In 1999, I found myself the unlikely leader of a community-based effort to protect what was arguably Colorado's most important brand, and one once thought to be untouchable: the 'Mile High' part of Denver's Mile High Stadium.
I've made several careers out of people underestimating me - it's almost an advantage worth cultivating.
Many of the basic lessons of business, such as the critical value of customer service or measuring risk against reward when investing capital, have essential application in government, but not in a vacuum.
Is there some risk every day we walk out our front door? Every time we get in our car? Yeah. Are we materially less safe now than we were 10 years ago? Whatever delta there is, it's very small.
Denver is a city that will be far more defined by its future than its past.
Given that, and assuming that we begin to adjust to issues like climate change and the greenhouse effect, Denver's location in the center of the country becomes a tremendous advantage.
Giving all of Denver's kids an equal chance at success is the best investment we can make in our community's kids and future.
From the first day we opened Wynkoop, my brewpub in Denver, I knew I'd be ten times better running a restaurant than I was a geologist.
Infrastructure is more than laying new roads and expanding transit: it's running the fiber and deploying new technologies for reliable, affordable Internet in every part of the state.
There could have been more planning in New Orleans, but you look at all the devastation that happened there - have we gotten to 3,000 deaths yet? For that magnitude of a disaster, that's not all that bad.
Today we're dealing with metropolitan Shanghai, metropolitan New Delhi or Paris. If we're competing at that level, our diversity, that richness of people coming from so many different backgrounds, is one of our greatest advantages.
When I opened my first brew-pub, I did not include a checkbox on hiring applications that required applicants to disclose criminal convictions. And we were better for it.
Money isn't everything, but the gaps between rich districts and poor districts ultimately mean a workforce that won't be as competitive as it could be, and individual Coloradans won't be as successful as they could be.
When I got inaugurated in 2010, OneRepublic donated their time and played for the inauguration. And my stepfather, who is 86, came out. He usually goes to bed at eight o'clock, but he stayed for the entire concert. It was awesome.
I started out here in Colorado as a geologist. During a downturn, everyone in our company got laid off.
It is a sad reality that active shooter drills are a standard way of life for kids as young as pre-school.
For months before he passed, my dad would have terrible night sweats, and soak through his sheets, often several times a night. Each time, mom would gently roll him over, replace the sheets, and roll him back - then spend the whole next day washing several sets of sheets, only to repeat the routine each night.
I would argue that one of the issues which the public should be much more emphatic about with all politicians... is patronage, appointing people to high positions because they supported your campaign or helped you raise money.
We have put the energy needs and costs of hardworking Coloradans before any special interest agenda or false promise.
We need to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that is alive in Colorado.
