Golden Run has assembled a talented and devoted team of experts in their fields to master plan Golden Run. They have been working for years on the type of design and planning that is being used to create Golden Run. They are responsible for the smooth operation of this project and look forward to your feedback and comments.

 

The Golden Run Team

Ed Byrne

Ed Byrne is an attorney with a private law practice
, Ed Byrne, P.C., where he specializes in land use and development matters. Regional Planning Services (RPS) is a consulting firm specializing in facilitating inter-jurisdictional long-range regional planning projects for private and public sector clients. Ed is the President of RPS. He and his associates have the expertise required to manage every aspect of a regional planning project or a project with regional significance. In recent years, Mr. Byrne has been appointed to serve on the following boards and committees:

Regional Transportation Task Force (Boulder County, 1996-98); U.S. 36 Task Force (1995-97); Chair, Community Development Council (1996); Chair, Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan Review Committee (1995-96); facilitator, Smart Growth Summit (1995); Colorado Environment 2000 Citizen Advisory Committee (1989), Colorado Outdoor Recreation Resource Partnership (1989-94);

Mr. Byrne was the Government Relations consultant for Boulder's Chamber of Commerce from 1996 through 1997. Ed was an attorney for the City of Boulder for six years (1982-88) where he handled code enforcement, land use planning, zoning and open space issues. In 1988, he left the city to become the Director of Operations for Colorado Ski Country USA (CSCUSA), the trade association that has represented Colorado's ski resorts since 1962. Ed was appointed by Governor Romer to serve on the Colorado Environment 2000 Citizen Advisory Committee (1991) and to facilitate at the Governor's Growth Summit (1995).

In 1994, Mr. Byrne left CSCUSA to open a land use and zoning law practice and consulting business in Boulder. In the spring of 1994, Ed was appointed to serve as a city-wide representative for and Co-Chair of the North Boulder Subcommunity Plan Steering Committee. In 1995, Ed was asked to chair the Community Development Council's Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan Review Committee, and to represent the Boulder Chamber of Commerce on the U.S. 36 Task Force. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Front Range Publishing, the employee-owned company that publishes the Colorado Daily. Ed was the 1996 Chair of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce's Community Development Council. Ed Byrne ran for Boulder County Commissioner in 1996.

Mr. Byrne has made multi-media presentations to various groups and conferences on the following topics:

"Fair and Effective Growth Management Strategies" (1999)
"The Ethical Consequences of Exclusionary Land Use Policies" (1999)
"The Regional Impacts Created By the Danish Plan (Boulder's 2% Residential Growth Cap) (1998)
"The North Boulder Subcommunity Planning Process" (1996)
"Boulder's Built Environment" (1995)
"The Colorado Ski Industry and the Environment" (1991-93)
"The Public/Private Partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and the Ski Industry" (1993)
"Ski Industry Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Projects" (1993).

Personal Information: Ed Byrne received a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Notre Dame in 1976, and a law degree from the National Law Center at George Washington University in 1981. He is married to Ann Byrne, a partner with the law firm Stone, Sheehy, Rosen & Byrne. They moved to Boulder in 1981, and they now live in North Boulder with their three children: Conor, Erin, and Kathleen.

Email - ed@goldenrun.com

 
Carl Oldham

Carl is Golden Run's General Manager. Carl has been friends with Aaron for many years. Aaron and Carl were graduated from Fairview High School together after which he attended the University of Colorado. He and his family have been residents of Boulder since 1959. After his schooling,
Carl worked for Round the Corner Restaurants as a Manager and General Manager. Upon leaving the Restaurant business, Carl started a number of businesses until he began his career in real estate while he was a professional ski patrolman in Summit County. This is the time when Carl's love for the outdoors began to flourish. Alpine skiing--including Helicopter ski guiding, and white water rafting started to take their roots. Carl's love for rafting, especially the desert rivers of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, beckon him and his family regularly.

Carl began his career in Real Estate in Summit County. He moved back to Boulder from the Mountains in 1982 to pursue his real estate career. He worked for Coldwell Banker from 1984 until 1989 and has worked for Re/Max ever since. Carl has been active in the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, and coaches girls' softball at Boulder High School. He is also a small business owner. He and his brother Wayne own "BUBB'S, Boulder Used Books and Beans" in Boulder, located in the Williams Village Center at Baseline and 30th Street. It is a special spot to find quality used and scholarly books while enjoying a great cup of coffee with a friend.

Carl is married and lives with his wife Karren in Boulder. They have 2 daughters, Chelsea and Whitney. Both Carl and his wife Karren are real estate brokers with Re/Max Alliance-Boulder. In his spare time you most likely find him on a Desert River with his family or spending time figuring out ways, with the Golden Run Team, on how to make Golden Run a better place for people to live.

