of its domestic economy. They cannot maintain their economic growth based purely on their domestic market, so they need to have a global economic presence for markets and for securing inputs into their economy.

Putting those two things together, it makes no sense why China would want to disrupt global trade. In fact, the country’s reaction to President Trump’s sanctions tells us that the last thing China wants is global trade disrupted. They’re very worried about the fragility of their own economy and whether that leads to social unrest, etc. The flip side of that is how the West could really hurt China by blocking those trade routes to prevent energy imports into China and exports.

China is definitely trying to grow its navy. I think what makes it so interesting is its simultaneous attempt to have a navy that can defend its near waters while perhaps preventing the operation of the United States in its far waters. To what extent China is attempting to establish a presence in its far waters is less clear.

"A sea power’s far waters are another country’s near waters. And it has historically led to conflicts and even wars," notes scholar Colin Flint. ("Naval Battle of 1812," Painting, Oil on Canvas; By Rodolfo Claudus; 1962/U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)

Question: From your book, it seems like you have some serious concerns about the potential for a serious conflict arising from disputes over near and far waters?

Flint: In fact, I’ve never been so concerned or worried in my career, to be honest with you. When I started teaching my class on political geography many moons ago, let’s say in the mid-1990s, I used to start off with some structural model of global political change, which essentially says, we have cycles of war and peace, for the want of a better term.

And I asked my students to try and get them engaged: ‘Picture yourself in 2025. What are you going to be doing?’ It was staggering to me how many of them believed that they would be millionaires and already retired (laughs).

The point of that was that the model I was using predicted another period of global war, starting in 2025. I don’t do that exercise anymore, because it isn’t funny; it’s really quite serious. So yes, the risk of war is high, and I think it could emerge in a number of different places. One focus is on the South China Sea, the near waters of China, as that is clearly a potential flashpoint. Taiwan is the obvious focal point of what that conflict would look like.

I also wonder about potential flashpoints of conflict in Chinese far waters—and that could include the Arctic and the Northern Atlantic, because another factor that has to be considered is global climate change and the increasing possibility of a trade route through the North Pole, which would cut trade times from China into European markets considerably. Those waters represent U.S. near waters, so …

Question: Do you envision any sort of viable alternatives to a conflict between world powers over near and far waters, especially in today’s environment?

Flint: My motivation with the book was with an eye to waving some sort of flag about how to think about peace rather than war. Most of our lenses are national lenses. If we keep on this pattern of a national lens, then I see a strong likelihood to repeat these cycles of near and far water sea powers, which have always involved a period of global war.

We need to change that lens. We need to have a global view as to why countries are always seeking far waters, entering other people’s near waters and why that can lead to conflict.

Today, we’re facing a humanity-scale problem, which is global climate change. Is that the thing that will tell us we need to work together, rather than compete? I’m not saying it is; I’m saying, if I see a glimmer of optimism to your question, that’s it.

Question: Based upon your research, if a country loses its status as a hegemonic power, can it later recover that status? And, in the context of today’s world, what might things look like if the U.S. lost its hegemonic status?

Flint: The short answer is no, based upon past history, a country that loses its hegemonic status has not been able to reclaim it once it’s gone.

But to your second question, it goes back to the question about what China’s intentions are. In American popular culture, where every sports team has to be No. 1, even if they are eighth in some Mickey Mouse conference, there is this obsession that there has to be a singular winner or champion.

What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t just assume that if the United States declines there will be another emergent dominant power in the world. It’s quite possible that if the United States declines, what might emerge would be a multipolar world, although I don’t know what that might look like.

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Top image: A squadron of the Royal Navy running down the Channel and An East Indiaman preparing to sail, by artist Samuel Atkins (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

From Huffy to high tech, it's been a wild ride

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 19:29:05 +0000

From Huffy to high tech, it's been a wild ride Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/05/2025 - 13:29

Rachel Sauer

For CU ��ý�� alumnus Todd Carver, what he learned in the lab as a student inspired industry-rocking innovation in developing digital bike-fitting technology

For a long time, one of the unspoken truths of cycling was that if you ride hard and long enough, it’s going to hurt: foot or hand numbness, back pain, shoulder pain, the list is intimidating.

Every rider feels it differently. For Todd Carver (IntPhys’00, MIntPhys’02), “my lower back is the problem. I struggled with my position but finally got to the point where I could ride pain-free as I understood the human body more and was actually able to make changes to my position on the bike.

“Plus, the bike’s adjustable, right, so you can move the seat, you can adjust your touchpoints to the bike, your hands, butt and feet can all be adjusted. And if you don’t adjust those and just plop yourself on the bike, there’s a chance you’re not going to perform well and you’re going to get injured.”

CU ��ý�� alumnus Todd Carver (IntPhys’00, MIntPhys’02) co-founded Retül, a bike fitting and product matching technology now used by professional cycling teams, performance centers, rehabilitation centers and bicycle retailers worldwide.

While working with Bill Byrnes and Rodger Kram, associate professors emeritus in the ��ý�� Department of Integrative Physiology, in the Applied Exercise Science Laboratory during his graduate studies, Carver began wondering if competitive cycling—or even long-distance recreational cycling—needed to end in pain.

“The big thing the cycling world was missing was information about the rider—the human aspect,” Carver explains. “How should riders fit on a bike? How do you position a rider to be powerful, efficient and perform well? All the things I was learning in my academic career under Bill Byrnes and Rodger Kram—the focus of my research—was in predicting cycling performance, who’s going to perform well and who’s not.”

The problem was, there just weren’t that many tools to assess a rider’s position on their bike and give them a three-dimensional, dynamic bike fit. So, Carver and two colleagues developed one: Retül, a bike fitting and product matching technology now used by professional cycling teams, performance centers, rehabilitation centers and bicycle retailers worldwide.

Retül wrought such a change in the cycling world that Specialized acquired it in 2012. Now, as head of human performance for Specialized, Carver continues to innovate at the vanguard of cycling fit and performance.

“Riders just want to be pain free,” Carver says. “And even if they don’t care about being fast, they don’t want to push on the pedal and not go or push on the pedal and it hurts.”

Bike = freedom

Carver discovered young that pushing on a bike pedal is bliss and freedom in equal measure. “My first bike was a Huffy, and it was frickin’ rad,” he recalls. “As a kid, I realized that on a bike I can go way farther. So, I had this Huffy that I rode around the neighborhood, and it gave me a lot of freedom as a kid.”

Celebrate cycling (and correctly fitted bikes) Sunday, Sept. 7, at the Buffalo Bicycle Classic!

Learn more

His first “real” bike as a recreational and then competitive cyclist was a mountain bike, which he rode while figuring out what to do during the several years he lived in Breckenridge between high school and college. “I moved to Breckenridge and just got hooked on endurance sports, especially mountain biking, and I said, ‘I need to go study the science of this.’”

He came to CU ��ý�� and joined the cycling team, eventually realizing that he didn’t want to pursue professional cycling and that the science of riding held a lot more fascination for him. Plus, he brought to the performance lab and insiders knowledge of the problems cyclists could have.

“One of the studies that we did with Rodger (Kram) was measuring aerodynamic drag on bikes, and I saw how big of an opportunity fit was,” Carver says. “You can have a really fast bike, and that’s good, but the human body makes up 80 to 90% of drag.

Todd Carver (left) works with a cyclist to gather data for a bike fitting. (Photo: Todd Carver)

“To this day, we still do that analysis with all of our pro riders. We take them to the velodrome, measure aerodynamics and then work with fit to try to improve it. I’d almost say that one of the biggest impacts we’ve had is helping send professional and career cycling more toward science.”

