Steve Warnecke, a veteran Colorado business executive, says he is trying to secure an ambassadorship position with the Trump administration.

And to help in the effort, he has enlisted controversial Washington lobbyist and activist Jack Burkman, who was linked to a scheme to falsely accuse a presidential candidate of sexual assault.

Warnecke is chief executive of Castle Rock-based biotech company Evolutionary Genomics Inc., board chairman of Fort Collins-based animal-health-technology firm VetDC Inc. and is on the board of the Colorado BioScience Association, a trade group. 

Warnecke is a registered Republican but he made campaign contributions to the re-election bid of Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2014. More recently, he donated to the state House campaign of Paul Jones, an unaffiliated candidate who ran against Democratic Rep. Barbara McLachlan of Durango in 2018. 

A search of the Federal Election Commission’s contributor database did not find any contributions from Warnecke to any federal candidates.

Warnecke told Colorado Politics that he supported Hickenlooper for personal rather than political reasons. “He had been kind to me and my family,” including a son, Bryan, with cystic fibrosis, the businessman said.

Hickenlooper helped connect Bryan with the Colorado band OneRepublic, and that turned into “I Lived,” a top 20-hit song recorded in 2014 and which features Bryan.

While he may agree on a few philosophies with Hickenlooper, Warnecke said he is a strong supporter of President Donald Trump.

“I’m a big believer in President Trump,” Warnecke said. “He’s doing a great job in increasing our standing in the world.”

Warnecke believes his background in business fits in well with the president’s philosophies.

“When I look at President Trump and the people he surrounds himself with, he uses a lot of business people,” Wernecke said. “I’ve got 40 years in business, I’ve worked with many different teams to make things happen. That’s a background that will serve him well in the role of ambassador.

That background, now some 40 years long, has included a stint as chief financial officer at Frontier Airlines, and more recently, starting up companies in the medical and agricultural industries.

One company, CereScan, developed a technology for brain imagery and diagnostics. Another, VetDC, developed the first FDA-approved cancer drug for dogs.

Evolutionary Genomics, according to its website, conducts research and development into the “identification and validation of genes that impact commercially valuable traits in crops for the agriculture industry.” The company operates a lab in Longmont.

Warnecke also has experience in the nonprofit world, working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and as a trustee on the board of the Children’s Hospital Foundation and with the Cystic Fibrosis Society.

As to an ambassadorship, Warnecke said he’s like to be in Europe, where he believes he can make a difference. “I’m not sure I would have done this in any other administration,” he said. “I love the environment Trump has created, and that’s the environment I’d like to work in.”

Warnecke confirmed to Colorado Politics that he has enlisted lobbyist Burkman in his push to land an ambassadorship, as first reported by Daily Beast.

Previous Daily Beast reports linked Burkman to a failed attempt to falsely accuse Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg of a sexual assault in an attempt to damage Buttigieg’s candidacy.

The alleged victim later said the assault never happened and that he had been “duped” by Burkman and another conservative activist, Jacob Wohl, NBC News reported.

Last November, Burkman and Wohl falsely accused then-special counsel Robert Mueller of sexual misconduct, but offered no evidence and failed to produce an alleged victim.

A Washington Post piece on Burkman and Wohl says Burkman, while “claiming he seeks to hurt Trump’s Democratic opponents, … has also hinted that he might mount a primary challenge against Trump over his dissatisfaction with the president’s progress on building a border wall.”

The Post says Burkman, during the 2016 campaign, “took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Daily News condemning Trump, then later scheduled a fundraiser for the likely GOP nominee.”

In 2014, Burkman was involved in a group called American Decency that opposed the decision by the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys to sign an openly gay player, Michael Sam, to its practice squad. Burkman also proposed a bill that would have banned gay players from the league.

Warnecke told Colorado Politics that he was aware of Burkman’s background.

He said he’s known Burkman for about five or six years, and it was actually Burkman’s suggestion that Warnecke pursue an ambassadorship as he began thinking about what he wanted to do next.

“It’s a perfect place to the use my business experience and do some good,” Warnecke said.

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