Email - carl@goldenrun.com

 
Jeff Ruppert

Jeff Ruppert is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Colorado and specializes in residential and light commercial civil and structural engineering. He co-founded one of the most successful straw bale design/build construction companies in the country, StrawCrafters, in 1996 and worked as a general contractor and designer with them until leaving recently to practice engineering and consult on his own. Some of his achievements during the past four years in
clude the design and construction of a dozen custom straw bale homes around the state of Colorado, participation on over 50 other straw bale and natural building projects around the country. Before working in the green building realm, Jeff worked on a number of bridge and building projects performing structural and hydraulic engineering analyses for a local engineering company in Boulder, CO. His most recent work includes urban planning and green development consulting on larger scale projects as he brings his knowledge and skills of implementation to the planning process.

Email - jeff@goldenrun.com

 

Aaron Harber

Aaron Harber hosts “The Aaron Harber Show™”
(www.HarberTV.com and www.bit.ly/TVDemo) and “The Aaron Harber Show: Colorado Now TM” (www.Colorado-Now.com) --- seen on KCDO-TV (K3 Colorado --- Channel 3), COMCAST Entertainment Television (CET), KPXC-TV (ION Television. ION Media Networks), other cable and satellite channels, and the Web. Beginning next year, the program will be available to all 60 million COMCAST customers via its 24/7 free Video on Demand service. The program also will be available from other channels, networks, systems, and broadcasters so up to 250 million people will have access to it.

Aaron’s career in broadcasting began in 1992 when he served as the host of the "The WatchDog" -- a political issues, consumer affairs, and citizens' rights program on the Talk of the Rockies Network. In 1994, he became host of “Against The Rush” -- a humorous but cogent response to Rush Limbaugh. The show was produced by USA Talk Network and broadcast on 51 stations by the Talk America Radio Network. Aaron gained national recognition when he was sued frivolously for $20 million by Limbaugh, et al, for using the word “Rush” in the title of his show. With broad-based support across the entire political spectrum, Aaron won the First Amendment case in Federal Court when Limbaugh was forced to dismiss his own case.

The talk inustry’s leading publication -- “TALKERS MAGAZINE” -- selected Aaron out of 5,000 hosts across the country as one of America’s 100 “Most Important Talk Show Hosts In 1997" (along with such luminaries as Don Imus, Gordon Liddy, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Schlesinger, Howard Stern, and Bruce Williams).  In 1997, he moved from Talk Radio exclusively into the television arena, beginning as a guest host, then becoming a co-host two years later, and eventually having his own program (titled “Spontaneous Combustion”) on Public Television.

From 2002 to 2009, Aaron served as the host of “The Aaron Harber Show” on KBDI-TV Channel 12 (Colorado Public Television)-- a meticulous look at the issues of the day --- and its “Capitol Report” special editions. He also has developed the concept for “Blind Justice” --- a critical examination of America’s Legal System --- which is expected to be in development for some time due to his other commitments. From 1998 to 2009, Aaron served as the on-camera Political Analyst for CW2 of the CW Network (previously Tribune Broadcasting station KWGN/WB2 – including when it was part of the Warner Brothers Network).

In 2000, Aaron hosted the groundbreaking nonpartisan campaign series, “Election 2000" which was broadcast on over-the-air television (Colorado Public Television KBDI/TV-12) as well as on the Web, thanks to funding from the John S. and James L Knight Foundation and a partnership with The Denver Post. Two years later, he hosted the nonpartisan “Election 2002” series on Colorado Public Television as a demonstration of how to promote unbiased election information broadcasts and to provide citizens with extensive candidate access and election coverage.

He served as a host on “Colorado Decides 2004” when it became a joint venture of Channel 4/KCNC-TV (CBS-4), KBDI-TV Channel 12, and the Rocky Mountain News. For “Colorado Decides 2006” he served as the host/moderator and/or the primary questioner for all 21 programs in 2006 -- including “live” call-in television shows.  He reprised his role for “Colorado Decides 2008” and also served as the key on-air political commentator for a special live nightly series at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, held in Denver.  During the Convention, Aaron was the on-air commentator for 2½ hours every night of the Convention along with the CBS4 lead anchor team.

In 2008, Aaron also hosted the nation’s first extensive, long-form series on any race at the federal level.  Titled, “The Senate In Balance TM,” Aaron hosted 22 special half-hour programs (www.SenateCO.com) providing citizens with an in-depth look at the contest between Democratic U.S. Representative Mark Udall and Republican former U.S. Representative Bob Schaffer.  Other participants and supporters of the project included the retiring incumbent U.S. Senator Wayne Allard (R) and Colorado’s other incumbent U.S. Senator, Ken Salazar (D), as well as all of Colorado’s living previous U.S. Senators --- Bill Armstrong (R), Hank Brown (R), Ben Campbell (R), Gary Hart (D), and Tim Wirth (D).  The initiative received many accolades as did Aaron for his impartial work.

