Governor Polis appoints three state leaders to join the Colorado Mesa University Board of Trustees
January 18 marks the first official meeting of the year with three new trustees. The Colorado Mesa University Board of Trustees includes 11 voting and two non-voting members. The voting members are appointed by the Colorado governor, confirmed by the Colorado State Senate and serve staggered terms. Governor Jared Polis appointed Tim Fry from Grand Junction and Gary Reiff from Denver. Colorado Mesa University alumnus and former Maverick football player Charles Duke replaced Kelly Brough in December 2021 after Brough resigned from the board due to her new role as an administrator at another Colorado university. The role and responsibilities of the Board of Trustees are expansive and include everything from reviewing academic programs to approving fiduciary decisions.
“Trustees Fry, Dukes and Reiff all bring unique perspectives to board discussions and deliberations that will help guide Colorado Mesa University into the future. We’re excited to have these leaders join the board and I know they will make a huge impact on CMU and our community,” said President John Marshall.
The CMU faculty and student body each elect one non-voting member to serve two- and one-year terms. The board meets regularly throughout the year. This month, the trustees are in Denver.
Meet the new members:
Tim Fry is the co-founder and CEO of Mountain Racing Products (MRP), an international manufacturing company that designs and produces products within the bicycle industry. Prior to starting MRP, Fry was a litigation attorney in the Midwest specializing in corporate and complex litigation.
In 2000, Fry and his wife Christy moved to Grand Junction to start MRP and have raised their family in the Grand Valley.
Fry received a BBA in Business Management from Adrian College and a Juris Doctor Degree from Capital University. As a first-generation college student, Fry understands the impact that higher education can have and has volunteered his time in the areas of education and workforce development.
Fry is the chair of the Colorado Scholarship Initiative (COSI) and was past chair of the Colorado Workforce Development Council. Locally, Fry serves on the Grand Junction Economic Partnership board, the Mesa County Workforce Development board, and is president of a charter school board.
In the 22 years that Fry has lived in the Grand Valley, he has seen the growth of CMU and the impacts that CMU has on western slope residents and businesses. He is honored to bring his business experience, legal background, community involvement, and passion for education to the CMU Board of Trustees.
Charles Dukes serves as an educational strategist for Wend Collective. As a member of the Wend team, Dukes coordinates youth development opportunities to enhance and improve the educational ecosystem.
Before joining Wend Collective, Dukes dedicated a significant amount of his career as an education policy director and central office school district administrator. As an education policy director, Dukes served as a liaison between the City of Denver and Denver Public Schools (DPS) to support the alignment between educational institutions, companies and governance structures. As the director for college and career success at Aurora Public Schools, Dukes was a catalyst for changing systems at both the school and district levels to ensure all students have access to postsecondary education and workforce credentials. As the director of college access initiatives at Denver Public Schools, Dukes actively worked with the Denver community, parents and schools to ensure all DPS students were prepared academically and socially to enter postsecondary opportunities.
Dukes holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Colorado Mesa University, a master’s degree in education foundations practice and policy from The University of Colorado Boulder, and a second master’s degree in leadership from Grand Canyon University.
Gary Reiff is Senior Advisor of UCHealth, a nationally recognized, nonprofit network of 12 acute care hospitals (with the University of Colorado Hospital as its academic anchor), more than 150 clinics throughout Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska, and more than 26,000 employees. Reiff previously served as Chief Legal Officer of UCHealth. Reiff also is an adjunct professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.
Prior to joining UCHealth, Reiff was managing director, chief administrative and legal officer of Black Creek Group, a Denver-based real estate private equity firm. Prior to joining Black Creek Group, Reiff was a shareholder at the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Schreck, and was a member of the firm’s executive committee and co-chair of its corporate and securities department. He previously worked on Governor Roy Romer’s senior staff, and has been an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Law School.
Reiff currently serves on the Denver Board of Water Commissioners, serving as its President. Reiff previously has served as chair of the Colorado Transportation Commission, chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of Northern Colorado, and chair of the Board of Trustees of the State Colleges of Colorado.
He graduated with honors from Stanford University with a BA in economics, and a MA from the Food Research Institute (economics of development), and he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
View the full list of Board of Trustee members.