Board

The ACLU of Colorado is led by an engaged Board of Directors, strategically positioned from around the state.

Arlette Baer

Residence: Denver
Occupation: ACLU Volunteer Membership Coordinator
ACLU Experience: Board Member 1980 - 1986
With over thirty years of in-office experience, Arlette Baer is the most senior member of the ACLU office, paid or volunteer. She has managed the membership database since the late 1970s. This mother of six (and grandmother of seven) traces her interest in civil liberties back to her 1971 arrest for protesting with the United Farm Workers in front of Argonaut Liquors. She has earned several awards over the years, most recently the ACLU’s Martha Radetsky Award in 2006.

Laurie Bennett

Residence: Denver
Occupation: Research & Evaluation Consultant; Graduate School Instructor; Attorney
ACLU Experience: National Board Representative; Former Board Chair
After practicing law for close to 20 years, Laurie obtained her doctorate in education (curriculum & instruction) from the University of Denver in 2008. She now works as a research & evaluation consultant (with projects ranging from research studies on bullying and truancy, on gender and Colorado high school dropouts, and on refugee health disparities, to evaluations of an art museum education website and of a health awareness campaign for African immigrants), and as adjunct faculty in the Morgridge College of Education, University of Denver.

Robert L. Connelly, Jr.

Residence: Denver
Occupation: Retired Attorney
ACLU Experience: Treasurer
Bob actively practiced law from 1974 until June 2007. During that period of time, he litigated civil matters in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, and Denver and served as in-house counsel with US WEST and Qwest. He also spent two years as a staff attorney with the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. In addition to having litigated dozens of jury and bench trials as well as extensive state and federal appellate experience, he served in senior management roles for the law departments of US WEST and Qwest. He has also served on several non-profit boards, including those of the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Logan School, the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, Judicial Institute and AnthioGen, Inc. Finally, he was an adjunct professor at Georgia State University Law School and Emory University Law School.

Rehan K. Hasan

Residence: Denver
Occupation: Principal, Hasan Legal
ACLU Experience: Board Chair
Rehan K. Hasan is a corporate lawyer and business advisor for small and medium- sized businesses. Rehan counsels companies with either a specific business challenge or a variety of legal needs faced throughout the full life cycle—start up to exit—of business. He previous worked as an attorney for Fairfield & Woods, PC. Rehan served as legal counsel and grassroots coordinator for Muslims for America, a bipartisan organization geared toward getting more American Muslims involved in the political process. He co-founded the South Asian Bar Association and continues to serve as its treasurer. Rehan has a passion for the ACLU’s mission and looks forward to continuing to further its cause.

Robert Jones

Bio to come.

Jeff Knetsch

Residence: Evergreen
Occupation: Attorney
ACLU Experience:  Board Member
A senior member of the Corporate & Business Department in the firm’s Denver office, Mr. Knetsch is a Shareholder in Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. His practice focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, leveraged buy-outs, private equity fund formation, and corporate restructurings and workouts. He also counsels clients on legal issues affecting public companies and their compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other corporate governance regulations. Mr. Knetsch regularly counsels clients in transactions subject to public securities laws, including negotiated and hostile take-overs, tender offers, acquisitions, recapitalizations and going private transactions. Mr. Knetsch began his career in New York at the law firms of Sullivan & Cromwell and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom.  In 2004, he was elected to the board of directors of the Evergreen, Colorado Park and Recreation District, and he currently serves as board president.

Mari Newman

Residence: Denver
Occupation: Attorney
Previous ACLU Experience: Board Member, Cooperating Attorney.

Mari works as a Partner at KILLMER, LANE & NEWMAN, LLP, where her practice emphasizes Civil Rights and Employment Law. She was recently voted one of the top 25 Women Colorado Super Lawyers for 2011. She was also honored as a co-recipient of the ACLU of Colorado’s 2010 Carle Whitehead Award, and also the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association’s 2010 Access to Justice Award, honoring “perseverance, courage and character shown over and over in cases of extraordinary circumstances.” In 2009, she received the CTLA’s Case of the Year Award for leading a legal team in a case against the Colorado Department of Corrections and others for a prison guard’s rape of a female inmate. She has also been honored as a Fellow of the Colorado Bar Foundation.
 

