Board of Directors
The Honorable Terrance Carroll - Co-Chair
The Honorable Terrance Carroll is an attorney with Greenberg Traurig, LLP, as well as an ordained minister. He served as 54th Speaker of the Colorado House - the first African American in that top leadership role - until term-limited in 2010. Mr. Carroll was first elected to Colorado House of Representatives in 2003, representing House District 7, an area that encompasses northeast Denver. During the 2008 session, he served as Assistant Majority Leader. During his tenure, Speaker Carroll became known as the “go-to guy” for guiding legislation on criminal justice and legal policy, and is respected for being a strong advocate for numerous social justice causes. He is also an ardent supporter of education reform. He served for 4 years as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and as a member of the Colorado Secretary of State’s Blue Ribbon Election Panel, which conducted a comprehensive review of Colorado’s election law. He is a member of the Colorado Lawyers Committee’s Election Law Task Force; an executive council member of the Minoru Yasui Inns of Court; Board of the Colorado Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society; and the Colorado Bar Association Board of Governors.
Carroll graduated with honors from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. He received a Master of Divinity degree from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, as well as a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Denver College of Law. Speaker Carroll is also a graduate of the Summer Leadership Institute at Harvard University Divinity School’s Center for the Study of Values in Public Life.
Mary Gittings Cronin - Co-Chair
Mary Gittings Cronin is the former President and Executive Director of the Piton Foundation, a private operating foundation that provides opportunities for children and their families to move from poverty and dependence to self reliance. From 1988 through 2009, she managed the foundation's philanthropic investments to improve public education, create economic opportunity and strengthen neighborhood leadership.
Ms. Cronin has served on numerous boards and commissions in Denver. She is a past president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado Association of Foundations, and the Women's forum of Colorado. She has served on the Board of Trustees of the University of Northern Colorado, and as a board member of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, The Children's Hospital, The Denver Scholarship Foundation, Vectra Banking Corporation, Colorado Zoological Trust, Stapleton Foundation, Urban Land Conservancy, Wyatt-Edison Charter School, Metropolitan State College Foundation, Colorado Association of Nonprofit Organizations, and the Colorado Health Planning Council.
From 1976 to 1988, she was Chairman of the Board of Gittings Lumber Company. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Anna Alejo
Anna Alejo is Director of Corporate Communications for the 160 year-old Western Union Company, which today has a network of nearly 500,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories. Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world. Anna covered public education for 16 years for the NBC and CBS owned stations in Denver. In addition to award-winning local reporting, she reported stories for CBS News, CNN and Univision, and hosted three public affairs television shows. She began her journalism career as a news assistant in the Miami Bureau of the Washington Post. Anna and her husband Shepard Nevel live in Denver and are the proud parents of three daughters.
The Honorable Federico Peña
The Honorable Federico F. Peña is currently a Senior Advisor at Vestar Capital Partners, a leading global private equity firm. The company’s investment strategy is targeted towards companies in the U.S., Europe with valuations in the $250 million to $3 billion range. Vestar Capital is headquartered in New York and has offices in Boston, Denver, Munich, and Paris.
During the past 30 years, Peña has practiced law, served in the Colorado State House of Representatives, served as Mayor of the City and County of Denver, founded an investment advisory firm, and served in two cabinet positions in the Clinton Administration as Secretary of the Department of Energy and Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Peña received a JD from the University of Texas and is a 1968 graduate of the University of Texas. Peña serves on the boards Sonic Corp. and Toyota’s North American Diversity Advisory Board. He is National Co-Chair of COMPETE, an organization dedicated to fostering competition in the electricity market. He was also National Co-Chair of Obama for America and a national board member of the Obama-Biden Transition. Mr. Peña was a founding co-chair and board member of A+ Denver.
Jesus Salazar
Jesus Salazar is a consultant with Credera, a business and IT consulting firm. Throughout his career, Jesus has developed, architected, managed, and services various large projects for customers such as Hairclub for Men, Yamaha, Frontier Airlines, Chipotle, Blockbuster, Hotels.com, Inter-tel, Interstate Batteries, Microsoft, CoBank, Duke Energy, and others. Jesus is currently leading Credera’s Denver practice which provides information technology consulting services to organizations throughout North America.
In addition to his professional career, Jesus Salazar is heavily involved in education reform and economic development within Colorado. At the request of Lt. Governor Barbara O’Brien, he co-chaired the “Turning Around Struggling Schools” sub-committee for Colorado’s Race to the Top application. Jesus was also a member of the Colorado Department of Education Assessment Stakeholders Committee, which helped to modernize the way the State of Colorado assesses the growth and proficiency of its students. In addition, Jesus sits on the advisory board of Colorado Succeeds. Jesus is also a board member of the Colorado Leadership Council as well as Latinos for Education Reform.
Mr. Salazar is also the co-founder of ITsColorado. A consortium of talented IT and Management consulting firms whose mission is to promote Colorado companies and resources, thus increasing economic development within our state. He was also a member of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.
Jesus Salazar looks forward to providing leadership and passion to organizations and programs that make Denver and Colorado a better place to live and work.
Dr. David Scanavino
David Scanavino has combined an active clinical practice with 19 years of extensive managed care experience involving the corporate, payer and provider perspectives in multiple competitive health care markets across the country. From 1988 to 1990, Dr. Scanavino served as National Medical Director for MetLife Health Care Management Corporation and was responsible for all medical management operations in 20 rapidly growing HMO plans from coast to coast. In 2001, Dr. Scanavino was a founding principal and Vice President of MMM HealthCare, Puerto Rico’s first Medicare + Choice program. In December 2002, he became Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of MMM HealthCare, which became the fastest growing Medicare + Choice plan in the United Sates. Dr. Scanavino currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Denver Scholarship Foundation. BA – DePauw University, M.D. – Case Western Reserve University.
Robert Stein
Robert Stein has worked on the front lines of education reform for 30 years, as a teacher, administrator, and university professor. He has led schools in the public and private sector, including turning around Denver’s lowest performing high school to become a Top Performing School in Denver. Rob has taught in the fields of teacher education, school leadership, and school reform at Harvard, Denver University, and University of Colorado, where he is currently an adjunct professor. Rob writes, presents and consults locally and nationally on leadership, organizational development, school transformation and education reform. He holds degrees from Middlebury, Stanford and Harvard.
Charles L. Ward
Charles L. Ward is formerly Colorado President for Qwest Communications and is currently the interim CEO for the National Sports Center for the Disabled. He has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 35 years. Chuck grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Penn State University [BS] and Southern Illinois University [MBA]. Chuck and his wife Chris have lived in Denver for 14 years and have two children.
Chuck has been on the Board A+ Denver for 4 years. Chuck is also on the Board of the Denver Metro Economic Development Corporation, which he co-chaired for two years, the Board of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, which he chaired in 2010, served on the Board of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Colorado, and is a member of the 2% Club.