"The endless number of cases I tackled taught me to ask the right questions instead of search for the right answers." - Helen Mitchell '06
Alex Cranberg
Take one Chicken Little. Throw in six Grinches. Mix with an outspoken oil and gas man. Look out, status quo. Alex Cranberg, founder and president of Aspect Resources, LLC, loves to ruffle feathers in support of his beliefs.
Cranberg, the son of a top physicist and second grade teacher, has a bit of the mad scientist about him. He's a maverick, able to throw out 99 crazy ideas before landing on one that's absolutely brilliant. He's willing to take a risk. He's not one to sit idly by, allowing others to make his decisions for him. In 2005, Denver, Cranberg's hometown, hosted a conference on "peak oil," the theory that predicts the supply of petroleum will soon start to fall. Cranberg disagreed. To get his message across he positioned a person in a Chicken Little costume outside the conference, handing out a letter he wrote arguing against peak oil. That sky, he believes, is not falling.
Then there were the Grinches. Six of them. Cranberg became a staunch
supporter of school choice when he and his wife Susan began investigating
elementary schools for their daughters. "Education is the area where
we have the greatest contrast between our aspirations and our reality.
Our aspirations are to have every child reach his or her full potential.
But the contrast between what we want and what is true...there's so
much room for improvement." Cranberg co-founded and chairs the Equal
Educational Opportunity Foundation, an organization committed to leveling
the educational playing field through school choice, voucher programs,
and scholarships. In 2003, the organization sent six costumed Grinches
to protest outside the Colorado teacher union building after the Colorado
Education Association filed suit against the new state voucher program.
The Grinch Patrol pointed out that the teacher union was stealing educational
opportunities from children.
Cranberg backs up his beliefs with actions. He has promised to send
550 middle school students to college if they graduate from high school.
"The forces of the status quo," he said, "have not earned
a right to be a monopoly." Lord Acton couldn't have said it
better himself.
