Dina Horwedel is a communications professional with more than 30 years of
experience in marketing communications, public relations, journalism, media
policy, and law. She combines her communications and legal expertise in her
work for magazines, trade associations, Fortune 500 corporations, technology
start-ups, education institutions, and international non-governmental
organizations.

She began her career in journalism after graduating from Bowling Green State
University in 1986 with Bachelor of Science Degree cum laude, where she
funded her education with scholarships, loans, and several jobs in
communications including various editorial roles with the student newspaper, the
student entertainment magazine, the university public relations office, and an
internship with the Associated Press covering political conventions.

After working as an associate editor for a national education trade magazine
(Instructor), she joined the team at the National Association of College Stores
(NACS) in 1990 as a curriculum specialist and communications professional
while attending law school at Cleveland Marshall College of Law, with a focus on
first amendment law. She graduated and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1994.

At NACS, Horwedel served on its diversity team, with a focus on federal and
state employment laws and the newly passed Americans with Disabilities Act and
trained staff, the board of trustees, and member organizations on compliance
through in-person and remote, online instruction.

Horwedel also served on a team with strategic organization partners, including
the American Booksellers Association, to write amicus briefs concerning readers’
rights to privacy under the first amendment. The case was decided in favor of the
plaintiff.

Horwedel continued her work for NACS in an expanded capacity that
encompassed legal issues. She also worked as a volunteer for the American
Civil Liberties Union, focusing on first amendment freedom of assembly cases
and its Ohio Prison Project, which investigated claims of eighth amendment
violations (cruel and unusual punishment) with regard to solitary confinement,
prison conditions, and the unlawful withholding of medication from prisoners.
Horwedel relocated to Colorado in 1998, where she continued her work with
NACS as a consultant while serving in various marketing and communications
roles in technology companies. She worked for a Fortune 500 company (EDS),
where she headed internal and community communications and oversaw a
communications team responsible for outreach to 100,000 employees worldwide,
and for itechnology start-ups. She grew her client base over the years to include
the United States Association for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency

Development, the U.S. Department of Energy, the College Board, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Secret Service, Gainshare Media, and
various editorial clients.

In 2003 Horwedel expanded her intercultural and advocacy work overseas. In
Yerevan, Armenia she worked as a media and marketing consultant for the
United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) International
Research and Exchange Board (IREX), conducting media training with resident
journalists. She also served as an editor and marketing consultant for the online
newspaper Armenianow.com, an instructor at the Caucuses Media Institute, as a
volunteer advisor working with Article XIX Global Campaign for Free Expression and
the Armenian parliament for media reform laws, and as an Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election observer.

In 2004 Horwedel was admitted to the Colorado bar and later joined the London-
based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) which works to establish
free and independent media in post-conflict countries. Based in Kabul,
Afghanistan, she traveled across the nation to work with journalists and
development officials to create a sustainable national news agency, Pajhwok
Afghan News, run by and for Afghans. Her role included creating the marketing
and communications plan and training programs for the launch of the agency,
assertiveness training programs for women journalists, grantwriting and
fundraising, and public relations with the embassies and military communications
arms of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) nations (Norway,
Sweden, Canada, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand) which carried out the
multinational military mission in Afghanistan pursuant to the United Nations
Security Council Resolution from October 2001 to 2014. Pajhwok Afghan News
still operates to this day.

From 2005-2006 Horwedel assisted with IWPR’s launch of Uganda Radio
Network (URN) network in Kampala, Uganda, during the nation’s presidential
election. The URN news agency is still operational and covers human rights and
political news.

In 2006 after returning to the United States, Horwedel joined the University of
Wyoming public relations office to lead its alumni magazine and public relations
communications for the allied health and pharmacy programs and the multi-state
medical education program WWAMI (states wwho are participate with the
University of Washington School of Medicine: Washington, Wyoming, Alaska,
Montana and Idaho). 
In 2007 Horwedel joined the American Indian College Fund (the College Fund)
as the director of public education, where she works to create awareness of the
need for equitable access to higher education for American Indian and Alaska
Native (AIAN) students and the tribal colleges and universities that serve Native
communities. She oversees public relations, media relations, and organizational

messaging with the general public, Native communities, and government
officials.