Meet Adrian Macdonald, chair of the Classified Personnel Council (CPC). As the FY22 CPC Chair, Macdonald serves as a council spokesperson, leads the council’s monthly meetings and meets with Colorado State University and state leaders to advocate for improved work experiences for State Classified employees.

“Adrian is a quiet and thoughtful leader, who is not afraid to ask tough questions when advocating for CSU State Classified employees,” CPC Vice Chair Jim Abraham said of Macdonald, who stepped into the role of CPC chair in July, but has served on the council for four years, including two and a half terms as CPC treasurer. Macdonald is currently serving as chair of the CPC Legislative Committee as well.

In the Department of Statistics, Macdonald serves as the financial officer, a position he has held for more than four years. There, he manages the department’s budget and makes sure that employee salaries and other expenses are paid from the appropriate accounts at the appropriate time, pulling from over 75 different expense accounts. Getting ready for the fall semester’s start, Macdonald needed to rehire the department’s graduate students, arranging for their tuition to be paid and updated the Statistics faculty’s labor distribution to match the courses being taught and their research projects.

“My favorite part of my job is the knowledge that I’m supporting researchers who are trying to solve some of our world’s most pressing issues,” he said.

Service is a reoccurring theme for Macdonald. In addition to CPC, he serves on the Campus Bicycle Advisory Committee and the College of Natural Sciences’ Dean’s Advisory Committee for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

In his past, Macdonald served a year in AmeriCorps at UTEC Inc. in Lowell, Massachusetts, as their athletics coordinator, where his purpose was to enrich the lives of Lowell’s most disconnected youth through the relationship building that coincides with athletics. There, he learned about leadership, youth work, conflict resolution and societal inequities. “I also saw that with forgiveness and patience, positive change is possible,” he said.

Leadville 100 winner

When he isn’t at CSU, Macdonald is a competitive distance runner and ultra-marathoner, having recently won the prestigious Leadville 100 ultramarathon race in August in his first attempt at the 100-mile distance. His accomplishments made national headlines, and he was featured in The Coloradoan.

Macdonald said that he loves going on big training runs in the mountains or running around Fort Collins with friends. He tends to do the majority of his training before he starts the work day, getting up at 5 a.m. and running up to 13 miles before work — generally about 100 miles per week.

He also enjoys watching soccer tournaments and has traveled to three FIFA World Cups in Germany (2006), South Africa (2010) and Brazil (2014), saying it is “a great way to see a country as the games are spread out in various different cities. It is also so fun to meet people from all over the world who are passionate about soccer. The energy at these tournaments is amazing.”

CPC thanks Macdonald for his service as a State Classified employee on behalf of the CSU community. The former CPC Chair Meg Skeehan said that “he has shown dedication, stepping into the role of treasurer when he was a new member and continues to be an impactful and thoughtful contributor to the CPC Executive Team. I am proud to support Adrian as our new chair moving forward, and I look forward to seeing all that he will do and how he will develop in this role.”