Public policy issues in mental health

Andrew Romanoff served in the Colorado House of Representatives from 2001 to 2009 and as Speaker of the House from 2005 to 2009. He was a member of the House Health, Environment, Welfare and Institutions Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and the House Criminal Justice Committee. Among other achievements, Romanoff authored the Colorado Economic Recovery Act (Referendum C) and Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST), the largest investment in school construction in state history. Romanoff also sponsored laws to expand screening, diagnosis and treatment for mental health and substance use disorders.

More than 50 state and national organizations – including Advocates for Recovery, the Colorado Association of Alcohol and Drug Service Providers, the Colorado Medical Society, the Colorado Psychological Association, and the Colorado Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers – have honored Romanoff’s leadership. In 2008, Governing Magazine named him as a “Public Official of the Year.”

Romanoff served as a policy advisor to Gov. Roy Romer, as a scholar-in-residence at the University of Colorado’s School of Public Affairs, and as a senior associate at the management consulting firm of Greenberg Baron Simon & Miller. He founded the Posner Center for International Development, a collaborative headquarters for 60 Colorado-based nonprofit organizations.

Romanoff earned a bachelor’s degree with honors at Yale, a master’s degree in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a juris doctorate at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. He speaks fluent Spanish.