Meet Ed Steinbrecher

Ed Steinbrecher has devoted most of his adult life toward improving education in Colorado. He was born in Colorado but raised in Wisconsin where he began his education career following active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps. He returned to Colorado in 1966. He earned a B.S. and M.S. degree from University of Wisconsin and was awarded an Ed.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Ed’s curriculum vitae reads like a Who’s Who in the field of Education. His professional positions include a background in teaching, curriculum supervision, Director of Research for the Colorado Association of School Boards, and Deputy Commissioner of Education for the State of Colorado. He is well known across Colorado and throughout the nation for his work in school finance.

As Deputy Commissioner of Education he served on many national task forces and panels in special education, vocational education and finance. He served two terms on the Board of Directors and is a past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy and from 2002-2007 was the Executive Director of the Association. On retiring, he was named Executive Director Emeritus of the Association. He also served four terms on the national board of directors of the Study Commission of the Chief State School Officers, including two terms as president.

Following his work with the State, he has been the Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Services right here in Jefferson County, Colorado’s largest school district and also Superintendent of the Platte Canyon School District. Ed spent a number of years as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver, and eventually was appointed a full-time professor and Director of Administrator Preparation Programs and Chair of the Department of Administration and Policy Studies at the University of Denver. His teaching areas included education, finance, education law and education policy.

Following retirement from the University of Denver, he has done consulting work with Colorado School Districts, The State of Colorado and the Ministry of Education in South Africa.

Ed has also volunteered his keen intellect, organizational acumen and cheerful, optimistic disposition to a number of volunteer activities in our mountain community. He has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Mountain Resource Center and is currently on the Board of Directors of Mount Evans Home Health and Hospice where he is serving his fifth term. He served as president of this organization from 1996-1997.

When asked why he has had such devotion to Mt.Evans, he explained that he accompanied the caregivers of Mt Evans on a number of home visits and marveled at their professional skill and dedication. He believes that they offer a unique service to our community under often difficult circumstances, and he feels a strong commitment to support them in any way he can.

And in keeping with Ed’s style, he does support Mt. Evans in a variety of ways. When you read all his credentials, you may get a picture of him as distinguished, sophisticated and professorial; but that’s only one side of Ed. He’s also an “in the trenches” kind of guy. He not only offers his years of wisdom about finances to the board, he also does a lot of the maintenance work required at the Mt. Evans office. He volunteers every year for the Mt. Evans Freedom Run, and his traditional responsibility is in the parking lot of the event, directing traffic and parking cars.  He helps at the 9Health Fair wearing a white coat and running blood vials through a centrifuge before they are sent to the lab.

Ed is a member of Conifer Rotary and is currently serving as Chair of the Conifer Foundation, the organization that determines which nonprofits this active club will donate to each year. Ed was named Rotarian of the Year for the Conifer Rotary in 2003-2004.

For years, Ed has served as Chair of the Conifer Rotary Literacy Committee and spearheaded a dedicated effort to support literacy in mountain area schools. This committee has provided dictionaries and thesauruses to four different public schools in the mountain area and offered a Read to Me Program for students. Currently, the committee is embarking on a new literacy project called “E-Reader,” which involves donating electronic reading equipment to mountain area schools. Ed is passionate about this new project because he believes that pairing an opportunity to use modern electronic equipment with improving reading will motivate many students who otherwise would not be as interested in enhancing reading skills.

While living in Boulder, Ed met his wife Mary and moved to Evergreen in 1988 while she was a math teacher at Evergreen Middle School. Ed and Mary live in Evergreen Meadows and have two grown children who live in Boulder.