Featuring special guests Bill Ritter and Bill Owens
Former Colorado governors Bill Ritter and Bill Owens will join Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall for a CMU Civic Forum event. The former Democratic and Republican governors will discuss the importance of civil discourse in solving today’s most complicated political challenges, how to bridge the divide between urban and rural communities in Colorado, and what they learned from their respective legacies as sitting governors of the Centennial State.
Bill Ritter, who served as the 41st Governor of Colorado from 2007 to 2011, was the first Colorado-born governor since 1975. Prior to his governorship, Ritter was the District Attorney of Denver from 1993 to 2005, where he created one of the nation’s first drug courts and focused on prosecuting white-collar crime, sexual abuse and domestic violence. After his term as governor, Ritter became the director of the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University.
Bill Owens, the 40th Governor of Colorado, served from 1999 to 2007. He was re-elected in 2002 with the largest Republican share of the vote in state history. Before his governorship, Owens served as the Colorado State Treasurer and as a member of both the Colorado House of Representatives and the Colorado Senate. During his tenure, he focused on tax reform, privatization, and school choice initiatives.
The event is part of CMU’s Civic Forum programming, which also launched the Dignity in Dialogue Speaker Series and more recently the CMU Mav The Vote election engagement programming.
Tickets are free but registration is required.