Communications Office Staff
Jane Turnis • Diane Alters • Lisa Dearborn • Arielle Mari
Jody Hinz • Jennifer Kulier • Mark Lee • Dave Moross • Dave Reed
Rick Specht • Karen To • Naomi Trujillo • Leslie Weddell
Jane Turnis
Vice President for Communications
(719) 389-6138
jturnis@coloradocollege.edu
Need help strategizing the best way to communicate your message? Jane and the communications team can help you target your audience, craft your message, finesse it with creativity, choose the right medium, launch it, and track your results.
Jane joined CC in 2003 and served as the college’s media relations director before being named director of communications in 2009. She was a newspaper journalist for 17 years, working as an editor, reporter, columnist, page designer, and copy editor of news, business, and features at The Tampa Tribune, The (Colorado Springs) Gazette, The Clearwater (Fla.) Sun, and the (Dubuque, Iowa) Telegraph Herald; she won national and state awards for her news writing. In addition, she worked as an account executive specializing in public relations at two advertising agencies and ran her own freelance writing and editing business.
Jane is a member of the Annapolis Group Communications Committee; an alumna of Academic Management Institute; and a graduate of CC’s Leadership Academy. She serves on the college's strategic planning steering committee, and PreEMPT, the college’s emergency management team.
Jane is a fan of Americana and roots music, and she’s proud that her marriage survived the ultimate test: Her brief foray into fiddle lessons.
Jane earned a B.A. in journalism and mass communication from the University of Iowa.
Diane Alters
Academic Communications Specialist
(719) 389-6624
diane.alters@coloradocollege.edu
Diane Alters has worked at The Boston Globe, The Denver Post, The Gazette, The Sacramento Bee and other newspapers. She has a doctorate from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a master’s degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and has taught at the University of Denver and the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado. She is a co-author of Media, Home and Family (Routledge 2004) and author of several papers and essays.
Lisa Dearborn
Graphic Design Manager
(719) 389-6355
ldearborn@coloradocollege.edu
Lisa has been a member of the graphic design team at Colorado College since 1995. In addition to creative graphic design, her duties at the college include four-color commercial print buying; serving as the college’s contact for art, logo, and photography requests; electronic art, photography, and print archiver; and art studio manager. She has been a typesetter and graphic designer since 1981.
Arielle Mari
Video and Digital Media Specialist
719-389-6602
arielle.mari@coloradocollege.edu
Arielle has been telling stories through the medium of film for almost half her life, and has extensive experience, skill, and talent. Yet her knowledge extends far beyond film. Arielle’s success lies in a keen eye for detail and ability to blend excellent story-telling and interpersonal skills in the fast-moving age of the web.
Arielle graduated from Colorado College in 2012 with her degree in English and Film. She also studied Music Video Production with Tisch School of the Arts. While at CC, she won the Lewis Award for Best Student Film twice, once in 2010 for her film CONTACT: THE EYE, and in 2011 she placed second for Pop Secret. For her senior project in film, Arielle received a Venture Grant to travel to India in order to create ROOTS. an exploration, a film and media installation examining her family’s cultural and religious roots.
Jody Hinz
Staff Assistant
(719) 389-6603
jhinz@coloradocollege.edu
Jody has been with the communications department since 2007. She previously worked at other universities in Wisconsin and North Dakota and has lived in Colorado for 12 years. Jody and her husband enjoy the outdoors and camping along with visiting their three grandchildren in Arizona.
Jennifer Kulier
Editorial Director
(719) 389-6210
jkulier@coloradocollege.edu
In our daily rush to communicate — posting fresh Web content and meeting print deadlines — sometimes the written word can suffer. Or our overall strategy can get lost in favor of “just getting it done.” Unfortunately, when strategy, spelling, grammar, syntax, or style are neglected, an organization loses credibility.
Jen is here to help. For 15 years, she has honed her skills as an editor, writer, and creative communicator. At CC, she has overseen the production of nearly 150 publications annually. She can help you brainstorm, strategize, plan, write, edit, and produce promotional and marketing communications and advertisements. These can take the form of brochures, postcards, Web sites, e-mails, or whatever you and she can dream up.
