Former Colorado State University athletic director Jack Graham announced his bid for U.S. Senate Tuesday, saying he is frustrated by politicians in Washington, D.C., who are mired and bogged down in politics and unable to get things done.

“Fortunately, that’s a disease that has never inflicted me in my career,” Graham said Tuesday, shortly after a formal announcement in Fort Collins his hometown. “I would say I’m a very thoughtful, disciplined leader.”

Graham, a 63-year-old Republican, has never run for office before, but his time as the leader of the CSU athletic program made him a public figure.

“When I went on board at CSU, the athletic department was … in a state of perpetual mediocrity,” said Graham, a CSU graduate and former football player. “When I left, three years later, we had reduced the incident rate of student athletes getting in trouble by more than 80 percent, our athletes education performance had grown by leaps and bounds and we were ranked number 1 in the number of wins and percentage of wins in football, and men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball.”

Graham was an early advocate of moving the stadium onto the CSU campus.

But focused on his career in the private sector where for 21 years he worked for the reinsurance company E.W. Blanch Co. and then started his own company to insure small businesses. He sold that company in 2010, but it is still successfully employing about 250 people, Graham said.

He said the tipping point for him to enter the race came when the U.S. Senate, including Colorado’s Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, approved the Iran nuclear deal.

“I’ve always been observant of the political process and over the last five or seven years I’ve really grown concerned,” Graham said. “Things just aren’t getting done.”

Graham has a wife, three grown children and two grandchildren.

He joins a large number, at least a dozen, of candidates already in the Republican battle to face Bennet in November.

Graham is gathering petitions to put his name on the June primary ballot. Candidates can also get on by participating in the caucus process and being a top candidate at the state GOP assembly.

–

Contact Megan Schrader: 719-286-0644

Twitter: @CapitolSchrader