OLLI@DU / 2023 FALL / MEET OUR FACILITATORS

Phil NelsonPhil Nelson has been offering OLLI courses on climate change and the energy transition since 2017. Currently he offers OLLI three courses: (1) Living in the Energy Transition, (2) How Bad Is It, Really? and (3) The Ministry for the Future—A Climate Change Adventure. Phil is a member of the Golden Chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, offers presentations to civic organizations, and hosts a weekly zoom call on the energy transition. He holds B.S. and PhD degrees from MIT and is retired from a career in mineral and oil and gas exploration.

Sarah NicholsSarah is a term faculty member in the Visual Arts Program, teaching art history and art appreciation. She holds a BA in art history from the University of Northern Iowa and an MA in art history from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has taught art history for CU Boulder, CU Denver, Naropa University, the Colorado Community College System, and Regis. As a social art historian, she is drawn to a diverse range of topics in the field of art history and visual culture that are bound together by common themes. These themes include politics, power, cultural interaction, identity, and shifting in the “canon” of art history. Her primary field of research is late Roman art history and numismatics (the study of coins), which she finds to be a fertile ground for the exploration of the use of the image as a vehicle for political rhetoric and indications of cultural interaction. Her most recent research focuses on how cultural perceptions of classical (Greek and Roman) have shifted over time and have informed the history of art and the trajectory of popular culture.

Maryann O’Brien-

Maryann O’Brien has a BA in Latin, an MA in English, is a Lifetime Member of The Jane Austen Society and an OLLI facilitator. She is a life-long learner herself and enjoys nothing more than great discussions with great minds.

Eileen O’Brien-

Eileen O’Brien has been a teacher her entire working life, and for the last 30 years has taught older adult students at Regis University. She holds an MA in counseling with a Special Certificate in Spirituality. In addition to teaching, Eileen has served as university minister leading retreats which explore diverse spiritual traditions.

Terry OrtliebTerry Ortlieb is a retired entrepreneur who sold his technology consulting company to Oracle. He has been working with information technology since he put engineering changes on IBM equipment in high school. His formal education was in Philosophy and he has maintained a strong interest in Political Philosophy and the Philosophy of science and history. He has facilitated and co-facilitated over 25 classes on Harari and numerous classes on AI.

Paul PaivaPaul Paiva, MDiv, MA, works with couples to harmonize differences in communication and intimacy styles. He is a sex educator, couples’ counselor, and certified intimacy and sex coach who teaches the Erotic Blueprints™ to singles and couples who want to ignite their passion. He uses the Enneagram, somatic testing for intimacy style, and a traumainformed style of counseling & coaching. His clients range from having atheist, spiritual, or Christian beliefs. Yet they all struggle with intimacy. Paul was on the board of directors of Enneagram Colorado for nine years, and is a former president of the organization. A former Roman Catholic priest, he is a vocal feminist who espouses and blogs about an egalitarian, LGBTQ-embracing, and sex-positive Christianity. He also does pre-marital counseling and has officiated over 80 heartfelt and entertaining wedding ceremonies. CoCreativeIntimacy.com, CoCreativeEnneagram.com.

Patricia Paul-

Patricia Paul is a retired American studies teacher, has enjoyed facilitating OLLI classes for 14 years. Since living and teaching in Papua New Guinea, she has been interested in civil rights and social justice. Lately, she has concentrated her OLLI classes on fiction and nonfiction by Black authors.

Mark Payler-

Mark A. Payler is a practicing Colorado landscape, street, and travel photographer. With over a four and a half decades of photography teaching experience, Mark’s work has also been highlighted in the landmark book, “A Day in the Life of America” as well as the featured double-spread photograph in the 50th anniversary issue of “Popular Photography” magazine. Mark’s Route 66 travel photography was also presented in a feature portfolio-style spread in “Route” Magazine.