Before coming to CC in 2002, Jen was a newspaper journalist, copy editor, and freelance writer. In 1999, she wrote and published “A Woman’s Guide to Mountain Biking” for W.W. Norton and Co. She spends free time in the mountains hiking, biking, camping, Nordic skiing, and looking at wildflowers.
Degree
B.S. in Speech Communications; minor in Journalism, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Mark Lee
Associate Director of Web Communications
& New Media
(719) 389-6030
mlee@coloradocollege.edu
Mark has been helping to build the Web for over a decade, with most of that time spent in higher education. With a passion for figuring out how things work, he has gained experience in: the programming, scripting, markup, and style languages used on the Web; digital graphic design, video and audio production; photography and image manipulation; and even some database management and server administration.
Over this time he has gained valuable experience collaborating with faculty and staff on Web and new media projects while managing multiple projects and deadlines simultaneously. Do you need help updating your department’s Web site? Want a fresh look for your pages? Are you itching to try out the latest social media platform? Does your site need to be brought into buzzword-compliance? Mark would love to help you!
Mark has earned a B.A. in psychology, a graduate certificate in computer information systems, and an M.Ed. in instructional technology, all from Idaho State University. A lifelong learner, he has continued his education with classes from Colorado College in documentary filmmaking and from Parsons The New School For Design in graphic design. Mark is a 2008 graduate of the Leadership Pikes Peak Signature Program.
During the summertime, you may see Mark slowly and painfully making his way up one of Colorado’s many fourteeners.
Dave Moross
Director of Athletics Media Relations
(719) 389-6755
dmoross@coloradocollege.edu
In a quarter-century of directing the sports information/athletic media relations efforts at Colorado College, Dave Moross has seen and worked through his share of change, not to mention more than 600 Tiger Hockey games. Factor in competitions involving the school’s other 18 NCAA varsity programs, and that figure probably doubles.
Dave and his staff are fixtures when it comes to CC Athletics, whether that be supervising activity in the press box, keeping statistics, writing press releases, producing brochures and media guides, or keeping the website up to date on a year-round daily basis.
Formerly a writer and assistant sports editor at the Colorado Springs Sun newspaper, where his duties included covering Tiger teams for eight seasons, Moross has held his current position since 1986. He’s also doubled as media coordinator for the 2004 and 2008 NCAA Hockey West Regionals held at the World Arena, and has worked as a statistician for NHL and college hockey telecasts by CBS, ESPN and Fox Sports.
Dave moved from Michigan to Colorado in 1974 and remains an avid hiker in the mountainous state, where he occasionally has led small expeditions and successfully summited 19 different “14ers” since the age of 45. He has two grown daughters, 25-year-old Jessie Peterson of Denver and 23-year-old Madison Moross of Los Angeles.
Dave Reed
Associate Director of Athletics Media Relations
(719) 389-6105
dreed@coloradocollege.edu
Dave Reed, at Colorado College since 1999, is the primary contact for CC’s 15 Division III programs. He also oversees the athletic department website and coordinates the video streaming on America One Networks.
A member of the College Sports Information Directors of America, Reed recently completed a three-year term as a College Division Representative on the organization’s board of directors and is now a vice-chair of the CoSIDA Membership Committee. He also is in the first year of a three-year term on the NCAA Statistics and Records Advisory Board.
Reed was recently honored by the American Volleyball Coaches Association as recipient of its prestigious Grant Burger Media Award for the 2009- 2010 academic year. The annual award honors members of the media who have been involved in the advancement of the sport of volleyball, whether it be through consistent coverage in all mediums (sports information, print, broadcasting and web content), production of volleyball-specific publications or extensive radio and/or television exposure. In 2009, he was the Division III winner from the West Region.
Reed also has served as the public address announcer for Tiger volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball, and men’s and women’s lacrosse teams for the last 11 years. He was behind the microphone when the U.S. Women’s National Team played host to top-ranked Brazil in a three-match series that proved to be a preview of the Gold Medal showdown at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
In addition to his media relations duties at Colorado College, Reed writes a regular national NCAA Division I volleyball column for ESPN.com.
