Meet the Zulauf's

Hi everybody. I'm Scott. I know this is a somewhat lengthy bio, but my hope is for you to get a good feel for who I am as both a person and a candidate.

After graduating from Randolph High School in Randolph, N.J. in 1992, I was selected to travel the world in a group called Up With People. After a week long stay at Tom Brown’s School of Nature Awareness and Wilderness Survival, I jumped on a plane and headed off for staging in Tucson, AZ. For the next year I had the incredible experience of traveling to 11 different countries and all 5 provinces of Canada, performing as a featured vocalist, living with host families in each of the 80 cities we visited, and taking part in eight hours of community service for every two hour musical show we performed. Upon settling in Colorado in February of 1994, I worked for a local landscape contractor through 1996. I was then offered a job managing the housekeeping/ laundry departments of various nursing homes ranging from Wheatridge to Fort Collins. My responsibilities included the supervision of approximately 15 employees, and the management of a quarter of a million dollar budget. While studying Park Ranger Technology at Red Rocks Community College, the opportunity came up to work as the seasonal Park Maintenance Supervisor at Eldorado Canyon State Park outside of Boulder. After the season was over, I applied for a job as an instructor at an elementary charter school in Littleton, where I have been working for the past nine years teaching reading, writing, math, and spelling to K-8th graders. Having finished up all of the required credits through Red Rocks and Metro State College, I have since transferred to CSU, and am currently working on my degree in Public Affairs/ Political Science.

It was at Sandalwood Manor in Wheatridge, that in 1997 I met the beautiful woman who would later become my wife. Dawn is a Golden native, and a CSU grad who was working at Sandalwood as a social worker at the time. We married in May of 2000, and have since had two amazing children; Ella (4) and Hank (1). Together, Dawn and I made the decision that one of us should stay home to raise our children. It was a tough choice, but I am so proud of Dawn for choosing to be a Stay At Home Mom – it’s been the best decision of our lives.

I became a registered Green in 2001, when I first came across the Ten Key Values of the Green Party (http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml). Being a peace-loving, tree-hugging, vegetarian, there is no political party with which my heart and soul better align. I spent a lot of time in the summer of 2004 working on John Kerry’s campaign, not because he was my candidate of choice, but because I saw him as the “lesser of two evils” – a mistake not to be repeated. After watching yet another election fall to a president who was never elected the first time, I promised myself that I would never again waste my time working against my ideologies. In 2005, I began to become more involved in the Green Party. In 2006, Dave Chandler (the then Green Congressional Candidate for Dist. 7) named me as a Jefferson County delegate to the State Convention. In 2007, I organized the first mailing in years to registered Greens around the Metro area, designed a new logo and merchandise for the Green Party of Colorado, and helped plan the first Earth Day Music Fest in Lodo. At the 2007 state meeting, Kevin Alumbaugh and I were nominated as co-chairs of the Fundraising/ Outreach Committee of the GPCO. I was a again an organizer and delegate at the 2008 State Nominating Convention. I assist in organizing many voter registration drives as well as Jeffco Open Space Park Clean-Ups. I continue to serve as a voting member of the GPCO State On-line Council, and hold many positions on various committees within the Adams-Jefferson Green Party.

I am also very honored to serve as a volunteer sangha leader and practitioner at the Eyes of Compassion Sangha in Denver - a buddhist group that practices in the tradition of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh.