What you are about to read was not written by AI, nor consultants; it was written by me, Trevor Jones.

The reason I think that is important is that you deserve to know who your elected officials are, and what they stand for behind the talking points and statistics.

We live in a time of extreme polarization and lack of trust in politicians and institutions.

I want to work on that.

But first, let’s start with who I am, where I came from and what I stand for.

I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. My parents taught me values that I still carry with me today: hard work, kindness to others, and care for our natural environment.

That last item is extremely important to me: the care and preservation of the environment, and creating aggressive solutions to combat climate change.

I grew up camping in Colorado’s mountains and became an Eagle Scout. The rivers, lakes, and  mountains of our state are a part of my being; in my blood, you might say.

I left Colorado for New Orleans, Louisiana, to attend Tulane University. It was there, during my sophomore year on the first day of school, that an extremely destructive storm, Hurricane Katrina, descended on the city and its people; people making up a culture that I had already come to love and value.

Hurricane Katrina showed me, in person, what it means for a government to demonstrate a lack of care for its people. The most vulnerable members of the population, folks experiencing homelessness, or disability, or incarceration, were abandoned by local and federal government alike.

It was heartbreaking and solidified my lifelong commitment to never forget those who need help.

The storm helped to confirm my identity as a Democrat, because I swore to myself, I would always do what I could to help people – that the most vulnerable folks in society must be protected in the face of uncertainty, especially climatic or political uncertainty. I have the same feeling today when I see folks in Denver on the sidewalk, struggling in the 100+ degree heat in the summer, children who fear gun violence at school, or immigrants being intimidated by the Trump administration.

I spent my 20’s doing several jobs, having graduated college during the worst financial conditions the country had seen in years. You might say I resonate with the “hustle” most working Americans have to go through to make ends meet. I lived paycheck to paycheck and rented wherever I could in Denver, oftentimes without a real lease. I often think about the fact that this was the experience of me, a person with a privileged background and a college degree. Being slightly less socially networked or privileged, I may have wound up with a worse outcome. 

When I think about the experience of those who may not have been as fortunate as I was growing up, I feel a sense of duty to help lift my neighbors up – especially younger people who deserve the same opportunities our parents had in this country. As Democrats, we need to be aggressive and creative when it comes to jobs and an economic path forward for our youth. We can either fear, or maximize the capability of new technologies like AI. We must ensure privacy - but people, especially young people, deserve the opportunity to develop new businesses on the internet.

I worked in special education as a professional for a time, the hardest job I’ve ever done, period. The experience granted me an extreme respect for teachers, and when I see them pay for their own school supplies, I’m unimpressed with the way we support those who we task with crafting our future by teaching youth. We simply must cherish, support and pay well the people who are shaping the youth and our future.

I also worked for the Denver Metro Fair Housing Center, which at the time was a growing organization. I helped with marketing, but ultimately became an undercover fair housing investigator, a job that supports in the search and confirmation of housing discrimination. I saw, up close, the ways in which housing providers manipulate options for minorities or the disabled, something I despise and would work to abolish if elected.

A big part of making ends meet back then was playing music. In New Orleans I learned to play the old-school American funk style of guitar, and am proud to remember entertaining folks all over Colorado, including in our mountain towns. I know what it means to be a struggling creative person in our economy, and I want to do all I can to support those that make art – that’s what makes our lives rich and the world a beautiful place to live in.

After bouncing around jobs, I went to the University of Denver to get a degree in International Relations. Many folks don’t realize we have a top 10 foreign policy institution right here in Denver.  My experience as a Pioneer at DU opened my worldview. I wrote about humanitarianism in Syria and Iraq, an exercise that still helps me clearly analyze world events today, and understand how, as Coloradans, we might be able to positively influence outcomes in places like Ukraine or Gaza, where the situations are currently desperate.

After grad school, I started my own company, Lynx. Founding and running a start-up has taught me loads about leadership, grit, resilience, and something I fear is a bit absent in the conversation among Democrats today: business.

Lynx is a sustainability software company that helps track environmental, social and governance (ESG) conditions for industry. Our software makes worker safety data more usable and environmental data more visible to surrounding communities; we should be applying similar thinking to local industry so we as Coloradans know what we are being exposed to in our air and water, for example. This isn’t about shaming industry, but about getting the right data we need to understand the effects of producing the materials that make the world go around.

The most important thing that emerged from building Lynx had nothing to do with business at all. It’s how I met my wife, Marina. Standing at the Curtis Hotel in downtown Denver in 2022 at a conference, I first saw and immediately fell in love with Marina Whittaker. We married in England last year.  

Because Marina is British (with the sense of humor to match), we have also been going through the process of making her a legal resident here in the United States. Going through the immigration process has been revealing in a time when immigrants of all kinds are being treated poorly, something as a state we should fight back against.

Immigrants are the driving force of many industries. Did you know that immigrants hold a disproportionality HIGHER number of patents and inventions than the overall population? Immigrants make our lives richer, our society stronger and our art, music and food better.  The way the Trump administration treats immigrants makes me sick, and I will do everything I can as an elected official to protect the dignity of those who come to our state to seek a better life.

Over the past four years I’ve also been a volunteer for our Democratic Party of Denver. As I transition away from party volunteer and into candidate, I’m struck that our party is focused on the damages of the Trump administration, which are extreme and harmful in so many ways to our country. We must do all we can on a state level to fight the erosion of human rights, free speech and economic opportunity caused by the policies of the current administration.

But we also owe it to voters to begin to think of what’s next. How can we make Colorado an even better place to live? I have lots of ideas - but want to have open ears and be a sponge for new and good strategies. About climate, about housing, about the budget in Colorado and gun control – top of mind for many of us. I want to know what you think!

So, feel free to drop me a line at trevor@trevorfordenver.com and let me know what’s on your mind.

I want to be a candidate of ideas, not jargon. Too many of our leaders rely on buzz-words and memes. It’s time to bring serious leadership, rooted in both compassion and competence, to House District 5.

We have a lot of work ahead of us to serve vulnerable Coloradans, to fix the budget and TABOR, to create a society where we treat all people with dignity. I know we can do it together.

Hope and optimism are the most important tools in this time of uncertainty. I will work to ensure that the chaos of the Trump years is minimized here in Colorado – while seeking a vision for the future of our state rooted in care for our climate, human dignity and growth.

Trevor C. Jones