Presenters for
Military Matters: Defense, Development, & Dissent
in the Pikes Peak Region
Sat., June 6, 2015
East Library
5550 N. Union Blvd.
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
click here to make reservations for this free event
Michael L. Olsen is a professor emeritus at New Mexico Highlands University, where he taught a variety of American history courses from 1973–2002. From 2003–2007 he taught full time at Pikes Peak Community College, Colorado Springs, Colorado. He holds the BA from St. Olaf College and the MA and PhD from the University of Washington. Dr. Olsen has long had a connection with the Santa Fe Trail and the Santa Fe Trail Association. He has published extensively on Trail history, particularly regarding social aspects and multi-cultural issues. Dr. Olsen has often participated in the production of the Pikes Peak Regional History Symposia and publications as a researcher/presenter/moderator and as author and guest editor.
Susan Fletcher is the historian and archivist for The Navigators. Fletcher received her MA in public history from Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. She is the coauthor of the book Dawson Trotman: In His Own Words and writes for The Colorado Collective. Fletcher serves as the Vice-Chair of the Colorado Springs Historic Preservation Board. In addition to her career in history, Fletcher is involved in the local music and arts community and recently had her first solo art show through the Pikes Peak Library District.
Heather Jordan is the archivist for the Pikes Peak Library District Special Collections. She holds a master in information science from the University of Michigan with a focus in archives and library science. Prior to moving to Colorado Springs, Heather worked on the Robert Altman Archive at the University of Michigan’s Special Collections Library. Heather received her archival certification through the Academy of Certified Archivists in 2013.
Greg Atkins earned his bachelor degree in history from Oklahoma Panhandle State University in 2003 and his master degree in history from Oklahoma State University in 2005. From 2008 to 2012, he lived in Colorado Springs and worked as a high school history teacher and as an adjunct history instructor. Currently, he is a third-year PhD student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. His research focuses on how Colorado Springs carved out its national reputation over the last 150 years.
Eric Swab earned a BA in product design from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a MA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. During his frequent hikes on Pikes Peak he has encountered considerable evidence of the human activity, leading him to research the history of mining, logging, homesteading, the development of water and electric power, tourism, old trails, old utility lines and aircraft crash sites on the peak. As a volunteer for the Pike and San Isabel National Forests he has researched the Fremont Experimental Forest, the Skelton Mountain Ranch, and the Manitou Incline. He has prepared exhibits on the Fremont Experimental Forest, the Manitou Incline, and Fred Barr at the Manitou Historical Center. He has presented his research to various regional archaeological and historical organizations.
Katherine Scott Sturdevant has been professor of history at Pikes Peak Community College for about 25 years. A native San Franciscan, her parents supported Japanese-Americans returning from incarceration. Her classes make field trips to Amache. She recently discovered that her birth-grandfather taught at another Japanese-American “camp,” Heart Mountain, after his WWII South Pacific service. Kathy is collaborating with members of the Amache Preservation Society and the Japanese American Society of Southern Colorado on her symposium topic. She works frequently with PPLD and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum as a speaker, consultant, and editor, contributing to most of the PPLD Regional History Series symposia and books since they began.
Rick W. Sturdevant, PhD, joined the U.S. Air Force History & Museums Program in 1984 and has been Air Force Space Command deputy director of history since 1999. An internationally recognized authority on U.S. military space history, he appears frequently as a guest lecturer on aerospace history topics and, in addition to writing classified official histories, has published numerous book chapters, essays, articles, and reviews. He serves on the editorial board of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly and is editor of the International Academy of Astronautics history series. Sturdevant’s professional honors include the Air Force Exemplary Civilian Service Award (1995–1999), the American Astronautical Society (AAS) President’s Recognition Award (2005), and election as an AAS Fellow (2007).
William Schultz is a graduate student in the Department of History at Princeton University. His dissertation, “Garden of the Gods: Colorado Springs and the Origins of the Culture Wars,” explores how the city of Colorado Springs became both a site and a symbol of the culture wars of the 1980s and ‘90s. Prior to attending Princeton, he earned his BA in history and political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Robert Kreider is a teacher, historian, churchman, and author. Born in Illinois, Kreider grew up in Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas, graduating from Bethel (Kansas) College . He earned a Masters in social ethics from University of Chicago Divinity School, and a PhD in European history from the University of Chicago. Robert served as a conscientious objector during World War II, stationed for a time in Colorado Springs. Robert is emeritus professor of history from Bluffton (Ohio) College where he was academic dean and president. He is also emeritus professor from Bethel College where he taught peace studies and directed the Mennonite Library and Archives. He continues to write, travel and consult.
Bill Sulzman is a peace activist who first came to Colorado Springs as an Army draftee (1961–1963). Born on a farm in western Kansas in the last years of the dust bowl, he has traveled extensively, becoming a “world citizen by choice,” as a result of an important stay in Uganda in 1968. He earned a BA in history from St Benedict’s College, Atchison, Kansas; a BA in philosophy from St Thomas Seminary Denver; and a STL (equivalent to a master’s degree) in Catholic Theology from Gregorian University, Rome, Italy. Ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1968, he spent seven years in the priesthood in Colorado Springs and Denver. After returning to Colorado Springs in the early 1970s, he became a military dissenter. Along with experiences as a taxi and school bus driver, Bill has 22 years of experience in soup kitchen work and since 1987 has been director of Citizens for Peace in Space, a local peace group focusing on military space issues which has resulted in numerous arrests for civil disobedience.
Mary Elizabeth Ruwell has a BS in French from Georgetown University and a PhD in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently Academy archivist and head of Special Collections at the Air Force Academy. She was archivist at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum from 1984 to 1988 and has worked at the National Archives and Records Administration (Nixon Presidential Materials Project) and at the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History (National Anthropological Archives).
Mary Sprunger-Froese earned a BA in English from Goshen College, Indiana. She has lived in Colorado Springs since 1979 when she and her spouse, Peter, joined the Bijou community, a faith-based intentional community serving the poor and attempting to live nonviolently. Mary directed and performed with First Strike Theatre from 1990–2002, has taught adults in ESL classes for the last 13 years, currently for the adult literacy program of PPLD, and worked as a teaching assistant to Prof. Stephen Handen at the Colorado College from 2009–2012. She’s grateful for Anabaptist moorings, Catholic Worker connections, and all dissenters of conscience, past and present.