Miriam Pemberton-

Miriam Pemberton has studied the U.S. military economy and economic conversion for decades, first as Director of the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament and then as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), in Washington, D.C. At IPS she was the co-head of a task force that produced the annual “Unified Security Budget of the United State” and headed up the team that produced three successive versions of “Military vs Climate Security: The Budgets Compared.” She holds a PhD from the University of Michigan.

Greg Petty-

Greg Petty has co-facilitated 12 movie courses with Larry Matten on eight different topics. He particularly enjoys class discussions and getting to know members of the class. His career was spent leading a not-for-profit organization and in various administrative positions in colleges and universities in Illinois and Colorado.

Arlene Pickett-

Arlene Pickett has been attending OLLI since the fall of 2010. In her working life, she was a tax accountant with a master’s degree in the law of taxation from the University of Denver law school. She escaped the mental torture of that demanding career by using her spare time for movies, reading and music. When the VCR came along, followed by DVD’s and now streaming services, she has been able to indulge her love of film, watching films that intrigue her over and over and doing her best to dissect what makes a film memorable. She enjoys sharing her love of film and her intrigue in film technique.

Marcus PohlmannProfessor Marcus D. Pohlmann did his undergraduate work at Cornell College and his graduate work at Columbia University. He taught at Bates College, Rhodes College, Denver University, Colorado State University, and was the first political scientist to teach in the Soviet Union as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer. He was at Rhodes from 1986 to 2018 where he chaired the Department of Political Science for more than half of those years. He currently teaches courses on U.S. Politics, Black Political Thought, Urban Education Policy, and Constitutional Law: Civil Rights and Liberties. He is the only Rhodes faculty member ever to win all three of the school’s top annual awards: the Clarence Day Award for teaching, the Jameson Jones Award for service, and the Clarence Day Award for scholarship. He was also a two-time winner of the Rhodes Student Government’s “Outstanding Faculty Member Award.” His writing has appeared in Political Science Quarterly, The Journal of Politics, and New Political Science, as well as other professional publications. He is the author of several books including Opportunity Lost: Race and Poverty in the Memphis City Schools (2 editions) and Black Politics in Conservative America (4 editions). He also has given expert testimony on racial voting patterns in Memphis and served as a consultant for the Memphis City School Board.

Leanne Puglielli-

Leanne Puglielli is a retired Professional and Organizational Design and Development expert. Her primary area of interest was, and still is, leadership skills and organizational systems focused on developing people to reach their full potential as she consulted primarily with State agencies. She taught in Schools of Management at Edgewood College, Capital University and the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University in addition to serving as regular faculty for the Ohio and Nevada Certified Public Manager Programs and the MAPS program at Ohio State.

She taught JustFaith – a 30-week course on the justice tradition of scripture. She became an active member of Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church (Black congregation) for 8 years, working closely with The Hon. Everett Mitchell on racial disparities in Madison, Wisconsin and created “The Evolution of Systemic Racism” which she has taught for the past six years.

Dr. Puglielli has a B.A. from Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, an M.A. from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

Dan Putnam-

Dan Putman is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy. He received his B.A. from Marquette University, his M.A. from the University of Wisconsin –Madison, and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. Dan taught Philosophy for 37 years at the University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley, a freshman-sophomore branch of the UW. (Since his retirement in 2011 UW-Fox Valley has become part of UW-Oshkosh.) Dan has published over 40 articles in Philosophy. He and his wife Elaine have two children, one in New York City and the other in Boulder. Dan started teaching OLLI courses in winter for OLLI-UA in Green Valley, Arizona in 2013. In 2014 he and Elaine moved from Wisconsin to Colorado to be near the grandchildren. He has facilitated courses for OLLI-DU since 2015.

Patricia Raybon-

Patricia Raybon is a Christy Award-winning Colorado author, essayist, and novelist who writes daring and exciting books and novels at the intersection of faith and race. Double the Lies, the sequel to her “thrilling,” “captivating” 1920s mystery All That Is Secret, is available now.

Dick ReinishDick Reinish,OLLI Platinum Facilitator, is a former antitrust attorney. He and his wife Barbara moved from Chicago in 2001.

