Katherine Archuleta grew up in the projects on Denver’s west side.
She will return to the city next month to play a prominent role in Mayor John Hickenlooper’s administration.
The mayor’s decision to appoint her as his chief operating officer has eased concerns over the loss of Michael Bennet, the mayor’s chief of staff, political observers said.
Although Archuleta isn’t taking the chief of staff position held by Bennet, who is now Denver Public Schools superintendent, her appointment adds a seasoned veteran who has experience in Denver and national politics, they say.
She worked in the mayoral administration of Federico Pena in the 1980s and went on to become Peña’s chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Transportation in the 1990s.
“She has extraordinary skills and an extraordinary breadth of experiences, ranging from local issues to national and even international issues,” Pena said.
Steve Kaplan, who was Pena’s city attorney, said he expects Archuleta will form a powerful combination with Hickenlooper’s acting chief of staff, Cole Finegan.
“You have two people in those positions who are very smart and very experienced,” Kaplan said.
Archuleta, 58, who lives in Albuquerque, said that as chief operating officer she will concentrate on coordinating city departments and making sure they effectively push the mayor’s initiatives.
“Denver is a gorgeous city, and my heart has always been there,” she said. “I am excited to go and work with this mayor now. I think he has many of the same visions that Federico had.”
It is a move that will take some personal toll.
She is leaving Albuquerque, where she is executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation. Her daughter, Garciela, and husband, Edmundo Gonzales, are staying behind.
“We’ll just have to figure out how to keep the family strong,” she said, explaining that she did not want to pull her daughter out of her school in New Mexico.
She is returning to a city where she has deep roots. Her family moved to Denver from the San Luis Valley after her grandfather accidentally ran over her sister with a truck.
The family needed the health insurance provided by the government-subsidized housing they moved into to ensure her sister got the medical care she needed to recover.
Archuleta’s father had an eighth-grade education. Her mother had a fifth-grade education.
Her father was paid $2 a day designing windows.
But the family was proud.
“My dad understood who he was as a Latino and believed his kids could achieve,” said Archuleta.
The family eventually moved to what later became Aurora, scraping up enough money to buy a house for $10,000, Archuleta said.
She said she felt drawn to Hickenlooper in much the same way she was to Peña.
“During the interview period, I told John, ‘Do you know why I want to come work with you? It’s because you love your job,”‘ she said.
Archuleta first met Pena more than 30 years ago when she was a teacher with DPS.
She was pushing a lawsuit that contended that Hispanic students weren’t treated fairly within the district.
Pena was the lawyer who did a lot of the heavy lifting on the lawsuit.
When Pena decided to run for the state legislature, she helped on his campaign. When he decided to run for mayor, she quit her job and campaigned for him full time.
Pena tapped her as his administrative assistant and then his deputy chief of staff after he became mayor.
Under Peña, she played a key role in pushing for the Denver Performing Arts Complex. When Peña went to Washington, she helped him implement the trucking standards for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
She said that as part of the Hickenlooper team, she hopes to play a key role on Hickenlooper’s initiative on the homeless. Her salary will be $110,000, and she will start Oct. 11.
David Miller, former chief of staff in Peña’s mayoral administration and the president of the Denver Foundation, said Archuleta’s top strength is that she can look at the big picture while not ignoring the details.
“It’s rare to see both those qualities in one individual,” Miller said. “She was strategic and a big thinker, but when you asked her to do something, you never worried about the tactics or the details.”
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at cosher@denverpost.com.