After earning his master’s degree, Carver worked at the ��ý�� Center for Sports Medicine, where he and an engineer colleague, Cliff Simms, soon realized that people were flying in from as far as Europe to get fitted for bikes. He wondered why they couldn’t get fitted in their hometowns, “and it really came down to the technology. For a bike shop to get the digital technology was too expensive and it was too hard to run—you basically would need a master’s degree in biomechanics to do it—so this engineer friend and I started to look at how we could break down those barriers.”

They began developing a motion-capture system that measures length and trigonometric relation between small LED markers placed all over the cyclist’s body and synchronized to flash at certain times, a process that happens in milliseconds. 3D cameras positioned around the rider record the data, which is immediately analyzed and used to fit riders to bikes with millimeter precision.

Affordable, portable, easy to use

With partner Franko Vatterott, Carver and Simms founded Retül in 2007 with a goal of making bike fitting more affordable, portable, easy to use and data driven.

“I say I got my MBA starting a company,” Carver says. “I knew nothing, and I learned it starting a company. One big thing we learned is you better have a darn good product, and what we felt we had was a really good product, so that made some things easier. We didn’t need to take investment initially; we were able to just bootstrap it and work off the money we were making (during development).”

They also were building a database containing everything they were learning about different types of bodies and how they fit on bikes—data they knew would be appealing to bike manufacturers. In fact, he adds, the goal was always to sell to Specialized, which had worked with doctors on ergonomic design and lacked only data from digital fitting.

Todd Carver (right) shows a cyclist data from a digital bike fitting. (Photo: Todd Carver)

They initially worked with professional riders, drawing on connections Carver had made with riders in CU ��ý�� performance labs, and marketed Retül to fitting pro teams. “Then bike shops were coming to us saying, ‘We’d like to buy one of your systems.’

“From the rider point of view, what I was hearing was, ‘Wow, that feels way better, and it’s easier for me to pedal’ or ‘That completely got rid of my injury and now I can push harder.’ The problem might not be the bike itself, it just might be the saddle or the shoe or the footbed, or it just might be that the rider needs to reposition themself on the bike. From the rider point of view, that’s powerful because they could see that bike shops weren’t always trying to sell them a new bike, but had the data to say, ‘Let’s try a new saddle.’”

‘More fun with data’

As head of human performance for Specialized, Carver continues to work with riders at all levels and in all areas of cycling.

“We work in optimizing athlete and product performance using science,” Carver says. “In addition to fitting pros and selling fit systems to retailers, we do a lot of research and development—we take that fit knowledge we have and are able to then use that for ergonomic design of saddles, shoes and hand grips.

“How hand grips are shaped, for example, affects how a rider’s hand sits, which can mean the difference between a comfortable hand and one that goes numb. So, what we do is prototype and test and gather data for better design. We do so much work in saddles, which is the hardest thing on a bike to get right, so we’re always testing with pressure mapping.”

The overarching goal, Carver says, is to solve riders’ problems, “and that’s more fun with data.”

Carver often considers whether his life’s work is science or art, and figures it lives somewhere between the two: “We use scientific tools, have all these ranges, but we can’t know everything from that. I think that’s where the art comes in. You need to work with a lot of different riders—some who just want to ride bikes down to the grocery store and don’t want to be aerodynamic or fast—and you have to be able to empathize with that as well as the more competitive side of cycling. You have to have the human side, too, and really read people, have really good interviewing skills and listening skills to know what they want to do on a bike.

"I think I can empathize because I still love to ride, and I still feel that freedom when I get on my bike.”

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For CU ��ý�� alumnus Todd Carver, what he learned in the lab as a student inspired industry-rocking innovation in developing digital bike-fitting technology.

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Top image: A cyclist receives a bicycle fitting using technology co-developed by CU alumnus Todd Carver. (Photo: Todd Carver)

Secrets, spies and a stirred Vesper

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 19:53:24 +0000

Secrets, spies and a stirred Vesper Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/02/2025 - 13:53

Cody DeBos

CU alum mixes CIA career into newly published cocktail memoir

When Robert Dannenberg (IntlAf’78) began photographing cocktails against the backdrop of mountain views from his home in Nederland, Colorado, during the COVID-19 lockdown, it started as a casual hobby. He’d send the photos to a group of retired CIA colleagues, all of them still close after decades of fieldwork and covert operations.

“One of them suggested putting them together in a book,” Dannenberg recalls. “That was the wife of my co-author, Joseph Mullin.”

What started as a way to pass the time soon stirred up something more refined.

CU ��ý�� alumnus Rob Dannenberg (left) at The Fountain Inn in Washington, D.C., enjoying an Old Fashioned (the cocktail mentioned on p. 52 of A Spy Walked Into A Bar). (Photo: Rob Dannenberg)

“We were reminiscing about various points in our careers where cocktails were important in helping us get the mission accomplished,” he says.

Soon after, A Spy Walked Into A Bar: A Practitioner’s Guide to Cocktail Tradecraft was born. The book blends real-life CIA stories from Dannenberg and Mullin’s careers with the drinks that helped mark the end of a successful operation or the forging of a crucial relationship.

“Cocktails and espionage are linked in real life as well as in fiction like the Ian Fleming novels,” Dannenberg says.

But his book isn’t a James Bond thriller. It’s a memoir in disguise, served shaken, not stirred.

A Cold War toast

For much of his life, Dannenberg worked in the shadows. Before eventually becoming the CIA’s former chief of operations for the Counterterrorism Center, chief of the Central Eurasia Division and head of the Information Operations (Cyber) Center, he was a field agent with boots on the ground.

“I was mostly a Russia guy and did two tours of duty in Moscow,” he says. “I was responsible for the agency’s global collection operations in Russia. Truly important and fascinating work if you consider what is going on in the world today.”

Dannenberg’s career was punctuated by moments where toasting a drink meant more than relaxation. Lifting a glass meant trust, camaraderie or closure. The stories in his book don’t spill classified secrets, but they do offer a glimpse into the rarely discussed human rituals of intelligence work.

The Vesper and the Manhattan

While his book includes everything from the Vesper Martini to bourbon sippers among a carefully curated selection of 58 cocktails, two stand out for Dannenberg.

“My favorite from the book is the Vesper Martini—probably the cocktail most truly associated with Fleming’s James Bond,” he says. “If you watch the movie Casino Royale with Daniel Craig, you will know what I mean.”

But when Dannenberg settles in for a drink of his own, he switches spirits. “If I’m in the mood for a whiskey cocktail, I’m a Manhattan guy,” he adds. “There are several variations of the Manhattan presented in the book.”

These two drinks have special connotations for Dannenberg, who associates each with specific operations he took part in during his career. Readers can find those stories within the pages, he promises.

Rob Dannenberg began photographing cocktails against the backdrop of mountain views from his home in Nederland, Colorado, during the COVID-19 lockdown, sending the photos to a group of retired CIA colleagues. (Photo: Rob Dannenberg)

Better than briefs

After decades of writing intelligence briefings, reports and operational memos, Dannenberg says that A Spy Walked Into A Bar offered a new kind of writing freedom.

Mostly.

“Writing the book was a lot more fun than writing intelligence reports!” he says with a grin. “But one of the agreements you make with the agency when you have a top-secret security clearance is that you have to submit to them for approval anything you write.”