Yi Ren-

Yi Ren has been teaching Mandarin Chinese language and culture for American students and adults over 25 years. She also wrote four learning Mandarin Chinese books that were published by Tuttle Publishing and have been marketed on Amazon.com since 2012. Yi Ren taught Mandarin Chinese for OLLI in 2019 and 2020.

Myra Rich-

Myra Rich grew up in Detroit, received her B.A. from Radcliffe College and her PhD in History from Yale University. She taught at Hunter College and then, after moving to Denver, at the University of Colorado-Denver. Her primary interest is early American History but she also teaches the history of women in America and the history of immigration to the United States.

Marilyn Rifkin-

Marilyn Rifkin graduated from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She worked as a Head Nurse in the New York City Hospital System, as well as the private Montefiore Hospital in the areas of ICU, Male Surgery and Public Health. She also worked for Weight Watchers for 15 years. She is an avid Bridge and Mahjongg player and loves spending time with her grandkids.

Marc Rochkind-

Marc Rochkind is a retired software developer and entrepreneur; he worked at Bell Labs starting in 1970, and since then as an entrepreneur, consultant, and author. He has five published computer books and two self-published novels. He has taught professional seminars, computer science courses at CU Boulder, and five OLLI courses (How Computers Work; Issues in Technology; Introduction to 3D Printing; co-facilitated with Al: Understanding the World’s Greatest Structures; Robots: How They Work and What They Do; Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons they Teach).

Rick RokoszRick Rokosz resides in Cottonwood, AZ. He is the president/owner of Peak Performance Group, an award-winning faculty member with Regis University, an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) facilitator in AZ & CO, a member of Alpha Sigma Nu (the Jesuit honor society), retired Certified SCORE mentor, authorized trainer of the TRACOM Group, award winning author, and a decorated Vietnam Veteran.

Leonard Sahling-

Leonard Sahling received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan and has worked for 50 years as a professional economist in a variety of capacities. His first job was at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he worked for 14 years. Among his responsibilities were to brief the President of the FRBNY prior to Open Market Committee Meetings. He spent three years at Fannie Mae, the housing mortgage goliath, in Washington DC. Next, Leonard worked for 25 years as a real estate economist, first at Merrill Lynch in its equity research department writing about commercial real estate markets and Real Estate Investment Trusts; and then at ProLogis, a developer, owner, investor, and Real Estate Investment Trust in Denver. He closed out his career creating an economic research department at CoBank, one of the bulwarks of the Farm Credit System. He remains keenly interested in public policy issues.

David SavitzDavid Savitz is an attorney from Golden, Colorado, who graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1965 with a degree in psychology. He obtained his Juris Doctorate from the University of Colorado School of Law at Boulder in 1968. His practice has emphasized the criminal defense of felony offenses and civil medical-malpractice cases, particularly in mental health. He served as a board member for 25 years of the Kempe Children’s Foundation (www.kempe.org) located at Anschutz Medical Campus during which time he gave scores of presentations throughout Colorado on the issues of child abuse and neglect. His newest book Just in the Nick of Time, which chronicles the Colorado case of a 19-year-old who murdered his parents, has been published by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and is available through www.RossCarlsonTrial.com or the NACDL or Amazon websites.

Megan Schulz-

Megan Schulz is the Adult Programs Coordinator at Butterfly Pavilion, with a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Colorado State University and in pursuit of a master’s degree in the Arts of Biology through Miami University’s Project Dragonfly. Megan is known as the “bug lady” and is dedicated to exploring the relationships between all living and non-living entities and promoting their conservation for future generations. She looks forward to engaging in a collective learning experience with all.

Betsy Schwarm-

Classical radio host — music professor — preperformance speaker — author of ten full-length books on classical music: Betsy Schwarm has been part of the Denver area arts community for some years. A frequent OLLI instructor, she takes a user-friendly approach to her music classes: no music reading required, just an active interest in how great music came to be and how we, as listeners, can get the most out of our listening experiences.

