Colorado Concern, one of the state’s leading business organizations, today named former Senate Minority Leader Mike Kopp as its executive director, said Blair Richardson, managing director of Bow River Capital Partners and chairman of Colorado Concern.

“Mike Kopp is a proven leader in business and nonprofit sectors, as well as the military and in the Legislature; he will bring that experience and more to the helm of Colorado Concern,”Richardson said. “He was the unanimous choice of our Board because he has the expertise, skills – and respect on both sides of the political aisle – to move our pro-business agenda forward and enhance Colorado’s business environment.”

Kopp takes over as executive director on Nov. 2, following the departure earlier this summer of Tamra Ward, who helmed the organization for four years.

“I am honored to be asked to serve alongside so many of Colorado’s most respected business leaders and entrepreneurs,” said Kopp in a statement. “Colorado Concern has been at the forefront of the state’s most important business and economic issues, and I look forward to working with our member CEOs to take the organization to even great heights.”

For nearly three decades, Colorado Concern has worked to promote a favorable business climate in the state. Counting more than 110 business and community leaders among its membership, the organization says it’s able to throw substantial financial support behind issues and candidates in order to promote the state’s economic health.

Earlier this year, Richardson said the organization would advocate aggressively for the state’s oil and natural gas industry; work to overhaul construction-defects laws; and help start a discussion about reforming the state’s ballot initiative process to “protect our state constitution from continuing to become a cluttered virtual coatrack of competing, and occasionally contradictory, policy preferences.”

Since 2012, Kopp has been the Republican National Committeeman from Colorado. He is currently manager of corporate affairs for Intermountain Rural Electric Association.

In the wake of a divisive primary in 2006, Kopp was first elected to represent Senate District 22 in southern Jefferson County. He won a second term in 2010 but stepped down the next year following the death of his wife, Kimberly.

Kopp ran for governor last year, placing fourth in a crowded Republican primary behind former U.S. Reps. Bob Beauprez and Tom Tancredo and then-Secretary of State Scott Gessler. Beauprez lost to incumbent John Hickenlooper in November.

Born in South Dakota, Kopp enlisted in the Army, graduated from Ranger School and served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. He was deployed in Honduras and in the Gulf War. Kopp worked as a hot-shot firefighter for the National Park Service and obtained an undergraduate degree in ministry from North Central University in Minneapolis. Kopp received a master’s in public administration from the University of Colorado-Denver. He and his wife, Shannon, live in Ken Caryl with their children Meghan, Ethan, Allie and Soren.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com

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