Dannenberg sent in a draft of the manuscript, and, in true CIA fashion, it was returned with numerous redactions.

“I thought the redactions might look amusing to the reader, so we went ahead and left the blacked-out text in the book,” he adds.

Making a difference

Dannenberg’s path to the CIA began at the ��ý��, where he studied international affairs.

“I grew up wanting to work overseas,” he says. “While at CU, I narrowed it down to three options: State Department, U.S. military or CIA.”

The CIA called first, and he answered. Dannenberg served through tense political shifts, cyber conflicts and counterterrorism operations during his career. Along the way, he learned the personal cost of the work.

“Being an operations officer (or case officer) in the CIA isn’t easy,” he says. “There is a lot of pressure, a lot of time away from home and family, plenty of risk and times that require patience and persistence.”

Still, Dannenberg believes it was worth it.

“I was privileged to experience things in my career, both good and bad, that I would not have experienced in any other profession. My time at CU set the stage for a career that was more than I could have ever imagined,” he says.

Now retired, Dannenberg remains in touch with many of the colleagues who shaped his career and the book. He also hopes that today’s CU students will consider international affairs and public service.

“We live in dangerous times, and you can make a difference,” he says.

If A Spy Walked Into A Bar proves anything, it’s that even in the secretive world of espionage, stories still find a way to be told— even if the best parts are blacked out.

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CU alum mixes CIA career into newly published cocktail memoir.

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New exhibit celebrates ceramics at CU ��ý��

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 23:09:59 +0000

New exhibit celebrates ceramics at CU ��ý�� Rachel Sauer Wed, 08/27/2025 - 17:09

Rachel Sauer

Opening Sept. 5 at the CU Art Museum, ‘Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020’ focuses on themes including the environment, domesticity and rituals of home and material connections

The joy—and sometimes frustration—of ceramics may be found in its contradictions: its fragile strength, its rough refinement, its elastic rigidity. Drop it and it might shatter, or it might survive millennia.

“It’s a material that’s about so much transformation,” says Jeanne Quinn, a ��ý�� professor of art and art history. “It goes from being very plastic and malleable to something that’s more like stone. And embedded in ceramics is all kinds of material meaning. Our students who are trained in ceramics are really trained to dig into technical mastery with the material but also dig into how you find meaning in the material itself, how you’re using the material as metaphor.”

Myers Berg Studios, United States, …in plain sight, 2025, ceramic, maple, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec.19, 2025. (Photo Rachel Sauer; © Myers Berg Studios)

For students in the CU ��ý�� ceramics program, the material also represents connection to an artistic lineage that has grown in breadth and renown through successive cohorts. It is a lineage nurtured by ceramics faculty Quinn, Scott Chamberlin and Kim Dickey, who have been teaching together and broadening the program for 25 years.

It is the length of those associations, in fact, that planted the seed of what has grown into the exhibit “Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020,” kicking off with an opening celebration Sept. 4 at the CU Art Museum and opening to the public Sept. 5.

“CU has a really long history of investing in ceramics and having a very strong ceramics program,” Quinn explains. “Kim (Dickey) had this idea that it’s our silver anniversary of teaching together, we have this incredible group of alumni, so many amazing artists who have come through, as undergrads, as post-bacs and as grad students, so we should create an exhibit to celebrate that.”

A ceramic tradition

CU ��ý�� has long championed the arts and supported artists, including ceramic artists who have created a student-focused program that prioritizes learning, technical mastery and artistic exploration. The ceramic program was significantly bolstered by Betty Woodman, an internationally renowned artist whose 2006 retrospective show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was the first such show by a living female ceramicist, and who taught at CU ��ý�� for 30 years.

Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020

What: The CU ��ý�� ceramics program is celebrating its history with faculty Scott Chamberlin, Kim Dickey, and Jeanne Quinn. To honor the achievements of artists who graduated from this program, faculty curators are partnering with the CU Art Museum to present a retrospective exhibition.

When: Opening celebration Sept. 4 from 4–6 p.m.; exhibit opens to the public Sept. 5-Dec. 19. There will be an all-day symposium celebrating the exhibit Sept. 5.

Where: CU Art Museum

Learn more

Chamberlin was a colleague of Woodman, and Quinn was a student of both Woodman and Chamberlin before joining the ceramics faculty in 1997.

“In this program, there is a real commitment to ceramics and its incredibly rich history,” Quinn says. “Every civilization from the beginning of time has had ceramics, so it’s an incredible kind of medium to work with and have the opportunity to reference all that. But I also feel like we have a very non-dogmatic approach to teaching—there’s so much history, but also so much space for experimentation and invention.

“Ceramics is a very demanding material. Anybody who’s ever sat down and tried to throw a pot on the wheel realizes oh, you don’t just toss this off. Every step requires real skill, real technical skill, but we’ve worked to build a program where students receive this amazing education in learning how to learn and learning how to grapple with the material and how the material can offer so many different avenues of expression.”

Erica Green, a post-baccalaureate student in the program between 2011 and 2013 and one of the exhibit’s 30 featured artists, credits the ceramics program’s emphasis on exploration with helping her forge her path as an artist.

“Ceramics is always my first love, but the nice thing about this department is you’re encouraged to follow the idea and not just the material,” Green says. “One of my professors in the program suggested I set clay to the side and focus on fiber and being more in tune with the material.”

Green’s work in the exhibit, “California King,” centers on a bed covered in a blanket of knotted felt and wool-blend fibers. “I work a lot in knots as a metaphor for mending and repair and healing.”

Artist Lucero Aguirre, who earned an MFA in the ceramics program, created the quilted tapestry “Mije” to include thousands of iridescent ceramic sequins—bringing together “the spaces of brownness and queerness in its sequined message,” Aguirre explains. “The term ‘mije’ is a gender-neutral version of the often-used Spanish term of endearment ‘mija,’ or daughter.”

In transforming “mija” into “mije,” Aguirre considers the “affective labor of navigating brownness as a queer subject. The piece responds to the way that intimacy is often gendered in Mexican and Latine spaces, leaving queer Latine bodies at once inside and outside.”

Erica Green assembles her work "California King" (2022, knotted fibers on mattress) for the "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020" exhibit opening Sept. 5 at the CU Art Museum. (Photo Rachel Sauer; © Erica Green)

‘You can do anything with clay’

Quinn emphasizes that even though the exhibit celebrates the ceramics program, it also includes textiles, video works, photography, live performances and other media. “(The exhibit) runs the gamut of materials, but the unifying piece is that you can see that sense of commitment to the craft, to really handling a material with authority and also expressing something beyond the material.”

The hardest part, she adds, was choosing exhibit participants “because we’re in touch with all of these alumni, we’re following what they’re doing, they’re sending us updates.”

At the same time the exhibit participants were being chosen, Quinn and her colleagues were working with CU Art Museum staff to envision and plan the exhibit—a time-intensive but rewarding process, says Hope Saska, CU Art Museum acting director. Saska also partnered with Quinn, Dickey and Chamberlin to organize an all-day symposium September 5 celebrating the exhibit; it will include performances, conversations and in-gallery artist talks.

“You say ceramics and people have this idea of, ‘Oh, you’re making pots on the wheel,’” Quinn says. “And ceramics certainly fits in this kind of lane, that is absolutely part of what we teach. But you also have an artist like Casey Whittier, who made thousands of ceramic beads and then strung them together into this gorgeous textile piece that hangs on a wall. Casey has taken ceramics, which you might think of as fixed and static, and then created this piece that hangs and moves and is as much a textile as it is ceramics.