Aaron left Colorado Public Television in 2009 after receiving an offer to have his program originate from commercial station KCDO-TV (K3 Colorado Channel 3) which also allowed his programs to be carried on a variety of channels, stations, and networks.

In addition to his regular program, Aaron became the host and moderator for the 48-program series entitled, “Colorado Election 2010TM” (www.Colorado2010.com) which provided more election programming on federal and state races than any other program known to be broadcast over-the-air in American history. He also created the innovative experimental Print Publication Advantage Program as a way to assist newspapers by using television to attract readers, subscribers, and advertisers to print publications. The Print Publication Advantage Program was a pilot effort structured to allow newspapers to use television to become more competitive with all forms of media.

Due to the national and international focus of his program, “The Aaron Harber Show,” in 2010 Aaron also was named the host of a new KCDO-TV (K3 Colorado Channel 3) series, titled “The Aaron Harber Show: Colorado Now,” which had a focus on Colorado opinion leaders, events, and organizations.

Aaron also is a columnist for the State’s major political publication, “The Colorado Statesman,” as well as The Denver Daily News. His writings also are available on the television program’s Website -- www.HarberTV.com as well as at The Huffington Post ( www.HuffingtonPost.com/aaron-harber). His columns have been distributed by numerous publications, including The Washington Post online.

Although it is true the highlight of Aaron’s life was being a Bat Boy for the Chicago White Sox at age 15 (he was a winner in a Chicago newspaper essay-writing contest), it hasn't been completely downhill from there.  Aaron began his business career days after being graduated from college, at the age of 22, when he started the Colorado Accounting & Tax Service with $1,500 he had saved from college jobs he performed while working his way through school.  Since then, he has been involved in numerous businesses ranging from survey research to high technology (where he organized software companies) to venture capital to Talk Radio to movie and television production, among many others.  An environmentalist and an equal rights advocate, Aaron also is a strong pro-business, free-market proponent.  Unlike many other talk show hosts who give opinions about subjects they know little about, Aaron has extraordinary firsthand experience and knowledge about business, government, education, politics, the Law, entertainment, Media, and the Press.  His media activities are widely recognized for their consistent fairness, accessibility, and nonpartisan nature.

As co-founder and chairman in the early 1990’s of the Women's Equity Fund, a nationally-recognized, experimental venture capital firm helping women and men start new businesses and expand existing ones, Aaron helped promote the concept of changing the access women had to business capital.  He was the chairman of Centre Entertainment, Inc. -- a video and film production and distribution company ("A Norman Rockwell Christmas" and "Legend Of The Spirit Dog").  He served as president of Wild Horse Productions, Inc. -- a company originally formed to develop the feature film, "Wild Horses," for Animal Planet and Discovery Communications, Inc. for which a complete script received final approval.

Aaron pioneered the plan for the Golden Run community in Erie, Colorado, as an example of a modified New Urbanism development imaginatively designed to create a walkable, economically sustainable, environmentally-friendly multi-generational neighborhood.  Golden Run’s design focuses on the needs of mature adults, senior citizens in their later years, young families, the disabled, people requiring special care levels, and those needing affordable housing.  The concept is to create a community where people can live, work, play, recreate, shop, and enjoy life -- all in an ecologically sound manner.

Aaron also was a co-founder and served as president and chairman of Silicon Valley software company TeamOne Systems (in the Apollo, Digital, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems markets) which tackled the national need to automate the writing of computer software.  He also was elected as chairman of the innovative fiber-optic large-display company Mall TV, Inc.  Additionally, he served as chairman of one of the nation’s original retail virtual reality companies, V-Space, Inc.

For almost  a third of a century, Aaron has served as president of American Research Corporation, where his work included strategic planning, research and business advisory services, organizational consulting, public opinion polling, and computer software.  He has managed complex software development projects, served private and public sector clients domestically and internationally, and participated in many state and federal government projects.  A sample of his customers include Bank of America, Motorola Corporation, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Atari, Inc., Memorex, SPRINT, Case Western Reserve, Environment Canada, Rockwell International, Knight-Ridder’s VIEWDATA Corporation, Unisys, Public Service Company, Hughes Aircraft, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, Tandem Computers, and Security Pacific National Bank.

Aaron is the founder of the Democracy & Media Education Foundation -- a national effort to change American politics by encouraging Public Broadcasting System stations to provide extensive nonpartisan coverage of election races and ballot issue contests to mitigate the effect of paid commercial political television advertising.  His innovative theory to "use television to fight television" is the basis of the Foundation’s potential to radically change the USA’s political system.

