Wade Buchanan has been president of the Bell Policy Center and the Bell Action Network since 2001. Under Wade’s tenure, the Bell has grown from a start-up organization to become one of the premier progressive policy organizations in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West. Wade pulled together a veteran professional staff that has played a major role in fiscal reform, education policy, economic security and other key issues that affect the well-being of working families in Colorado.

From 1999-2001, Wade was executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters, the nonpartisan political voice of Colorado’s conservation community. Prior to that he was senior advisor, policy director and chief speech writer to former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer. He also served as acting executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, director of the Colorado Office of Energy Conservation, and chair of the Regional Air Quality Council, the lead air quality agency for metro Denver.

Wade holds a bachelor of arts in history from Colorado College and a masters of philosophy in international relations from Oxford University in England, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
E-mail: buchanan@thebell.org.

Rich Jones worked for 24 years at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), where he was director of the Legislative Programs Division. In that role, he wrote extensively about topics such as management, legislative operations, term limits, staffing and oversight.

He has also worked on a variety of policy issues including economic development, financial services and telecommunications.Before joining NCSL he worked as a researcher for the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

Rich holds a bachelor of arts in government administration from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and a masters in public administration from Penn State.
E-mail: jones@thebell.org.

Robin Baker has more than 15 years of experience conducting research in workforce, family, juvenile justice, gender and minority issues. At the Bell, Robin focuses on TABOR, affordable housing, health care, minority and gender issues.

Prior to coming to the Bell, she founded and was director of the Mesa State College AmeriCorps Project in Grand Junction and taught courses in sociology and human services at Mesa State College. Robin grew up in Hotchkiss, on the Western Slope.

She holds a bachelor of arts in sociology from Mesa State College, a master of arts in sociology from Utah State University, and a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Denver.
E-mail: baker@thebell.org.

Frank Waterous has more than 20 years of experience working on a broad range of public policy issues and in higher education.

Prior to joining the Bell, he was a senior policy analyst for the Colorado Community College System and a senior analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Denver. He previously worked as an administrator and faculty member at colleges in Colorado and Minnesota.

Frank holds a bachelor of arts degree in anthropology from Dartmouth College; master of arts degrees in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and in education from the University of Colorado, Boulder; and a Ph.D. in education from the University of Minnesota, Department of Educational Policy and Administration.
E-mail: waterous@thebell.org

Isabel Nicholson
Public Policy Fellow
2007-08

Isabel Nicholson is the Bell's year-long public policy fellow. She is interested in consumer rights issues, particularly the further regulation of payday lenders.

Isabel is from Tarrytown, New York. She graduated in May 2007 from Colorado College with a bachelor's degree in sociology. She spent a semester studying in Jordan, and then went back in the spring of 2007 to gather field research for her senior thesis. She also helped register 18- to 24-year-old voters in El Paso County in the fall of 2004, worked as a backcountry teen expedition leader in New England, New Mexico, and Colorado. She speaks conversational Arabic.

E-mail: nicholson@thebell.org

Marija Weeden
Public Policy Fellow
2007-08

Marija Weeden is a student in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. At the Bell, she plans to work on policy issues related to education, immigration and poverty.

Marija grew up in Littleton. She earned a bachelor's degree in theology in 2003 from Franciscan University in Ohio. She spent two years in Montrose and one year in Summit County doing youth ministry and religious education for the community Catholic churches. In 2006, she served as a programs intern with The Conflict Center in northwest Denver.

E-mail: fellow1@thebell.org

Mollie Cross Leone has more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit agency income and infrastructure development on local and regional levels.

Prior to joining the Bell, Mollie served as director of grants for Catholic Charities and at the Western States Arts Federation, where she led a 13-state grantmaking effort on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mollie holds a bachelor of arts degree in English from the University of Colorado and a master of arts degree in literature from the University of London — Queen Mary College.

E-mail: cross@thebell.org

Elizabeth “Liz” Maushart is the Bell’s 2007-08 outreach and advancement fellow, a first for the Bell Policy Center. She will be working on coalition-building, development planning, and outreach in support of the Bell’s public policy work.

Liz comes to the Bell as a fellow with The Fellows Initiative (TFI), a post-graduate leadership development program connected to the C.S. Lewis Institute in Washington, D.C., and The Rockland Fellows Program in Genesee. The fellowship includes classes in culture and theology, work with professional mentors, and community and church service work.

Liz grew up in Golden and is a 2007 graduate of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in history and women’s studies.

During her junior year, she participated in American University’s Washington Semester program, where she worked for the Women’s National Democratic Club and studied foreign policy. She is interested in public policy issues related to poverty, health care, education and immigration.

E-mail: Maushart@thebell.org

Elaine Rumler has more than 20 years experience in business and office management, including as section supervisor with the Colorado Department of Revenue and deputy director of operations for the Colorado Office of Energy Conservation.

Elaine and her husband own and operate a small family business.

She attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill.

E-mail: rumler@thebell.org

Senior Fellows

John Creighton, Senior Fellow, Policy and Research
John Creighton is founder of Conocer, a public leadership consulting firm based in Longmont. Conocer supports clients through public opinion research, strategy and professional development. John is a principal author or researcher on more than 30 public opinion studies. Before founding Conocer, John was vice president of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovations, where he now serves as a senior fellow. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas and earned a master’s of public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
E-mail: jcreighton@publicleader.org

Andy Hartman, Senior Fellow, Policy and Research
Andy Hartman was the Director of Policy and Research at the Bell from 2001 through 2004. Prior to joining the Bell, Andy served as executive director of the National Institute for Literacy in Washington, D.C., a position he held for eight years. Prior to that, he served as GOP staff director for the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor.

Andy has a B.A. in psychology from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana; an M.A. in psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo; and a Ph.D. in child development from the University of Illinois at Champaign -Urbana. Andy also is the recipient of the national 2001 Literacy Leadership Award, a prestigious honor received in the past by former First Lady Barbara Bush and former U.S. Senator Paul Simon. He currently teaches in the Denver Public Schools.
E-mail: hartmanandy@yahoo.com

Past Public Policy Fellows at the Bell

Richard Eveleigh, University of Colorado at Denver, 2007
Lauren Bogard, Colorado College, 2007
Will Holley, Yale University, 2007
Blair Woodbury, Colorado College, 2006-07
Ashlee Elliott, University of Denver, 2006-07
Daniel Spivey, Colorado College, 2005-06
Rachel Colorosa, Colorado College, 2006
Curtis Lee Garcia, Yale University, 2006
Evan Enarson-Hering, Colorado College, 2004-05
Ari Stiller-Shulman, Colorado College, 2005
Samantha Abate, University of Denver Institute for Public Policy Studies, 2005
Angela Frye, University of Colorado, Denver, 2005
Emily White, University of Denver, 2005
Sarah Rich, 2004
Greg Piesco-Putman, Colorado College, 2004
Lorien Nettleton, Metro State College, 2004
Jennifer Sharp-Silverstein, University of Colorado, 2003-04
Spiros Protopsaltis, University of Colorado, 2003-04
Emma Vangenderen, Yale University, 2003 and 2004
Caroline Gonzales, Columbia University, 2003
Robin Baker, University of Denver, 2002-03
Lauren Fingeret, University of Denver, 2002-03