Women's Commission

Laurie Heydman is a senior assistant City Attorney for the Denver City Attorney’s Office where she largely performs transactional, financial, intellectual property, and general counsel work.

Heydman joined the commission because she believes strongly that it is necessary to do the work if you want to see the change. She is committed to supporting women from all walks of life. Laurie has been going it on her own or with colleagues from time to time in creating a now defunct OWLS (Older Women in Leadership and Support) group for older women attorneys who are often discounted by younger lawyers of both genders. She also mentors young people, mostly women, in several formal programs, as well as informally. In joining the commission, she was seeking an opportunity to join a motivated community working together to achieve bigger advances in gender equity.  In her position as an attorney, she writes the policies of others, but she thought it would be terrific to be able to share her thoughts as a policy maker instead of just a policy scrivener.

Laurie is a member of the Denver Art Museum, Denver Botanic Gardens, and Denver Film Society as well as a regular visitor to the Museum of Nature and Science, Denver Performing Arts Complex, and art galleries in Colorado.  She is also an avid gardener, reader, film buff, foodie, and the caretaker of two hilarious Pekingese dogs!

Sara Hazel (she/her/hers) is the Vice President of Development at the Denver Public Schools Foundation. She has over fourteen years of nonprofit development and leadership experience. Sara has worked at global, national, and local organizations, including The American Red Cross, The American Cancer Society, and Girls Inc. of Metro Denver. Sara’s leadership has included leading the Colorado Red Cross Centennial Celebration, celebrating 100 Years of the Red Cross in Colorado, and co-facilitating and planning the first ever national fundraising conference for Girls Inc. As a volunteer leader, Sara worked with a team to found a scholarship fund to send kids to summer camp in the Colorado mountains at Geneva Glen Camp. In all her roles, Sara has held management and leadership responsibilities and loves to build and work with exceptional teams. She loves the nonprofit sector and fundraising because of a desire for social justice and the ability to help donors navigate a path to support a mission that they can impact. 

Locally, Sara is involved in many organizations including as a volunteer mentor for City Year Denver, serving as the Secretary for the Denver Women’s Commission, a member of the Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s Empowerment Council, and is an alumnus of Metro Denver Chamber Leadership Foundation Leadership Denver Class of 2020.

When Sara is not raising money for humanitarian causes, Sara writes a book review blog and enjoys Kansas City BBQ.  She loves spending time in the mountains, traveling, watching Kansas Jayhawk basketball, reading, and spending quality time with her husband, friends, and chasing around her toddler daughter.

Veronique Van Gheem is Senior Assistant Legal Counsel for the Colorado Judicial Department. Ms. Van Gheem works in the Executive Division of the State Court Administrator’s Office providing general advisory counsel for the Colorado courts, probation departments and the State Court Administrator. She has been a member of the Colorado Women’s Bar Association for three years, working with the Publications Committee to launch a blog on women in the law, The 1891. She represents an unaccompanied minor child in a pro bono asylum case through the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network and is helping a crime victim navigate the U Visa application process. She is also an active member of the CBA Spanish Speaking Lawyers Committee, which supports and organizes regional legal clinics in rural Colorado.

Prior to joining the Colorado Judicial Department in 2013, Ms. Van Gheem clerked for the Honorable Norman Haglund of the Denver District Court and served as the Conservation Easement Staff Attorney for the Colorado State Court Administrator’s Office.  Ms. Van Gheem, originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin, received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point in Forestry and Biology.  She worked as a Restoration Ecologist from 2005 to 2007.  Ms. Van Gheem is a 2010 graduate from the University of Colorado Law School.