“So, we want people to come to the exhibit, and especially we want students to think, ‘Oh, you can do anything with clay.’”

Lucero Aguirre, mije, 2024, handmade and lustered ceramic sequins, thread and batting and fabric, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; © Lucero Aguirre)

Linda Nguyen Lopez, United States (1981), Gummy Worm, Ombre Dust Furry, 2021, porcelain, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer, © Linda Nguyen Lopez)

Joanna Powell, United States (1981), Flower Vessel no. 1, 2019, earthenware, majolica, gold luster, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec. 19, 2025. (Photo Rachel Sauer; © Joanna Powell)

Sandra Trujillo, United States (1967), Mosaic - Yellow, 2024, Mexican Smalti (glass), Wedi (polystyrene board), wood, steel, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; © Sandra Trujillo)

Julie Poitras Santos, United States (1967), The Conversation, 2019, single channel video, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; © Julie Poitras Santos)

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Opening Sept. 5 at the CU Art Museum, ‘Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020’ focuses on themes including the environment, domesticity and rituals of home and material connections.

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Matthew McConnell, United States (1979), Didn’t Miss a Thing, 2023, dark stoneware, twine and twist ties on steel panels, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec. 19, 2025. (Photo Rachel Sauer; © Matthew McConnell)

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Top image: Matthew McConnell, "Didn’t Miss a Thing," 2023, dark stoneware, twine and twist ties on steel panels, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5–Dec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; © Matthew McConnell)

‘There’s no standard way to be Indian or Indigenous’

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 18:57:35 +0000

‘There’s no standard way to be Indian or Indigenous’ Rachel Sauer Wed, 08/13/2025 - 12:57

Chris Quirk

In new memoir, CU ��ý�� alumnus Tony Tekaroniake Evans eschews narrow notions of identity, especially Indigenous identity

Of all his childhood memories, one in particular sticks in the mind of Tony Tekaroniake Evans (DistSt'86, focusing on cultural anthropology, biology and geography): In his third-grade class in Georgia, while making decorations for Thanksgiving, his classmates began asking about American Indians.

“Where are they? Can we meet them?” they asked.

“I’m an Indian!” said the young Evans, who had recently begun to learn more about his Mohawk heritage. His teacher replied that, no, the Indians were gone. “The teacher said Indians were extinct,” Evans recalls. “That was a little traumatic, and I realized I was going to have to take what I was learning in school with a grain of salt. After all, my grandmother spoke Mohawk in our house.”

In his new memoir, CU ��ý�� alumnus Tony Tekaroniake Evans explores history, identity and society through a personal lens, encouraging readers to eschew received and narrow notions of identity, especially Indigenous identity.

Evans recounts the episode in his new memoir, Believing in Indians: a Mixed-Blood Odyssey, published by Basalt Books. In the book, Evans explores history, identity and society through a personal lens. Along the way, he encourages readers to eschew received and narrow notions of identity, especially Indigenous identity.

The author of three books, Evans is also a journalist, historian, columnist and public speaker. He began his career writing for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Taos News newspapers and since then has written for A&E Networks, History.com, High Country News and Smithsonian’s American Indian magazine. In addition, he has thousands of reporting bylines over the past three decades for the Idaho Mountain Express, his hometown newspaper in Ketchum, Idaho.

“People are so much more interesting than we can realize by glancing at their appearance, or making stereotypical assumptions about someone’s background, knowledge and interests,” he says. “It’s important to hear the details, because details bring us together as human beings, and that’s what I hope I’m doing with my book.”

Telling family stories

The jarring incident in the classroom spurred Evans to ask more questions about his family and background.

“My mother started telling me stories, and that my name, Tekaroniake, meant ‘two skies’ in Mohawk,” he says. “My Aunt Nadine had a medicine pouch made for me, and my mentor, who was also my mother’s childhood friend, Ed Two-Axe Earley, sent me some books from the reservation. That’s where my life journey began—but it didn’t end there.”

One of the questions about identity that Evans weaves through the book is who decides, and on what grounds? “If you tell people you’re Indian, they’re often going to have all these boxes to check—language, fluency, culture. Are you from the reservation? Do you know your history? It just goes on and on,” he says.

“When do you stop being Indian in somebody else’s eyes? When you get a vacuum cleaner? When you do yoga? There’s no standard way to be Indian or Indigenous. My Jewish grandfather was taken in by the Mohawks. He married my grandmother and worked with them building the Manhattan skyline. Did he stop being Jewish?”

In his book, Evans tells ironically of receiving his official registration “as an Indian and a member of the Mohawks of Kanawà:ke Band” from the registrar of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development of Canada. “Becoming Indian is no simple process,” he writes. “Today, as a newly minted official Indian, I could go down to a nearby reservation and legally take peyote, stay up all night and visit with ancestors in the spirit world. Or I could just stay home and watch PBS Masterpiece programming and have a glass of wine.”

Time spent at CU was rewarding

His interest and investigation of his own identity led Evans to study cultural anthropology at the ��ý��.

“I learned a lot of wonderful things at CU and absolutely loved my time there,” he says. “I found that I could learn from many cultures, not just my own. And I learned to interpret Iroquois traditions in my own way. Our Great Law of Peace, perhaps a thousand years old, stems from an experience of compassion and understanding for the pain of others, and how to heal from violence and move on from retribution to a better way of life.”

Evans’ book ranges across cultural topics and religious traditions, and provides numerous history lessons along the way, but stays firmly in the personal throughout. “I realized that the book needed to be about my story and emerging sense of Native values, and all of its quirks and weirdness, and heartache and humor,” he explains.

“Memoir is a really important art form. It is personal and subjective, and also specific. It gets deeper than the ethnographic generalities that people recount in much of the scholarly writing on native history and culture.” Evans also makes a case for what Indigenous people and traditions have to offer the world in a turbulent and uncertain moment: “Indigenous cultures can provide spiritual renewal and a sustainable path forward for humanity.”

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In new memoir, CU ��ý�� alumnus Tony Tekaroniake Evans eschews narrow notions of identity, especially Indigenous identity.

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Family shares courtroom and campus legacy

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 20:06:32 +0000

Family shares courtroom and campus legacy Rachel Sauer Fri, 08/01/2025 - 14:06

Cody DeBos

Father and daughter Donald and Maureen McGinnis both pursued CU ��ý�� educations and then careers in the law

When Judge Maureen McGinnis (PolSci ’00) steps into the courtroom, she carries more than a robe and gavel with her. Several decades of family legacy and lessons in reputation, integrity and the power of doing the right thing have brought Maureen where she is today.

But her journey to the bench didn’t begin in law school. It started at the dinner table during conversations with her father, Donald McGinnis (A&S ’69), a respected Michigan attorney who built his own career on relationships and the strength of his word.

Don and Maureen McGinnis at a legal event, one of many they have attended together.

“I’ve always looked up to my dad,” Maureen says. “Getting an opportunity to grow up in a family where you have a parent that’s a lawyer, you get sort of immersed in that.”

Maureen’s immersion led her to follow in her father’s footsteps to CU ��ý��, where Donald first fell in love with the idea of carving his own path in life.

“It’s been a great ride for me from back in ��ý�� all the way until now,” Donald says.

CU roots of the family tree

For Donald, CU ��ý�� was a natural fit. His parents were avid skiers, and he’d grown up making trips out west. When it came time to choose a college, there was little question where he would go.

“It was definitely going to be CU without question,” he says. “I think it was the only place I applied.”

