Colorado College has named five new members to its Board of Trustees. They are Joe Ellis '80, Natalie Pham '99, Tafari Nia Lumumba '05, Jarod Rutledge '17, and student trustee Eyner Roman-Lopez '19.
Joe Ellis '80 is president and CEO of the Denver Broncos. He graduated from Colorado College with B.A. in history and political science and joined the Broncos in 1983 as their marketing director. In 1985 he left the team to purse a master's degree from Northwestern University. He joined the NFL in 1980 as vice president of club administration and stadium management, and returned to the Broncos in 1998 serving as the executive vice president of business operations. He became COO in 2008 and was promoted to president in 2011.
Natalie Pham '99, graduated from CC with a degree in international political economy. She serves as an education consultant for numerous international, private and public schools, is an advisor at the consulting firm Ma Nguyen and Partners and is central manager of the Agliardo Mach Award Education Foundation, which awards scholarships to underprivileged students who aspire to be teachers at universities in Ho Chi Minh City, Hue and Da Nang. She has been an administrator at multiple educational institutions in the United States and Vietnam. Additionally, she consults and teaches at universities and schools and trains teachers worldwide. She's a strong advocate of incorporating innovative educational advancements and entrepreneurship into curriculum. Her approach to education led the Lawrence S. Ting School (Dinh Thien Ly High School) to become one of the leading high schools in Vietnam.
Tafari Nia Lumumba '05 is a litigation associate in the Denver offices of Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, LLP. He graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Colorado College with a B.A. in English, and received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2011. His practice focuses on white-collar criminal defense, corporate compliance and complex business litigation, and he advises companies and their boards on the changing policies, procedures and organizational cultures. At CC, Lumumba was a member of the Diversity Taskforce, co-president of the Glass House, and received the CC Dreamkeeper Award for addressing issues of multiculturalism. He was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship in 2005, and then served as a member of the CC Watson selection committee. As an El Pomar Foundation fellow from 2006-08, Lumumba learned about management, leadership and fundraising before going on to Yale Law. He was president of Yale Black Law School Students Association and was named an "Up and Coming Lawyer" by Law Week Colorado in 2016.
Jarod Rutledge '17 will begin a Ph.D. program at Stanford in genetics this fall, having served as a genetics research associate at Northern Arizona University during 2017-18. He graduated magna cum laude from Colorado College in 2017 with an American Chemical Society-certified degree in biochemistry and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. At CC, Rutledge led the college orchestra for four years and founded the Colorado College String Quartet. He was a leader for the Outdoor Recreation Club for four years, a member of the Synergy house and the chair and treasurer of the environmental action club, EnAct. He also founded an interdisciplinary journal club to bring students from across the sciences together to discuss recent discoveries. Rutledge served as a peer tutor for the QRC for three years, as a learning assistant in the Chemistry Department, and represented CC in prestigious national and international research programs through the NIH, the Amgen Foundation and Harvard University.
Eyner Roman-Lopez '19 is majoring in mathematical economics, with a minor in dance. He also holds an International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma from the United World College of South East Asia. At CC, Roman-Lopez has been named a Future Global Leaders Fellow, a Davis United World College Scholar and International Student Grant Recipient. He is a peer intern at the Career Center, serves as a tutor for the Spanish Department, and choreographs and performs at Dance Workshop and DanSIX. A native of Peru, Roman-Lopez has held internships at the Peruvian Ministry of Education and the architecture firm DLPS Arquitectos, and worked for the United World Colleges Peru National Committee.
Trustees finishing their terms and moving off the board are Heather Carroll '89, Ben Kieklak '18, Martha Wolday '14, Robert Selig '61, and John Chalik III '67.