Please join us on Monday April 3rd for a presentation by the Hon. Tonya VanBeber and the Hon. Tina Francone regarding the fragility of our nation’s electrical grid. This will be held at Cotyote’s Southwestern Grill, 5250 W. 9th St. Dr. in Greeley starting at 5:30 pm.
Speakers:
Hon. Tonya Van Beber
Tonya is a former (Colorado) General Assembly member of the House of Representatives for northern Colorado (House District 48), elected Weld County Council President, publisher, multi-business owner, educator, and community volunteer. She is a National Council of State Legislature Child Welfare Fellow and nominee to The Energy Security Council (Rocky Mountain Region of the US and Canada). Additionally, she serves on the Foster Source Board of Directors in the state of Colorado. Tonya has provided professional expertise to the Grid Down Power Up Energy Security Council and the EMP Task Force.
With degrees in Social Sciences and Psychology and an M. Ed. in Leadership with a principal’s licensure, Tonya has run large educational processes and served in leadership for school districts for over 20 years. Additionally, she has owned several business systems in her community such as marketing, publishing, excavating, property ownership and rentals and educational consulting and professional development. The elected positions required budgeting appropriation for the state of Colorado with a budget of $38 billion where she developed policy, provided cost analysis, and gave professional input on other legislation as both a stakeholder, committee member and constituent. She ran and passed over a dozen pieces of legislation in the child welfare, energy, medical, tax reduction, education, agriculture, and mental health arenas.
Tonya applies her background over the last 30 years to educate the general populace, including business and community groups about the legislative process, government relations, successful issues campaigning and the legalities of local, state, and federal intersection when it comes to statute. Most importantly, she is focusing on the fragility, reliability and resiliency issues concerning the nation’s infrastructure of electricity, water, wastewater, communications, oil and gas and transportation and the necessity of emergency planning and hardening these systems against all-hazard threats for public safety needs here in the United States.
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Hon. Tina Francone
Mrs. Francone is a former (Colorado) Jefferson County Commissioner and a former RTD Director. Both elected offices required the development, oversight, and implementation of budgets in excess of $1B. In addition, policy development, implementation and careful monitoring of local, state and federal legislation was important. As an elected official, Tina served on the Chatfield Watershed Authority where she expanded her knowledge of water and water infrastructure and broadened her knowledge and ability to identify critical policy issues affecting water quality, delivery, and infrastructure.
Currently, Tina owns multiple small businesses – Straightforward Shooting, a firearms training business, and Straightforward Communication, which offers professional consultancy in government affairs.
Tina is a member of the Electromagnetic Pulse Task Force (Colorado) and serves as its Grant Advisor. She also serves as Treasurer for the Westminster Chamber of Commerce and is a Policy Fellow (local government and infrastructure) at Centennial Institute. Tina is a frequent voice on Colorado radio and a sought-after commentator and nationally syndicated writer on local politics, transportation, water infrastructure, firearms training and shooting.
Tina uses her vast life experience in government relations, community affairs, grassroots political campaigning and lobbying to construct a robust marketing and public education campaign to highlight the urgency and severity of an EMP event.