Aaron also served as an elected member of the Board of Trustees of Princeton University.  He worked internationally after being elected Vice-President and then President of the 3,000-member International Tandem [Computers] Users' Group, and helped lead the group to its independence as an autonomous and self-sufficient organization.  While registered as an Investment Adviser with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, he donated his financial and tax advisory services to men and women starting businesses as well as to charitable organizations on a pro bono basis.

Aaron's community involvement also has included doing fundraising for the University of Colorado, serving as the first president and chairman of the Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre of Colorado, working as a Volunteer Probation Counselor for the City and County Courts of Denver, and serving on the board of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra.  He was co-director of the Chicano Film Project, which produced the heralded film, "Los Inmigrantes."  He has worked as a volunteer for ECO-CYCLE and as a Relief House Parent for Attention Homes (an alternative to jail for young offenders).  Almost three decades ago, he was the first (and then only) male ever elected to the Board of Directors of the Boulder County Women's Resource Center and for decades has been a strong proponent of equal rights for women.  He also has served as the moderator and the facilitator of numerous panels as well as a keynote speaker at various events.

Aaron was elected Secretary of the Colorado Democratic Party in 1983.  He was elected as a Presidential Delegate to the 1984 National Convention in San Francisco and also was elected to the Convention’s original Credentials Committee.  He was a candidate for Secretary of State in 1982 and later won his party's nomination in 1990.  In both 1996 and 2000 he won election in a statewide party race to the Electoral College.  In addition to his 1984 delegate win, he was elected as a Presidential Delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in Chicago (1996) and Los Angeles (2000).  Aaron has served as parliamentarian and secretary of numerous political assemblies and conventions, at the county, congressional, and state level.  He was elected as chair of State Senate District 17 and as Vice Chair of House District 31, and has held many other elected party positions -- ranging from Precinct Committeeperson to Caucus Chair and Secretary to County, Congressional, State, and National delegate.  He has held no partisan position since 2000 due his work in the Media.  He remains committed to continue to be seen as an objective, independent, nonpartisan member of the Press.

Despite his history of political activism, Aaron is known for his fairness and the equal access he has provided Republicans to all his radio and TV shows -- including his unique broadcasts from the Republican National Convention in 1996.  He has broadcast his show "live" from places as disparate as the Democratic Leadership Council to the White House Press Room to the conservative Heritage Foundation.  His political views include elements from both major parties and from some minority parties.  His philosophy is to consider as many views as possible and come to rational, thoughtful positions not bound by any particular partisan, "blind-faith" ideology.  He believes in offering people a "helping hand" and assisting them in becoming independent -- not dependent.  He is a strong believer in protecting the Environment.

A staunch supporter of the concept of public disclosure, "sunshine" laws, and Open Records Acts, Aaron fought a precedent-setting battle against the State of Colorado in 1982 in which the Secretary of State ultimately was required to release public information in its most usable form (i.e., electronic).  A decade later, in 1993, he won a case against another government entity (the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District) -- which had tried to use the law and the cost of litigation to hide important public information.  And in 1994, at the request of the Sierra Club, he agreed to intervene in a case against the NCWCD filed by the Sierra Club by formally supporting the Club’s position in a joint filing.

Colorado Governor Roy Romer appointed Aaron to the Colorado Department of Law's Collection Agency Board ("CAB") in the Office of the Attorney General in 1988.  Aaron served there under both Democratic and Republican Attorneys General and promoted many improvements on behalf of consumers.  He was elected in 1989 as the first public member ever to serve as chairman of the CAB.  In 1990, he was appointed by the Governor to serve as a business representative on the State's Complete Count Committee for the 1990 U.S. Census.  Additionally, Aaron has chaired numerous domestic and international events and is known as an excellent public speaker, moderator, and facilitator.  He also mediates crises and advises numerous organizations pro bono.  His favorite activity is problem-solving in a "win/win" mode.

Aaron was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was graduated first in his class from Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, where he gave the valedictory address.  He received his undergraduate degree (A.B.) from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (concentrating in Economics) and received a master's degree in public administration (M.P.A.) from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government (concentrating in Ethics), where he also examined campaign finance laws and election practices in all 50 states.  At Princeton, Aaron became the first person in the 220-year history of the University to win two awards for being the person who did the most for his class and the most for the University.  Aaron’s primary role in life is raising his daughter -- whose homework keeps him very busy.  His hobbies are running, basketball and tennis (he’s not very good), and eating (with great gusto).  For more information, please send requests via e-mail to Aaron@HarberTV.com or visit www.HarberTV.com.