Prior to his arrival at Colorado College, Reed worked in athletics media relations at the University of Dayton (1989–91), The Ohio State University (1992–93) and the University of Notre Dame (1993–96). He has served as media coordinator for several Big East, Midwestern Collegiate Conference and NCAA Division I championships.
Reed left Notre Dame in 1996 to join USA TODAY.com, where he served as a content editor/stringer manager for three years. He was part of an 11-member team that specialized in the coverage of collegiate athletics, with an emphasis on basketball, football, ice hockey and volleyball.
A 1991 graduate of the University of Dayton with a degree in communications, Reed is a native of Piqua, Ohio. He and his wife, Gerri Anne, were married in May 2005 and are the parents of a son, Jackson.
Rick Specht
Creative Director
(719) 389-6818
rspecht@coloradocollege.edu
Rick has 30 years of experience as an art and creative director, graphic designer, and illustrator. He has worked in art studios, advertising agencies, and in-house art departments. He has art directed national campaigns, and designed and produced hundreds of publications, magazine, and newspaper ads, as well as television and radio commercials.
His responsibilities are to help clients establish the conceptual and stylistic direction of their communications. He then helps set the guidelines for design staff and orchestrates their work, as well as the work of production artists, photographers, illustrators, Web and pre-press technicians, printers, and anyone else who is involved in the development of a project.
Rick’s illustrations have been published nationally and internationally and have been used in a wide range of publications and advertising. Rick spends most of his free time drawing and painting.
Rick has served numerous times as a board member of the Pikes Peak Advertising Federation and is also a member of UCDA (university and college designers association).
Degrees
Graduate of the Cooper School of Art
Master of Arts, Syracuse University
Karen To
Director of Web Communications & New Media
(719) 389-6144
kto@coloradocollege.edu
Karen oversees the institutional site and helps offices and departments with their own websites. She led the college's recent website overhaul which included the implementation of the college's first enterprise level content management system (CMS), launched in August 2011, as well as a complete visual and information architecture redesign.
Karen joined CC eagerly in 2005, after a long (at least it seemed that way) and illustrious career in Corporate America. With a liberal arts degree and no direct path to a profession, she started her career sending form letters to AARP members. Thanks to a knack with computers and software, she promptly began a steady migration to technology. She has been a programmer, system administrator, software support specialist and content manager.
Karen thinks that industrial agriculture is public enemy #1 and enjoys yoga, hiking and backpacking.
Naomi Trujillo
Advancement Design Manager
(719) 389-6774
naomi.trujillo@coloradocollege.edu
Having worked with the office of alumni and parent relations since 2006, Naomi joined the communications team as a graphic designer in October 2012. Among other responsibilities, she acts as the primary liaison to the advancement division. Naomi holds a B.F.A. with honors from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, as well as a master’s in art therapy from Vermont College. She has been working in the field of art and design for almost 30 years.
Leslie Weddell
College News Director
(719) 389-6038
lweddell@coloradocollege.edu
Something newsworthy happening on campus that you’d like others to know about? Awards, grants, major events, human interest stories, and other Colorado College-related news should be sent to Leslie. Her first job out of college was with Charles Scribner’s publishing, and she has never gotten over her love of the written word. She is a former newspaper editor and reporter, with more than 20 years in daily journalism. An award-winning reporter, she has worked for newspapers in Connecticut, Tennessee, and Colorado, and her freelance work has appeared in a wide range of magazines and newspapers such as The Washington Post.
Leslie joined Colorado College in 2005. Her job is to publicize newsworthy happenings at the college, and whether it be television, print, radio, or Web, she can help she can help you with text, photos and publicity. Leslie spent 17 years in Brazil and has a B.A. in Latin American Studies with a minor in Anthropology, and holds a M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri. In her spare time she enjoys hiking, photography, and writing freelance book reviews for a major publishing house.