Al Segal-

Al Segal has degrees in Computer Science from University of Michigan. He has 38 years of experience in computer science and telecommunications software engineering at: Cray Research, NBI, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Intrado, Avaya, and Polycom. During his career, he frequently developed and delivered technical training on many topics. Since retiring, he teaches pottery at the Studio Arts Boulder Pottery Lab and has facilitated and co-facilitated four classes (Artificial Intelligence for Beginners; Introduction to Arduino Programming and Physical Computing; co-facilitated: Understanding the World’s Greatest Structures; Robots: How They Work and What They Do; Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons they Teach).

Bill ShawDr. Bill Shaw earned his MD degree from New York University in 1971 and got further postgraduate training in Internal Medicine, Infectious Disease, Public Health, and Occupational/Environmental Medicine at the Universities of Wisconsin — Madison, Washington — Seattle, and Texas — Houston. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Preventive/Occupational Medicine. Bill served in the United States Air Force and has functioned as Medical Director for a University of Washington clinic for the homeless, Medical Advisor to the King County (Seattle) Emergency Medical Services Division, Co-Director of the Nurse Practitioner training program at Seattle Pacific University, and as Gulf Coast Regional Medical Director for ARCO Chemical Company. He was Director of Occupational Health Services at The Billings (Montana) Clinic and had his own private practice of Occupational Medicine in Denver. He has been on the clinical faculties of the University of Washington and University of Colorado.

Sharon Sherman-

Sharon Sherman has trained and consulted for thousands on various platforms with over 30 years in the technology sector; she is CompTia certified, an Excel expert, with an MBA/ MIS focus. She currently troubleshoots, repairs, and solves technology problems. Her work with mobile technology includes both iPhones and Androids and experience with multiple carriers. She loves her geek life.

Thomas ShugrueThomas Shugrue has taught adult learners for the past fifteen years at Regis in courses on Religious Studies, Humanities, and Capstone. Prior to his work at Regis, he was a parish director and religious studies director. His education includes a MA from St. Thomas Seminary, a MA in Multimedia, and a Colorado Teacher’s License. He enjoys teaching adult learners, traveling, painting, and spending time with his family.

Jim Sieke-

Jim Sieke grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in Speech-Communication and a minor in Broadcasting. After spending 3 years working in television advertising in New York and Chicago, he came to KMGH-TV Channel 7 in Denver where he worked for 34 years in sales and sales management. Jim joined OLLI after retiring and has facilitated Comedy Appreciation numerous times as well as classes on The Great Silent Film Comedians and Science Tours in the Denver-Boulder area.

Paul Simon-

Paul Simon is a retired journalist and manager who worked many years for the Associated Press as well as the Denver Post. He is a Master Facilitator and has held several management positions for OLLI at DU, including site manager. He continues to work for OLLI as the manager for OLLI on the Move and as Community Outreach Manager. He has facilitated and co-facilitated a number of OLLI at DU interactive courses.

Patricia SmilanicAfter completing her terminal degree in 19th-century American Literature, Patricia Smilanic found herself very much unemployed, and then, woefully underemployed. She eventually secured employment in the financial industry, where she was modestly successful in each role she assumed. Upon retiring, she returned to her passions. OLLI allows her numerous opportunities to engage her grey matter and explore new areas of interest. As a facilitator, she learns from her participants and thoroughly enjoys preparing courses.

Douglas Sparks-

Douglas Sparks, PhD, has extensive teaching experience in graduate school, five years teaching in an MBA program and providing many presentations in an international business career in Francophone Africa, China, Canada and France working as an executive and technology professional. His research in Cultural Anthropology for his PhD focused on traditional Chinese religious practice. He has facilitated Introduction to Kabbalah and the Mythology of Judaism in OLLI classes, and he continued his studies through courses taken at CU Boulder in Jewish and Religious Studies and with numerous Rabbis and educators. Current interests focus on the mythology of Judaism, Second Temple Judaism, noncanonical literature in the latter, and Kabbalah. Although he has studied intensively, he is not an expert in these subjects.