His daughter didn’t need much convincing, either. Long before she would set foot on campus, she had already envisioned her future as a CU Buffalo and a lawyer.

“I was the seventh grader wearing the University of Colorado sweatshirt and telling everybody I was going to go to law school. I don’t think I ever wavered from that,” she recalls.

What began with an interest in skiing in the 1960s has since evolved into a lifelong connection to a place that would shape the beginning of both their careers. For Donald, the legacy is deeply personal.

“Obviously, my legacy is my daughter attending CU, which is a very proud one. She also chose to join my profession and then excelled so well at it. I couldn’t be prouder,” he says.

A shared journey in the courtroom

Despite knowing she wanted a career in law, Maureen says she didn’t know what her path would look like. Long before she wore a judge’s robe, she walked into her first job as a lawyer and found herself working alongside her dad.

“I don’t think I had a huge plan for exactly what I was going to do once I became a lawyer,” she says. “But the door was open. As soon as I started working with my dad, there was nothing to figure out. I wasn’t going to leave.”

Donald McGinnis built his family law practice from the ground up, never working for another firm, never having a boss. Running his own practice has helped him understand more than most the value of connection in a field that can be harsh and impersonal.

Don McGinnis (left) moves for Maureen McGinnis' (right, back to camera) admission to the State Bar of Michigan to practice law.

“I would always like to be remembered as the handshake lawyer. If I tell you something and shake hands on it, I don’t need to have 18 emails and five letters,” he says. “That’s the way I would like to be remembered—as a lawyer’s lawyer.”

During her time working at her father’s law practice, Maureen absorbed plenty of legal strategy, but his passion for reputation also bled through.

“People will talk about how you treat them, how you honor your word. … I remember that being really constant in our discussions about the practice of law,” she says.

Working with her dad gave Maureen a head start, but most of all showed her that law could be more than a job. It would soon turn into a lifelong calling shaped by values passed down through the generations.

Carrying the legacy forward

After more than a decade of practicing as a lawyer, Maureen felt pulled toward something more. She wanted a way to serve not just individual clients but her entire community.

“I’ve always had a passion for community service and engagement. So, getting to have the role I have now pretty much marries both of those things,” she says.

The role she speaks humbly of is presiding judge at the 52-4 District Court in Troy, Michigan, where Maureen weighs her opinion on cases that impact everyday lives.

She was elected to the bench in 2014, but the decision to run had been quietly planted years earlier in conversations with her father.

Maureen McGinnis (center) celebrates with her parents after graduating law school and passing the bar exam.

“He sort of has this habit of putting something in your head, and if we talk about it enough, it’s like it helps you visualize it—even when it’s something that isn’t really on the horizon,” she says.

Housing disputes, traffic violations and local criminal offenses are just a few of the cases now crossing Maureen’s desk every day. She says it isn’t glamorous work, but it directly shapes her community, and for Maureen, that is exactly the point.

“She sets an example that other lawyers and I commend her for. It makes it easier for the litigating parties when you have a smart judge and smart lawyers,” Donald says.

Reflections on CU and the legacy they’re still writing

Looking back, both Maureen and Donald agree their time at CU ��ý�� influenced more than just their resumes. For Donald, college was a time of discovery and independence. After decades of legal work, he looks back on his time in ��ý�� as uniquely freeing.

“I took it way too serious,” he laughs. “College is probably the only four-year period of time that you have in your life where you don’t really have a lot of responsibility. You should enjoy it with great vigor, in my opinion.”

Maureen, always focused on the next step, says she sometimes wishes she’d taken more of those opportunities—like studying abroad in Australia. But she’s never questioned the choice to attend CU. In fact, she’s already planning to pass that connection on to her kids.

“If you have an ability to start a legacy in that way, it’s amazing. I feel like having those shared memories about places and things that we experienced at CU keeps my dad and I very close. It’s something you can never take away.”

Don McGinnis on the campaign trail when Maureen McGinnis ran for district court judge.

Maureen McGinnis (first row, right) at her investiture when she was seated as a judge.

Don McGinnis when he returned to ��ý�� to help his daughter, Maureen, move into Farrand Hall.

Maureen McGinnis (center) with friends while she was an undergraduate student at CU ��ý��.

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Father and daughter Donald and Maureen McGinnis both pursued CU ��ý�� educations and then careers in the law.

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All photos courtesy Maureen McGinnis

Alum’s resumé: veterinarian, reality TV star, stand-up comic

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 17:15:10 +0000

Alum’s resumé: veterinarian, reality TV star, stand-up comic Rachel Sauer Mon, 06/09/2025 - 11:15

Bradley Worrell

As he muses about conservation, 1970s ��ý�� and how Keith Richards prompted him to finish his college career, Kevin Fitzgerald still has his sights on crafting the perfect joke

Did you hear the one about the veterinarian who is also a stand-up comedian?

It’s no joke.

It’s the very real-life story of ��ý�� alum Kevin Fitzgerald, who is a staple of the Denver comedy scene and who has opened for such nationally recognized acts as Joan Rivers, George Lopez, Jeff Foxworthy and Saturday Night Live alums Kevin Nealon and Norm Macdonald.

CU ��ý�� alumnus Kevin Fitzgerald (right) with the late Norm Macdonald (left), for whom Fitzgerald opened. (Photo: Kevin Fitzgerald)

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald has spent the past four decades working as a Denver veterinarian who specializes in treating exotic animals and has become something of a celebrity as one of the featured vets on Animal Planet’s popular TV series “Emergency Vets.”

Fitzgerald is also a wildlife conservationist—and with the recent publication of his autobiography It Started with a Turtle—he adds “published author” to his growing list of job titles.

The Denver native enjoys talking about his experiences as a comedian and a veterinarian, but most of all he enjoys reminiscing about his time at CU ��ý��, where he earned his undergraduate, master’s and PhD degrees. He says the lessons he learned in the classrooms—and in the local music venues where he worked security—shaped him into the man he is today.

“��ý�� is a magical place,” he says. “��ý�� has a different feel than other college towns—and the campus is absolutely beautiful. I first visited when I was in high school and I decided then and there that it was the place for me.”

Raised in a working class home, Fitzgerald says receiving a scholarship for being on the swim team made it possible for him to be able to attend college starting in 1969.

For his undergraduate degree, Fitzgerald majored in biology, and he credits biology Professor Dick Jones; Professor Hobart Smith, then chairman of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Professor David Chiszar, who was an internationally renowned herpetologist known for his work with rattlesnakes; and history Professor Charles “Chuck” Middleton, whom Fitzgerald says made history come alive, with being mentors.

“Even back then, CU ��ý�� was known as a party school, but if you wanted to, you could get a great education there,” he says. “They didn’t so much teach you as inspire you. I had wonderful mentors who wanted me to succeed.”

Fitzgerald says his initial plan upon entering college was to get his bachelor’s degree from CU ��ý�� and then attend Colorado State University to receive a veterinary degree. However, there was a waiting list to get into the CSU veterinarian program at the time, so Fitzgerald says Jones convinced him to continue pursuing his education at CU ��ý�� by obtaining his master’s and PhD degrees, which he did.

“I’m still reaping the benefits of that wonderful education every day,” he says.

Working security for a hamburger and $1.35 an hour

To earn extra money for school, not long after arriving on the ��ý�� campus Fitzgerald took a job working for Chuck Morris (the future CEO/president of national concert promoter AEG Live), who hosted concerts at local music venues including Tulagi and The Sink.

