Officers and Board

Society of Professional Journalists Colorado Pro officers and board members work on behalf of the chapter’s members to improve and protect journalism in Colorado. They plan events, write advocacy letters, coordinate award programs, work with colleges and universities and much more.  

Officers

President Deb Hurley Brobst (term ends 2026) 

Deb Hurley Brobst is a semi-retired editor and reporter, currently freelancing for the Ouray County Plaindealer. In December 2023, she retired from Colorado Community Media, where she worked for 15 years as a reporter and editor. Before coming to CCM, she spent two decades as a journalism professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and prior to that, she worked at newspapers in Wisconsin. She has been an SPJ member for more than 45 years and has served in different capacities on the SPJ Colorado Pro board over the last 35 years. She also served on the SPJ national board from 1991 to 1996 and from 2004 to 2008. In addition to being the Colorado Pro chapter’s co-president, she’s the coordinator for the Top of the Rockies Excellence in Journalism contest and is the elections chair. 

Secretary Beth Potter (term ends 2026) 

Beth Potter works at BizWest Media, a locally owned business publication that covers the Front Range of northern Colorado. She has a doctorate in media research and practice from the University of Colorado Boulder and has worked for about 30 years as a publisher, editor and reporter in local, national and international newsrooms both domestically and overseas. She traveled the country in 2023 as the U.S. leader of the Journalism Trust Initiative, a nonprofit group formed under the auspices of Reporters Without Borders, based in France. JTI, funded by Craig Newmark, tries to help journalists connect more with audiences. She also previously served on the Society of Professional Journalists national ethics committee. Potter and her husband live in Longmont with their dog Mollie.

Treasurer Dennis Huspeni (term ends 2027)

Dennis Huspeni is city editor of the Denver Gazette and formerly covered business for the digital newspaper. He brings more than 30 years of journalism experience to the Colorado Pro Chapter board, mostly from newspapers like The Denver Post, Colorado Springs Gazette, Denver Business Journal and now the Denver Gazette. He also worked in public relations and media relations at Fidelity Investments. Huspeni was president of the SPJ Colorado Pro Chapter from 2012 to 2014, and is a Denver Press Club member. A Colorado native, Huspeni resides in Parker with his wife, Clare, and sheltie Finlay.  

Immediate Past President Doug Bell (term ends 2027)

Doug Bell, retired from a 40-year career in journalism and 30 years as a college instructor, serves as the education chair with the Colorado Pro Chapter of SPJ. Bell also chairs the ethics/media literacy committee for the Colorado Press Association. Bell has been presented SPJ’s First Amendment Award, as well as the Keeper of the Flame honor for career achievement. As an SPJ board member, Bell concentrates on networking with the state’s journalism schools and mentoring student journalists who are entering the job market. He also has been a guest speaker at high school and college classes, and coordinates the chapter’s annual scholarships. In his spare time, Bell plays ice hockey and tennis, and volunteers at BookGive, a nonprofit that re-homes gently used books to locations and organizations in need. He lives in Denver with his wife, Christa, a communications specialist with the University Center for Atmospheric Research. 

President-Elect (vacant) 

Board Members

Marco Cummings (term ends 2027)

Marco Cummings is a digital strategist at The Denver Post, which he joined in August 2025, and previously was a digital producer at the Denver Gazette. He’s been a resident of Denver since 1987 and resides in Denver’s University Park neighborhood. He attended George Washington High School in Denver before double majoring in journalism studies and French language at the University of Denver. He has worked in newspapers since 2010, first as one-man sports department at the Valley Courier in Alamosa. Publications he has written for include Mile High Sports Magazine, 5280 Magazine, The Dallas Morning News and The Chicago Tribune. He primarily covered sports for over a decade, but as a digital producer, he covers a variety of topics, including crime, courts, the food and beverage industries, as well as business and finance. In addition to SPJ, he is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association. 

Michael de Yoanna (term ends 2027)

Michael de Yoanna is managing editor of the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration among local public media newsrooms in seven states and NPR. He brings more than 25 years of journalism experience to the SPJ Colorado Pro Chapter. He has previously served as editor-in-chief of two dozen hyperlocal newspapers in the cities and towns that surround Denver (Colorado Community Media) and as news director for KUNC public radio in Northern Colorado. He also worked for many years as an investigative reporter and producer with regional news organizations (Colorado Public Radio, 7News, the Colorado Springs Independent and the Fort Collins Coloradoan) and as a freelancer for Reveal, CBS News programs, and 5280 magazine in Denver. He worked the military and veterans beat for many years and directed the independent documentary “Recovering” about troops healing war wounds through bicycling. He has received more than three dozen awards, including a duPont-Columbia silver baton, five regional and two national Edward R. Murrow awards and a national Sigma Delta Chi (SPJ) award for best investigation. 

Thelma Grimes (term ends 2027)

Thelma Grimes is a seasoned editor and journalist with 25 years of experience leading newsrooms, creating impactful content and fostering strong community connections through storytelling. Currently she is deputy editor of Colorado Politics, and before that she was south metro editor and reporter for Colorado Community Media. Previously she was an editor and reporter for news outlets in Southern Arizona. She has received multiple awards from SPJ, the Arizona Press Club and the Arizona Newspaper Association.

