2011 Board of Director's

Peter Konrad serves as advisor and consultant to foundations in setting strategic direction, managing operations, developing programs, establishing financial discipline and investing endowments. A particular area of emphasis is working with new and emerging family foundations to help maintain donor intent, develop focused and effective grant-making programs, and to establish the organizational infrastructure to support such programs. In this capacity, he has served as the sole staff person for a first generation foundation, the Harvey Family Foundation, a three generation foundation, the JFM Foundation, and a seventh generation foundation, the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation. For 15 years, Peter served as Vice President of The Colorado Trust, where he was responsible for all aspects of foundation management.

Peter has been particularly active in the foundation community. He received recognition in 1998 as Outstanding Professional in Philanthropy in Colorado, served two terms as President of the Colorado Association of Foundations, and served individual terms as President and Chairman of the Board of the Conference of Southwest Foundations, an association of over 250 foundations. He has also been active on the board of numerous nonprofit organizations, including serving as Trustee of his alma mater, the University of Redlands and as a trustee of a private foundation in Denver. As Adjunct Professor of Nonprofit Management at Regis University, he received recognition as Teacher of the Year for his excellence in teaching. He has co-authored a third edition of a textbook, Financial Management of Non-Profits and has assisted the Council on Foundations in writing The Guide to Small Foundation Management.

Brian is an attorney and journalist living in Denver, Colorado. He has been working with the disability community since 2009. He currently represents CCDC as Chair of the Medicaid Infrastructure Grant Employment Workgroup. He also serves on the Self-Employment Subgroup of the MIG and as Editor of the Employment Workgroup Newsletter. Prior to his work with CCDC, he represented clients with traumatic brain injuries for the Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People. He can be reached through his website, www.brianbinford.com.

Christina Johnson was born in Iowa but grew up in Southern California in the 1950s, when there were still orange groves and mountain views. Her parents were both drama professors and active in community theater. Her father was blind and a federationist (member of National Federation for the Blind) so she learned about disability advocacy at a young age. She attended University of Redlands for two years then transferred to George Washington University where she had a double major in sociology and drama. She graduated in 1968 and stayed in DC as an activist. She worked with a variety of groups including the Black Panther Party and Students for a Democratic Society.

She moved to San Diego at the invitation of a life long friend, Joan Baez, to work on the constellation project, which was a city wide effort to hold an election to determine if the government should send the US Constellation, an anti aircraft carrier, back to Vietnam. The movement was to stop the killing in Southeast Asia. She began using guerrilla street theater at this time.

In the early 19070s she moved to the big Island of Hawaii where her world changed and she acquired a disability (traumatic brain injury) as a result of domestic violence. This deepened her awareness of domestic violence as a problem in our society. She moved to Colorado in 1986. She began working with others to organize on a cross-disability basis and was one of the founders of CCDC. In Colorado she has worked with a variety of groups including ADAPT, the Domestic Violence Initiative for Women with Disabilities and the Governor’s Advisory Council for People with Disabilities in addition to her loyal and consistent involvement with CCDC. She has served on the board, as a member and as a youth coordinator on staff in the past.

She currently lives in Lakewood and thrives on good friends and sense of humor. She has a grown son, two step daughters and three grandchildren. She is presently working on emergency preparedness issues so that people with disabilities can expect a sense of safety and respect in the event of a disaster. She believes that one measure of the greatness of a society is in how the most vulnerable are treated. She felt that those with disabilities who died in Katrina and 911 were the canaries in the mine of their time. Her favorite quote is by Eldridge Cleaver “you are either part of the problem or part of the solution” and strives to always be part of the solution.

Amy Smith is a 57 year-old Colorado woman who was in psychiatric treatment for 40 years, only recently reclaiming her live by emancipating from the system in 2008. She is the former director of WE CAN! of Colorado, the state's consumer organization, also formally the director of Community Connections Drop-In Empowerment Center, co-founder of ClearMind, Inc and developer & director of RISE University.