“There were so many great venues in ��ý�� at the time,” Fitzgerald recalls. “There was Tulagi, the Blue Note, The Olympic, Shannon’s, the Good Earth and J.J. McCabes. The music venues were legendary—and they hosted a lot of great bands before they became famous. Not just rock bands, but soul bands and country bands, so there was something for everyone. There was just so much great music.”

Kevin Fitzgerald has been a staple of the Denver comedy scene for many years. (Photo: Kevin Fitzgerald)

Fitzgerald’s job working as a bouncer for local music venues led to jobs working security for concert promoters Bill Graham and Barry Fey, who produced nationwide shows featuring musical acts including The Grateful Dead, Willie Nelson, The Eagles, The Who, Jethro Tull and The Rolling Stones.

Years later, Fitzgerald still recalls Fey’s simple job pitch: “I’m going to pay you a buck-thirty-five an hour and give you a hamburger every shift and you’re going to meet more girls than Frank Sinatra.”

Fitzgerald says he has many fond memories of those times and particularly of the bands who performed—especially The Rolling Stones, who he says never forgot their roots and gave selflessly for some special fans.

“Back in the day, before handicapped seating was widely made available, people in wheelchairs didn’t get good seats at concerts and they were stigmatized by making them all sit together. It was awful,” he recalls. “So, before every show The Rolling Stones did, Mick Jagger would ask me: ‘How many (handicapped) chairs are there, and in which section, Kevin?’

“‘I’d say, ‘23 chairs and they’re in section three.’

“Jagger would grab 23 cassette tapes and 23 concert T-shirts. He’d put a towel over his head or put a hoodie up and he’d personally go to the wheelchair section and hand out a cassette tape and a T-shirt to each person. He’d say, ‘Thanks a million for coming; we couldn’t do it without you,’” Fitzgerald recalls. “He didn’t do it as a photo op; he specifically kept himself covered up so the rest of the concertgoers wouldn’t know what he was up to.

“People can say whatever they want about The Rolling Stones, about Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but they didn’t forget where they came from,” he adds. “And Mick would always say, ‘We’re blessed. You know, Kevin, we can’t forget how lucky we are.’ That really made an impression on me.”

What’s more, Fitzgerald credits Richards with prompting him to go back to college to get his veterinary degree.

“I remember we were in Philadelphia for a show, with more tour dates coming up, and I was unsure what I should be doing with my life. I was talking about it with my boss, Jimmy Callahan, who was the head bouncer, and he said, ‘Why don’t you ask Keith?’

“I knew Keith, so I asked him: ‘Should I stick with you guys, or should I go back to school?’

“And Keith said, ‘Oh, no, go back to school. Do you really want to be a bouncer at (age) 50?’

“When Keith Richards says something, he’s the coolest cat in the world. So, I got on a plane and I came back to Denver,” Fitzgerald says. “My brother picked me up at the airport, and I said, ‘Keith told me to get a grip on my life and go back to school.’ And my brother said, ‘Well, when Keith says something, you better do it.’ So, I applied to veterinarian school again and I got in.”

Becoming a vet … and a reality TV star

Kevin Fitzgerald has been a veterinarian in Denver for the past four decades and is one of the featured vets on Animal Planet’s popular TV series “Emergency Vets.” (Photo: Kevin Fitzgerald)

Fitzgerald obtained his degree in veterinarian medicine from CSU in 1983. He later took a job with the Alameda East Veterinary Hospital in Denver, where he has been working for the past 40 years.

“Veterinary medicine is a harsh mistress. It asks a lot of us (vets), but it’s very rewarding,” he says. “It’s been a wonderful career for me. To be successful, you have to love animals, but you also have to love people.

“Sometimes people would tell me, ‘My daughter would be a great veterinarian. She hates people but she’s great with animals.’ And I would always say, ‘No, no, no. People have to trust you when they bring their animal to you, so it’s important that you are able to connect with them.’”

Fitzgerald’s role at the Denver animal hospital became much more widely recognized starting in 1998, with the launch of the Animal Planet’s TV show Emergency Vets. At the time, the TV series ER was hugely popular, and the producer believed a reality show about veterinarians treating all types of animals would appeal to Animal Planet viewers, Fitzgerald says. That proved to be the case, as the show and its successor, E-Vet Interns, ran for a combined 11 seasons, and were two of the network’s top-rated shows.

“For me, it was just too weird to watch myself on TV, but it was quite an experience,” Fitzgerald says. “People started recognizing me from the show. Once, I was at the Denver airport and this young kid was staring at me. Finally, he said, ‘You look like that guy from the TV show on Animal Planet.’

“I said, ‘I am that guy,’ and the kid says, ‘Yeah, you wish,’” Fitzgerald says with a laugh.

He says his work as a veterinarian led naturally to his conservancy work. He has served on the Denver Zoo’s board of directors since 2009 and has been involved in several projects, including the creation of a huge nature conservancy in Mongolia.

“There’s 10 million other forms of life on this planet besides us, and we were given this wonderful biodiversity. Those animals are waiting for us to use our intellect to save this place,” he says. “We’re borrowing this planet from our grandchildren, so we have to win this one, because we’re given just this one planet. Realizing that, that’s how I went from veterinary medicine to conservation.”

‘Like being shot out of canon’

While being a veterinarian, an Animal Planet reality TV star and conservationist might seem to all naturally fit together, Fitzgerald acknowledges becoming a stand-up comedian is a less obvious choice to add to the mix. He says he was inspired to do so in part by watching comedians perform as the opening act for bands where he provided security and by seeing one of his friends perform.

“I started doing stand-up in 1986. At the time, a friend of mine was doing comedy, and he didn’t seem that funny to me, but he was getting paid to do it. I told myself, ‘I can at least be as bad as that guy,’” he says with a laugh.

The appeal for doing stand-up comes partly from the enjoyment of making people laugh and partly from the exhilaration of being on a stage, Fitzgerald says, explaining, “The feeling is like being shot out of a cannon.”

It took some trial and error in the beginning, Fitzgerald admits, before he developed his own comedic timing. The strategy he settled on involved trying to tell as many jokes as he could in rapid-fire succession at the start and telling jokes that would appeal to the broadest audience demographic.

“My job is to tell jokes that make everyone laugh—the old guy and the young guy, the black guy and the white guy, the man and the woman sitting next to him,” he says. “I don’t think it works to say, ‘This is a young person’s joke; you wouldn’t understand.’ The best jokes touch everyone.”

Fitzgerald’s brand of comedy was on full display during a recent Sunday evening show at a south Denver comedy club, where he was zinging his audience with one-liners about being an old guy:

“Our lives are short, but they are beautiful. My whole life, whatever I’ve done, has been small and beautiful. The fate of the Western world doesn’t hang on the balance of what I do in the exam rooms with people and their animals, but I try to make my little side of the street better as a veterinarian and also with my conservation efforts.”

“I’m so old my kindergarten had a smoking section.”
“I’m so old I can remember Preparation A.”
“I’m so old that I can run for president in a few years.”

Bathed under white stage lights, Fitzgerald’s flowing white hair gave credence to his position as a veteran of standup comedy, but those jokes about his age (he’s 73) were just a warm-up to a set that ran more than an hour long, and which also included several humorous stories about being a veterinarian and a reality TV star and concluded with a reading from his new book talking about the importance of being kind to animals and people.

