As the new director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), Lisa Sasaki expects to spend the next few years leading a team through dramatic change. One of the primary things she wants to shepherd is a change in prepositions. For too long, the University of Denver alumna […]

Twenty years is a long time. Technology has changed drastically. Styles and fashions have evolved. New generations have been born. And life has moved forward. For me, 20 years means something different. Something a bit more special. Something more character-defining. Twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to do volunteer […]

Their love for skiing and snowboarding and their entrepreneurial spirit are driving three DU alumni to take their education and skills to new heights. Peter Burwell (BSBA ’11), Kyle Granowski (BSBA, MS ’10) and Fred Klaas (BSBA ’11) became good friends while studying at the Daniels College of Business. That […]

Debra Crew (BA ’93, Spanish and international studies), Winston-Salem, N.C. In January 2017, Crew was appointed president and CEO of Reynolds American. She previously served as president and COO of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and held senior management positions at PepsiCo, Mars Inc. and Dreyer’s. Crew, who was ranked No. […]

Denver has come into its own in recent years, earning a reputation as a hotbed for tech, arts, dining, craft beer, entrepreneurship and an engaged millennial population. Just as DU has helped to shape Denver over the past 150 years, the University has a strong influence on the city’s latest […]

Family is a way of life for Marc Schulman, president of Chicago-based dessert empire Eli’s Cheesecake. Schulman (BSBA ’76) inherited the business from his father, the late Eli Schulman, owner of several now-shuttered Chicago-area eateries that played host in the ’60s and ’70s to celebrities such as Woody Allen, Barbra […]

For Yvette Cook, there was no choice growing up but to serve her community. She says her civic-minded parents encouraged her to follow a path of altruism. Now Cook (BA ’82, MA ’85) heads up Usher’s New Look (UNL), an Atlanta-based nonprofit started by the multiplatinum-selling performer at the age […]

Brian Vicente (JD ’04) has been fighting the marijuana fight for more than a decade, most significantly as co-director and one of two primary authors of the 2012 measure that made Colorado the first state in the country to legalize recreational marijuana. These days Vicente and his 50-person firm, Vicente […]

Two years ago, Nicole Mattson (BSBA ’03, business; MBA ’12) and her husband, Scott, opened Nocturne, an upscale jazz club in Denver’s up-and-coming RiNo (River North) neighborhood. A hotspot for local jazz artists and aficionados — including faculty and students from the Lamont School of Music —t he club has […]

Hillary Frances (MA ’09, international and intercultural communications) is instructional dean of adult education and the Language Learning Center at Emily Griffith Technical College, where she helps prepare nontraditional students — including refugees and immigrants — for the workforce. The school’s bridge classes are designed to help adults who worked […]

A Denver native and East High School graduate who went to Princeton to play basketball, CJ Chapman (JD ’06) returned to his hometown after college to pursue a law degree at DU. He is now a partner and real estate lawyer at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where he has negotiated […]

Candi CdeBaca (BS ’09, sociology; MSW ’09, social work) is co-founder and executive director of Project VOYCE, a nonprofit that mobilizes and trains Denver youth to work on problems in their schools and communities. Her goal is to prepare kids from Denver’s poorer neighborhoods to claim their seat at the […]

Rodney Billups never expected his career to turn out the way it did. He dreamed about playing professional basketball. He wanted to be a business owner. Retire early. Follow in the footsteps of his brother Chauncey Billups — the former NBA star and arguably the best player to ever come […]

For most Coloradans, autumn Sundays are synonymous with one thing — Denver Broncos football. DU alumnus Conor McGahey (BA ’07), who this year became the public-address announcer at Broncos home games, has a unique perspective on the blue-and-orange mania that overtakes Denver each weekend. In the booth for all of […]

Everything he needed to know about opening a brewery, Wyatt Patterson learned in business school. That’s because Patterson, like many graduate students at DU’s Daniels College of Business, entered his MBA program with a specific business idea in mind. For Patterson, that idea was Storm Peak Brewing Co., which he […]