Dan Recht

Residence:  Denver
Occupation:  Criminal defense and 1st Amendment lawyer, Recht & Kornfeld, P.C.
ACLU Experience: Board Member 
Dan has felt strongly about and been committed to the work of the ACLU for over 30 years. The work of the ACLU continues to be critically important, especially now, when Dan sees an opportunity to strengthen civil liberties and reverse the decade-long assault on our basic American rights. He is committed to representing the ACLU vigorously and zealously in that fight.

Bruce Sattler

Residence: Denver
Occupation: Retired Attorney
ACLU Experience: Nominating Committee Chair 
Bruce is a former employment and trial lawyer, who spent twenty years with Holland & Hart and fifteen years with Faegre & Benson. He said he will “re-retire” once Drew takes over. He argued his first ACLU case, which involved a Chicano student who was expelled from Denver’s North High School, in 1970 and has been involved with the organization ever since, including receiving the Whitehead Award for outstanding work for civil liberties in 2000. He returns to the board after serving a nine-month stint as temporary executive director, during which he guided the organization through the search and hiring process of current executive director Ray Drew. Bruce lives in Denver with his wife Martha.

Bob Solick

Residence: Berthoud
Occupation: Retired
ACLU Experience: Northern Colorado Chapter Representative
Bob is relatively new to ACLU activities. He joined the chapter board  two years ago, following retirement from the Army Research Institute, Ft. Leavenworth, KS.  His background is in research psychology, emphasizing leader training and influence methods.

Justin Weyerhaeuser

Residence: Denver
Occupation: Attorney
Previous ACLU Experience: Board Member

Justin currently works in the business litigation group at Husch Blackwell LLP, he previously worked for Jacobs Chase LLC. Prior to working for these firms he served as a volunteer attorney with the ACLU of Colorado. During his time there assisted with the ACLU’s efforts during the Democratic National Convention and, particularly, in its case against Weld County officials for an illegal search of Amalia Cerrillo’s tax preparation office. During and after law school he interned and volunteered with the ACLU of Michigan and Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service, where he worked primarily on legal issues affecting people with disabilities. Prior to becoming an attorney, he owned and ran a small business in New York City for several years.

Daniel D. Williams

Residence: Boulder
Occupation: Attorney
ACLU Experience: Board Member
When not volunteering for the ACLU, Dan practices law as a litigator at Faegre & Benson LLP in Boulder. In addition to his business litigation practice, he maintains an active pro bono practice. He has represented a CU student journalist who faced criminal charges after exercising his First Amendment rights in class and a victim of domestic violence in divorce/custody proceedings. Dan brings the perspective of an aggressive litigator who understands how to leverage the resources of law firms to advance a civil liberties agenda.

Loring D. Wirbel

Residence: Monument (Colorado Springs)
Occupation: Editor
ACLU Experience: Colorado Springs Chapter Representative

Loring has been involved in intelligence analysis and civil liberties issues for more than 30 years, since working as a high school intern on studies of the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit for Michigan ACLU in the late 1970s.  He is co-chair of Colorado Springs ACLU, and serves on the boards of Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission and First Steps Spirituality Center.  He is the author of Star Wars: US Tools of Space Supremacy (Pluto Press, 2004) and co-author of Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in the Bush Era (Routledge, 2003).  He is a

winner of Sonoma State University's Project Censored awards for studies of the National Security Agency, and of Scripps-Howard National Writer/Editor Award.  He has worked in technology analysis with United Business Media of London, UK and Reed Business of Boston.  Loring is currently editor in chief of Smartbook Blog.  He lives in Monument with his family and too many wayward pets.

Gwen J. Young

Residence: Broomfield
Occupation: Partner in the Denver law firm of Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell
ACLU Experience: Board Vice Chair
Gwen is a partner of the Denver law firm of Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell. Her practice is focused on dealer-related commercial disputes for major domestic automobile manufacturers, as well as general civil and appellate being appointed to the Board in 2007, Gwen served as a cooperating attorney for the ACLU in its first amendment litigation on behalf of inmates and many publishers against the Colorado Department of Corrections regarding of magazines and other publications, achieving a very favorable settlement on behalf of our clients. Gwen has been a card-carrying member of the ACLU since the early 1970s and is a passionate, committed advocate for our causes.