John Wright Hickenlooper Jr., born on February 7, 1952, in Narberth, Pennsylvania, is a U.S. Senator from Colorado and former Governor of the state. He earned a B.A. in English and an M.S. in Geology from Wesleyan University. His career began as a petroleum geologist for Buckhorn Petroleum, but he was laid off during the mid-1980s recession. In 1988, he co-founded the Wynkoop Brewing Company, one of the first brewpubs in the United States, in a neglected warehouse district in Denver's Lower Downtown (LoDo), which helped revitalize the area. He and his partners subsequently launched multiple businesses there, establishing him as a successful entrepreneur and restaurateur before entering politics. A member of the Democratic Party, Hickenlooper was elected the 43rd mayor of Denver in 2003, serving two terms until 2011. He then served as the 42nd governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019 and was elected to the U.S. Senate from Colorado in 2020, taking office as the junior senator in 2021.