Isabel Guzman (term ends 2026) 

Isabel Guzman is a reporter for Colorado Community Media, where she covers city councils, crime, local nonprofits and community events. Originating from a small town in Nebraska, she is a graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media production and completed an undergraduate thesis on media coverage of Latinas in the United States. During her time as editor-in-chief of The Metropolitan, the university’s student newspaper, Guzman received several SPJ Mark of Excellence awards for investigative and protest coverage. Outside of reporting, she can be found painting, baking, walking her 13-year-old cattle dog or feeding her pet tortoise.

Mark Harden (term ends 2026)

Mark Harden has been an editor, writer and digital news manager in Colorado since 1993, following 12 years with daily newspapers in California and Washington. He was editor-in-chief of Colorado Community Media’s 24 newspapers, managing editor of Colorado Politics, news director and digital editor of the Denver Business Journal, and city editor and online news editor at The Denver Post. As a reporter he has covered breaking news, politics, business, health, science, the environment, education, media and the arts. Recently he has been a contributing reporter, editor, opinion columnist and photographer for The Post, the Colorado Sun, Rocky Mountain PBS, Front Porch and other outlets. Currently he is a writer for the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine and the CU Cancer Center. In addition to numerous SPJ Top of the Rockies and Colorado Press Association awards for editing and reporting, he has won SABEW’s national Best in Business award for breaking news reporting, the national AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, the American Eagle Award from American City Business Journals, and the Morton Margolin Prize from the University of Denver for business reporting. And he was the lead singer for The Denver Post’s house rock band, the Corrections. His wife, Linda Kotsaftis, is editor of the Front Porch newspaper in Denver and Aurora.

Corey Hutchins (term ends 2026) 

Corey Hutchins is the co-director of the Journalism Institute at Colorado College where he teaches and maintains the database for the Colorado News Mapping Project, an initiative that seeks to help Coloradans find and learn more about existing sources of local news and information. Colorado Media Project, where he is an advisor, underwrites his weekly “Inside the News in Colorado” newsletter, which reports on, comments on, and analyzes the goings-on in Colorado’s media scene, connecting local developments to what’s happening nationally and exploring what makes the state’s local news ecosystem unique. For nearly a decade he has reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review and is a member of The Washington Post’s Talent Network. As a former alt-weekly reporter in the Palmetto State he was twice named South Carolina’s Journalist of the Year. His work has appeared on the cover of The Nation, and in The Washington Post, Slate, The Daily Beast, and Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, among other outlets. He authored the chapter on media in the book “American Decades: 2010-2019,” published by Gale, and wrote the entry on public funding for SAGE’s “Encyclopedia of Journalism,” 2nd edition. He frequently appears in state and national media as a commentator about the future of local news. 

Michael Karlik (term ends 2027)

Michael Karlik is the judicial reporter for Colorado Politics and The Denver Gazette. He primarily covers the work of Colorado’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, as well as the roughly three dozen federal judges for the U.S. District Court and 10th Circuit, which are headquartered in Denver. Prior to that, he produced the investigative podcast “Tear It Down” and was the host of “City Council Chronicles,” a lighthearted podcast about city council meetings worldwide. Michael lives in Denver and is the caretaker/hostage of a 26-year-old cockatoo named Phoebe.

Kara Mason (term ends 2026) 

Kara Mason has rejoined the SPJ Colorado Pro board and previously served as Colorado Pro president. She is a Colorado-based writer and editor who was born and raised in Pueblo, where her journalism career started at PULP newsmagazine. Her writing about health, law, art, and local government has appeared in publications across the state and the country. Her journalism bylines currently appear in Southwest Contemporary, a Santa Fe-based arts magazine, and Front Porch, a hyper local newspaper covering northeast Denver and northwest Aurora. She previously served as the managing editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Kara first joined SPJ as a college student in 2014. When she’s not on deadline, she’s an avid magazine reader, recipe-attempter, and interior design enthusiast. 

SPJ Region 9 Coordinator McKenzie Romero

McKenzie Romero is the editor of Utah News Dispatch, the newest outlet in the States Newsroom network. She started her career in Utah journalism when she was 15 years old writing for the Standard-Examiner’s teen section. After studying journalism and Spanish at Southern Utah University, she went on to more than a decade as a reporter and editor at Deseret News in Salt Lake City where she covered courts, crime and community, and led a team of award-winning journalists. A longtime member of SPJ, she is a board member for the Utah Headliners Chapter. She is a passionate advocate for open meetings and records, ethical reporting and the future of journalism. 

Past SPJ Colorado Pro Chapter Presidents 

  • Doug Bell 
  • Nina Bondarook 
  • Deb Hurley Brobst 
  • Fred Brown 
  • Cara DeGette 
  • Marge Easton 
  • John C. Ensslin 
  • Tony Flesor 
  • Sandra Fish 
  • Dennis Huspeni 
  • Kara Mason 
  • Joe McGowan 
  • Ed Otte 
  • Kristina Pritchett 
  • Noelle Riley
  • Paul Simon