Z. James Czupor

Z. James Czupor is a seasoned and award-winning public relations and marketing professional. He's represented local, regional, national, and international clients for advertising/public relations firms and has managed public relations programs for corporations, health care and higher education institutions.

He has represented a broad range of clients including Division Fortune 500 companies, national associations, utilities, municipalities, biotechnology, aviation, automotive, manufacturing, media, transportation, home building, health care and higher education.

Prior to founding The lnterPro Group in 1990 in Denver, Colorado with his partner/wife, Marta Sipeki, Z.J. served as vice president of public relations, Thomas & Perkins; senior strategic public relations counsel, Broyles, Allebaugh & Davis; director of advertising and public relations, Rocky Mountain Energy Company (subsidiary of Union Pacific); director of communications, Denver Department of Health and Hospitals; director of public relations, Regis College and Regis High School; and as director of public relations, St. Luke's Hospital and Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri.

Z.J. is a past president of the Public Relations Society of America, (PRSA) Colorado Chapter and is accredited in public relations from PRSA. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association-Denver; Home Builders Foundation of Metro Denver; Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives; and Colorado PGA Foundation. He has also served as a member of the American Heart Association Affiliate Board (encompassing Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming) and American Heart Association's Operating Committee and he served on the Leadership Advisory Council for Keller Graduate School of Management. He served as the first chair of the Denver RACE FOR THE CURE's Public Relations Committee. He was the recipient of the 2001 American Heart Association­ Denver's Pulse Award given for his leadership in the chapter's first stroke awareness campaign. He was named the 2010 Volunteer of the Year by Home Builders Association of Metro Denver.

He earned his master's degree in mass communications from the University of Denver, and his bachelor's in journalism and public relations from the University of Kansas.

He is also an award-winning author of short stories and novels and is an active member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Mystery Writers of America (MWA), where he serves as secretary of the Board of Directors for the MWA Rocky Mountain Chapter. He founded MindBenders™, a men's monthly discussion group, in 2010.

Additionally, he has crossed Colorado three times with Ride the Rockies, a 400-plus-mile six-day bicycle tour and completed a record-breaking 40-foot firewalk barefoot in Hawaii. He has performed in numerous community theater productions, including Fiddler on the Roof and Sleepy Hollow.

Z.J. was born in Germany to Hungarian parents who escaped Hungary at the end of WWII. The family emigrated to the United States when Z.J. was 20 months old. The Lone Star Church of the Brethren sponsored the family to begin their new life in the States. Z.J. attended a one-room school in Lone Star before moving to Lawrence for West Junior High and graduating from Lawrence High School in 1966.

Z.J. and his wife, Marta, have been married for 25 years and live in Denver, Colorado with their rescue Collie/Australian Shepherd mix, Skye.