Minsun Ji, Executive Director

Minsun Ji (Ph.D.) is a labor-community organizer, activist scholar and popular educator. She has long experience in non-profit management and employee ownership efforts.

Minsun was a graduate program director of the Center for New Directions in Politics and Public Policy in the Political Science Department at the University of Colorado Denver where she created graduate program tracks in the social economy and community-labor organizing to grow leaders of social economy-labor organizing in Colorado. Minsun organized immigrant janitors, immigrant day laborers and domestic workers and she was the founder and the executive director of Denver’s first worker center, El Centro Humanitario para los Trabajadores (Humanitarian Center for Workers).

She served as a research fellow at the Institute for Cooperative Digital Economy at the New School of Social Science, and a J. Robert Beyster Employee Ownership Fellow at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. She was also a Colorado Governor’s Commissioner on Employee Ownership (FY 2019-2020) and has been actively engaged in labor-cooperative issues as an Executive Committee Member at the Union-Coop Council of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC). Currently, she is also engaged in building worker-owned platform cooperatives in different cities in the U.S. and other countries, in connection with the worker-owned Drivers Cooperative in New York.

minsun@rmeoc.org

303-250-5920

Ashley Ortiz, Technical Assistance Director

Ashley Ortiz is the Statewide Technical Assistance Director with Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center, with a background of more than 15 years in entrepreneurial business support and a passion for social justice and an equitable economy. Her previous work includes cooperative business development with the Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives in the Bay Area and work as a baker-owner at Arizmendi Bakery in San Rafael. Ashley co-founded the L.A. Co-op Lab, where she now serves as an Advisory Board Member, and she has taught classes about labor/power dynamics and worker-owned cooperatives. In 2019 she was selected for the inaugural cohort of start.coop’s business accelerator program designed to empower entrepreneurs to build transformative, scalable, cooperatively-owned businesses. Ashley earned her bachelors degree in Psychology at the University of Colorado and holds an M.A. in Urban Sustainability focused on social and economic justice from Antioch University.

ashley@rmeoc.org

415-405-5196

Christopher Arnold, President (Chair)

Christopher believes in cultivating business as a force for good in the world. Having spent the first 17 years of his career working for large corporations, he has first-hand experience with the damaging effects of profit-centered business mindsets. Today, as founder of BRiiO Advisors, Christopher provides sensible leadership and business practices to leaders who care about the success of their team, their community, AND their business.

christopher@briio.com

720-515-4345

George Tsai, Vice Chair

George Tsai is a Member in the Employee Benefits Practice Group at Sherman & Howard. George assists all types of employers on employee benefits matters including qualified plans, health & welfare benefits, and executive & equity compensation.

gtsai@shermanhoward.com

303-299-8426

Jennifer Briggs, Secretary

Jennifer was the lead cultural steward for New Belgium Brewing as the VP of Human Resources. In her 13 years with New Belgium, she shepherded the company through multiple growth phases driving value growth and an award-winning culture. She was a member of the executive leadership team and helped build a vision and grow the business from a small regional brewery to a national brand with over 900 employees, multiple locations and nearly 1,000,000 barrels of beer.

jenniferkbriggs@gmail.com

970-381-9671

Greg Weiss, Treasurer

Greg Weiss is a CPA who works on the sexier side of accounting: valuation, fraud investigation and forensic accounting. With 7-years in the investment industry and 11-years in public accounting, Greg has a broad base of experience that helps him get to the bottom of the issues at hand and communicate his findings in a way that is easy to understand and truly provides value.

weiss@hlzcpa.com

303-486-0010

Ahad Ghadami

Ahad Ghadimi is a corporate iconoclast, who has worked with organizations in over 30-countries with the objective of transforming them into highly engaged, employee ownership-cultures. From businesses coming out of bankruptcy or companies transitioning to employee-ownership, Ahad gets involved with companies in one or more of the following roles: adviser, investor, and/or operator.

ahad@coreworkcapital.com

347-559-7558

Abdi Buni

Abdi is a transportation entrepreneur. Since 2010, he has founded three employee-owned taxi companies: Union Taxi Cooperative in Denver with 262 driver owners; Union Taxi in Portland, OR; and Green Taxi Cooperative in Denver with 800 driver-owners. Abdi currently owns and manages Denver ABC Shuttle.

denverprotaxi@hotmail.com

303-761-0111

Ruben Medina

Ruben was the co-founder of the Huerfano County Ambulance Service in his town of Walsenburg, Colorado. He brings a spirit of servant leadership to RMEOC as he as worked as an EMT-1, a firefighter, and a search and rescue professional. Ruben also worked for the YMCA of Denver for 20 years in a variety of capacities. In addition to serving on many boards and committees, Ruben currently works for the Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities as the Project Manager of the Northwest Aurora/ Montbello Community Engagement. He also has his own consulting company on community engagement and currently works with an NGO out of Nairobi, Kenya. Ruben is a fellow of the ABCD Institute out of DePaul University in Chicago.

rmedina@fsucommunities.org

303-906-4139

Boyung Lee

Boyung Lee, a native of Korea, is Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, and Professor of Practical Theology at Iliff School of Religion in Denver, Colorado. She is the first Korean American woman academic dean at the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. Prior to her current position, for 15 years she taught at the Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA where she became the first woman of color to receive tenure in 2007. She is the current president of the Religious Education Association. She is an ordained United Methodist clergy. She received her BA and Th.M degrees from Yonsei University in Korea, a Master of Divinity from the Claremont School of Theology, and a Ph.D. in Theology and Education from Boston College. Her published writings include Transforming Congregations Through Community: Faith Formation from the Seminary to the Church, a forthcoming co-edited volume, Embodying Antiracism: Asian American Christianity and Feminist Theologies, and numerous academic and ecclesiological articles.

blee@iliff.edu

303-765-3183

Deyanira Zavala

Deyanira (Deya) Zavala is an experienced, collaborative nonprofit leader with experience working in community economic development. She led two community programs focused on creating mobility in people’s lives through entrepreneurship in Texas and Colorado. Driven by her commitment to equity and community collaboration, she currently serves as the Interim Director of Strategic Priorities at Colorado Center on Law and Policy. Most recently, she served as Executive Director of Mile High Connects, a regional collaborative actively working to build a thriving, resilient Denver metro region. In her role, she forged partnership between public and private sector partners while driving community driven change. Ms. Zavala holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Master’s of Public Administration from the University of North Texas.

dzavala@cclponline.org

682-365-8332

Larry Dunn

Starting his career as a cubicle coder for ANR Freight Systems and the Colorado Department of Human Services, Larry has been an enthusiast of the cooperative nature of open source software for the last 15 years. He was recognized by the Denver Democrats for building and maintaining their website and automating meeting registration. Larry currently works as a freelance software developer.

ldunn@rmeoc.org

720-271-5491