25 faces: Leaders fighting HIV/AIDS in Colorado

22 Jeff Thormodsgaard

It seems that Jeff Thormodsgaard is behind everything these days. As a partner at the lobbying firm Mendez Consulting, Thormodsgaard was a key player in the civil union debate in 2011, and since then he has never lost his steam in campaigning and rallying legislators’ votes for important tools in fighting HIV/AIDS.

Representing Colorado Organizations Responding to AIDS (CORA) since 2006, Thormodsgaard has been a key player in Colorado’s drug assistance program for persons living with HIV/AIDS, work that he has done pro bono for two years now. As an advocacy voice for more than 15 nonprofit HIV/AIDS organizations, Thormodsgaard has worked on legislation to provide inclusive services to HIV patients, including recent Medicaid expansions, healthcare reform and budget funding. CORA has also strived to pass recent civil rights bills at the Capitol, from the 2009 needle exchange legislation to privacy protections for those living with HIV/AIDS.

Thormodsgaard continues to advocate for progress in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS as a member of the Board of Directors of Colorado Aids Project (CAP) for five years, where he has personally worked with those afflicted with the disease. Through these interactions, Thormodsgaard has gaind understanding of how serious the HIV/AIDS movement is, and the different effects the disease has on its victims, he said.

This increased understanding has lead Thormodsgaard to fully realize the importance of HIV/AIDS education.

“While treatment has changed for the better, these advancements in medicine have also changed people’s perspective of HIV” Thormodsgaard says. He said better outcomes for HIV/AIDS patients has somewhat relaxed younger generation’s caution. On both the national and state levels this funding has been hard to come by, but Thormodsgaard hopes that his work with CORA will help change that. Thurmonsgaard’s work has established Thormodsgaard as one of the key allies for the HIV/AIDS cause in Colorado politics.