Sharing life lessons in print

Fitzgerald says he’s accumulated so many stories and bits of wisdom over the years that he wanted to share with people in a book, but he says that his active veterinary practice and many civic and social commitments made that difficult to do. That changed, however, once COVID-19 pandemic brought much of the world to a yearlong standstill.

“It seemed like the perfect time to get my thoughts down on paper,” he says, adding, “We only have so many days, so we have to make them count.

“Our lives are short, but they are beautiful. My whole life, whatever I’ve done, has been small and beautiful. The fate of the Western world doesn’t hang on the balance of what I do in the exam rooms with people and their animals, but I try to make my little side of the street better as a veterinarian and also with my conservation efforts.

“And I’m not done yet,” he adds. “I still think I’m going to write the perfect joke. I’m 73 and I’m still going to see my pet patients every workday. I can’t bounce anymore, but I still love listening to music.”

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As he muses about conservation, 1970s ��ý�� and how Keith Richards prompted him to finish his college career, Kevin Fitzgerald still has his sights on crafting the perfect joke.

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Alum thinks about crime the write way

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 21 May 2025 00:01:33 +0000

Alum thinks about crime the write way Rachel Sauer Tue, 05/20/2025 - 18:01

Doug McPherson

What happens when a freshly minted film studies graduate heads out into the world with no particular plan? How A&S alum Patrick Hoffman went from taxi driver to private investigator to successful author

Back in 1998, Patrick Hoffman had just finished his degree in film studies at the ��ý�� when he decided to head back to his hometown of San Francisco with no real plan in mind for a career.

“I was very green when I came out of college,” says Hoffman. “I didn’t have much street smarts. I’d lived a pretty sheltered life.”

Author Patrick Hoffman, a 1998 CU ��ý�� film studies graduate, located his newest novel, Friends Helping Friends, in Colorado.

He ended up landing a job as a taxi driver at night and working as a private investigator during the day. “Driving cabs at night in San Francisco and investigating murder cases are very quick ways to learn about the seamier side of life.”

Those lessons in the seamy side of life informed his recently released novel Friends Helping Friends, a thriller set in Grand Junction and Denver, Colorado, that sees its main character infiltrating a white-supremacist compound on the Western Slope.

Before writing his newest novel—or any of his previous and acclaimed ones—Hoffman realized that what he was seeing in his jobs as a private investigator and cab driver might make good grist for fiction.

Easier said than done, though. Hoffman would get started, but after a day or two, his motivation would melt away.

The best writing advice Hoffman ever got came from a friend who asked him what he wanted to do with his life. “I told him I wanted to write thrillers. He asked what was stopping me. I told him that whenever I started something I felt great at first … but then on the second or third day, the inspiration would go away, and I’d feel like a complete fraud.”

Hoffman’s friend then told him that the bad feelings were actually a good sign, and that the secret was to just embrace those feelings and keep going. “I literally started my first book the very next day and everything that has followed can be traced directly back to that conversation.”

It all started in film classes

Hoffman adds that his film classes were “where it all started.” Those days, he was thinking about very basic things like story and plot. “But those were important questions, and you really get to wrestle with them when you’re studying something like film. I had great teachers, too: Jerry Aronson, Marian Keane and, of course, the legend Stan Brakhage. I also had wonderful philosophy teachers. Gary Stahl, may he rest in peace, comes to mind. The English and Humanities Departments were wonderful, too.”

Following his friend’s advice, and armed with the basics from his CU ��ý�� classes, Hoffman turned out his first novel, The White Van, set in San Francisco and about a troubled young woman wanted for bank robbery and hunted by a corrupt cop who wants the money more than justice.

CU ��ý�� alumnus Patrick Hoffman drew on his experience as a private investigator to write his new novel, Friends Helping Friends.

Hoffman is adapting that book into a movie. “Hopefully that happens,” he says.

His second novel, Every Man A Menace, was also set in San Francisco. Clean Hands, his third novel, was set in New York City, where he lives now.

And his latest novel, Friends Helping Friends, takes place in Denver and Grand Junction, Colorado. “For this one, it was time to come back home to Colorado,” he says. “There is a certain comfort in it. Also, Denver makes a great setting for a neo-western noir.”

He admits that before his last novel, he was kind of blocked for about eight months, having a hard time coming up with ideas. “One day I literally just started typing. I thought, ‘OK, there’s a woman in Denver, she’s a lawyer and she’s using steroids, and that was the start of the book. I went blindly from there. That’s how I do it, though. The tricky part is getting started.

“For me, writing fiction is 100% about overcoming self-doubt, being able to see something through to the end. The hard part is always starting the book. But then the middle and ends, of course, are hard, too.”

Part of Friends Helping Friends takes place in a white-supremacist compound. To understand that arena, Hoffman says his 20 years working as a private investigator (he still does it) and handling many murder cases helped.

“So, all of that, of course, informs the fiction. But also, I’ll just Google around and look for federal cases.” And he searches public records for indictments. “I love talking to journalists, too. My wife is a journalist, so she gives me introductions to her friends and colleagues, and I force them to answer all my questions.”

Up next for Hoffman is another book—this one set in ��ý��, a place he’s now reminded of regularly when riding the subway in New York.

“It’s been amazing to see Coach Prime make CU trendy. I see people wearing CU Buffalo jerseys and jackets. I’m just like wow! It’s amazing. Go Buffs!”

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Degree finally in hand, dancer leaps back onto ��ý�� stage

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 01 May 2025 22:11:47 +0000

Degree finally in hand, dancer leaps back onto ��ý�� stage Rachel Sauer Thu, 05/01/2025 - 16:11

Tim Grassley

CU ��ý�� alumna Jessica Fudim was two courses away from graduating in 1997; 26 years later, she’s earned her degree

When Jessica Fudim left the ��ý�� in 1997, she was two courses away from graduating. Despite being so close, she felt stuck in an unhealthy cycle of signing up for and withdrawing from her final degree requirements. Something needed to change, and she decided it needed to be her studies.

“I’ve learned as a parent, you can only do so much and sometimes you have to cut something out or make something smaller on your plate,” she says. “So, I went to the safe space of being near my parents (in California). But I felt a hurt in my heart about it.”

Fudim went on to have a vibrant career as a dance performance artist, creating and performing original work across the United States. An entrepreneur and, with her husband, a parent of two kids, she owns and operates two businesses: Jessica Fudim Dance and Jessica Fudim Pilates. Despite her successes, her unfinished degree felt like a shadow—an unresolved experience that she privately grieved.

Jessica Fudim portrays Medusa in her dance-theater solo "Venomous." (Photo: Peter Ruocco)

Fudim is not alone. CU ��ý��’s Office of Data Analytics notes that each year, an average of 23 students who needed to enroll for only one or two semesters return after five years or more to earn bachelor's degrees. Despite the relative frequency of people returning to the university to finish their graduation requirements, it still felt to Fudim like an impassable hurdle. Then, in spring 2024, after exchanging emails with CU ��ý�� friends, faculty and staff, Fudim decided it was time for her curtain call.

“My kids are 12 and 14, and I do feel like I want them to see me finish. I want them to know that I did that.”

A college experience across state lines

Fudim (DnceBFA’24) grew up in Sonoma County, California, where she developed a love for dance. In high school, her dance instructor, Lara Branen, invited Fudim and classmates to attend the summer-long ��ý�� Jazz Dance Workshop, which Branen co-founded. Many of Fudim’s classes were taught in CU ��ý��’s Theatre and Dance Building, including performances in the Charlotte York Irey Theatre.

Fudim fell in love with Colorado and ��ý�� specifically. “It was totally transformative for me,” she recalls. “It helped crystallize this knowing that I wanted to dance—that I am a dancer.”

After graduating from high school, Fudim enrolled at the University of California, Irvine, which she attended from 1991 to 1993. She didn’t feel at home in Irvine, though, and transferred into CU ��ý��’s Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in dance program in 1994. There, she thrived and was often identified as an example student, full of talent and drive.

Unbeknownst to many of her classmates and faculty, though, Fudim’s balance of school, work and personal life began to fray from the outset of her education. While her father paid her tuition, Fudim at one point held three part-time jobs to cover her living expenses, including the now-closed Espresso Roma café.

“I wasn't living lavishly,” she admits. “I lived on beans, rice, pizza and free croissants from the café. I’m a worker bee by nature, but back then especially, I didn't do a good job applying my work nature in the right direction. I spent more time working at my jobs than doing my academic work.”

Because Fudim transferred from California, some of her classes from Irvine did not count at CU ��ý�� for credit. She found herself on a different graduation timeline than her peers in the BFA program, a social challenge that grew as more friends graduated and left town.

“I think I had another semester or two of work to do,” she says, “but I started to check out. I completed my BFA (capstone) performance, but I withdrew from some classes. I’m so embarrassed that I got Fs in a couple of classes. But I didn’t have the skills to know how to ask for help—to say, ‘I’m struggling and I’m not sure what to do next.’”

Fudim went back to California in 1997, hoping to complete her degree by finishing a few classes at a local community college. Those attempts did not work out. She also tried distance learning but withdrew. Eventually, Fudim moved on.

Medusa (portrayed by Jessica Fudim) with her children Pegasus and Chrysaor in "Venomous." (Photo: Kyle Adler)

“It felt like a bad break up. It felt sad—unresolved. I haven’t been back to ��ý�� since then.”

A phone call leading to an academic plan

After returning to California, Fudim decided to invest fully in her dance career and, over the next 20 years, experienced tremendous success as a solo artist and with her ensemble company, The Dance Animals. She held several dance residencies, co-directed The Experimental Performance Institute (EPI) at New College of California and, with the late Dwayne Calizo, co-produced, choreographed for and performed in the multimedia performance series “Crash Cabaret: Where Queers Collide” at San Francisco’s Roxie Theatre.

Her most recent solo show, Venemous, which reimagines the myth of Medusa, debuted to critical acclaim, and she considered bringing the show to Colorado and CU ��ý��. She initially contacted Erika Randall, professor of dance and a friend, about the possibility of creating an alumnus event.

After sending her initial email, though, she felt compelled to follow up. “I sent a second email that said, ‘I want to be transparent—I never fully graduated from CU. It's something that I've wanted to do, and I do feel really motivated at this point in my life to complete that degree. But I just want you to know that I can’t come to ��ý�� as an alumna. I'm not. I haven't graduated.’”

At that time, Randall was the College of Arts and Sciences associate dean for student success, and part of her duties as dean included overseeing one of the academic advising units that helps students return to CU ��ý�� and complete their degrees. Randall remembers reading Fudim’s email and decided to call.

“When we talked, she said, ‘I had no idea how much not finishing my degree had held a shadow over me and how much it would mean to finish it,’” recalls Randall. “I got really excited and said, ‘You should come back. You should come to our graduation. You should do the performance you had written to me about performing.’”

“That was definitely a turning point for me,” says Fudim. “She is so warm and genuine and so non-judgmental. It was this healing gift to just have her open her arms like that. I didn't even feel at that point that I needed to be courageous. It just felt like I was so excited to do it.”

Randall connected Fudim with Dawn Fettig, an experienced academic advisor with a deep understanding of CU ��ý��’s historic curricula and degree requirements. As part of her work with special populations, Fettig helps students figure out what courses they need to complete degrees.

To determine how close Fudim was to graduation, Fettig reviewed her transcripts, the university’s old “Permanent Record Card” and handwritten notes included in Fudim’s file. After combing through university documentation, Fettig recreated Fudim’s academic record.

“If I use the transcript as a chronological record, I can see what made sense for a student's progression in their degree,” notes Fettig. “For example, what might make sense for this student to take to complete the requirement? And is there a substitution?”

Fettig emphasizes that the college never waives graduation requirements, and she works hard to maintain the integrity of degrees the university confers. “The CU ��ý�� degree means something to our departments, to our faculty, to our staff and to our students,” says Fettig. “We figure out a way to look at their completed work and ask if it meets the spirit of the requirements as they were set at the time.”

For Fudim, this meant completing a geography requirement as part of CU ��ý��’s Minimum Academic Preparation Standards (MAPS) and a final departmental stage performance. Fettig found a course in California near Fudim’s home that would count for the MAPS credit. They also explored marking her degree’s stage performance requirement as fulfilled by her career experience and then substituting the required credit with another dance course she had completed at CU ��ý��.

“In Jessica's case, because her dance degree is a performance art, I did have to go back to the department and say, ‘This is a professional working in the field. I think she’s probably met this stage performance requirement,’” says Fettig.

What would Medusa say if she had a chance to speak for herself?

Jessica Fudim’s dance-theater solo, Venomous, looks at the classic Greek myth from Medusa's perspective and moves her story beyond that of a snake-headed monster.

What: Venomous

When: 6:30 p.m. June 5 and 6

Where: The Pearl Ballroom, 2199 California Street in Denver

Learn more

“She didn't have the class, but she has the experience. She also has other classes that we can use as a substitution” for the major’s requirements.

Together, Fettig and Fudim created a plan that fueled Fudim’s motivation to complete her degree. “Having someone who is in a position of knowledge like Erika and Dawn, who say, ‘Yes, of course you can do this. We have a way for you to do this. And this is awesome.’ I just trusted them—I believed them,” says Fudim. “It shifted my outlook.”

Graduation and healing

While Fudim did have the motivation to tackle her coursework, she still had to juggle a full schedule. “I have two kids and I run two businesses,” notes Fudim. “I do all of my own admin work, and my bookkeeping. My husband works the opposite schedule so that we can tag-team childcare. When I needed to study, I had to plan it.”

Fudim’s mother regularly covered childcare to make room for Fudim to complete her coursework. Many days, her family created a homework club in which they could complete their assignments around the dinner table. This reframed the time needed to finish coursework as an opportunity to connect through shared experiences. While Fudim is happy she received an A in her geography class, the grade plays only a small part in how this experience affects her.

Fudim officially completed her degree and graduated in fall 2024. The experience has widened what she believes possible, and she’s thrilled for fresh opportunities to continue making art, performing and teaching dance. Notably, she will return to Colorado this summer to perform Venemous at the 2025 Denver Fringe Festival June 4-8. While staying in Colorado for the show, she plans to visit ��ý�� for the first time since leaving in 1997.

“My dear friend and former CU Dance BFA classmate, Kate Weglarz (Thorngren) will be flying out for the show and to go walking down memory lane with me in ��ý��,” says Fudim. “I'm excited to return to my roots in Colorado, and to share where I am now as an artist.”

Finishing her degree brings a sense of resolution and a lesson in persistence. “I feel like the primary reason I completed my degree was to create healing,” says Fudim. “It wasn’t closure. It’s opened me back up.”

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CU ��ý�� alumna Jessica Fudim was two courses away from graduating in 1997; 26 years later, she’s earned her degree.

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Top image: Medusa (played by Jessica Fudim) welcomes the audience in "Venomous." (Photo: Kyle Adler)

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