Experience

Secretary of State’s Office, State of Wyoming

Director of the Business Division | Wyoming | April 2023 - Present

• Manage Business Filing Division, covering LLCs, Corporations, Partnerships, Trusts, &c.
• Address complex filing issues arising during the operation of the Office.
• Provide advice and background on statutory and rule changes affecting the Business Division.
• Supervise Business Division staff.
• Provide testimony to the Wyoming Legislature on the operation of the Business Division, and coordinate the interaction of the Division with Legislators, other Executive agencies, and the public.

Distributed Hash

Member | Wyoming | January 2022 - Present

• Design and build out of Bitcoin ASIC hosting facility
• Construct custom measurement and reporting software
• Generate and publish public reports & insights
• Regulatory outreach with municipal and county governments in Wyoming and Colorado

Rhea Hospitality

Principal and Manager | Cary, NC & Las Vegas, NV | November 2007 - April 2023

• Raised $5.5M for acquisition and renovation of The Retreat on Charleston Peak, a hotel outside of Las Vegas.
• Lobbied for and negotiated a public-private partnership between Memento Mori, LLC and the Town of Cary, NC, for the construction of the Mayton Inn, a $14.5M, 45-room boutique hotel, with ~$4M in incentives and Town-backed loans.
• Raised $3.5M in private equity, $11M in private loan funds, and $2.5M in public loans for the Mayton Inn.
• Developed and submitted the site plan, minor special use permit, development review board, and variance applications for the Inn.
• Negotiated construction and development contracts with a variety of trades and vendors.
• Financed, built, and opened The King’s Daughters Inn during the market downturn of 2008-2009.
• Managed outside counsel in the successful syndication of federal and state historic tax credits during the market crash of 2008.
• Oversee all aspects of IT, bookkeeping, reservations, and guest relations.
• Develop in-house tools to assist in the automation and execution of work tasks by others.
• Develop and maintain several tools which integrated data from three separate POS systems and timeclocks, resulting in a net savings of 10 hours of labor per payroll run.
• Spearheaded a project to design and implement a custom communications system which saved the company $100k.
• Constructed internal business intelligence analytical tools and data visualizations using Python, SQL & Flask.
• Successfully guided the development or acquisition, and the subsequent operation, of three hotels, and a total of 135 employees.
• Build and maintain the data infrastructure for the business, including cloud services such as AWS, DigitalOcean, and Azure.

PhD Posters, LLC

Member and General Counsel | Durham, NC | November 2005 - April 2023

• Address complex laws, rules and regulations related to an online business with physical locations in multiple jurisdictions.
• Work with overseas counsel to establish Canadian subsidiary for international expansion.
• Manage all in-house legal work, including trademark acquisition, drafting of licensing agreements, and devising the route for expanding the business model.
• Oversee the adoption of new licensees, from initial contact to execution of the license agreement.
• Help grow the company, which has expanded from a singe site to the current eight locations.

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

Senior Program Officer | Philadelphia, PA | May 2015 - January 2016
IT Consultant | Philadelphia, PA | July 2020 - Present

• Researched university speech codes, classifying them with respect to constitutionality.
• Communicate with university staff to discuss and educate regarding the constitutionality of speech codes.
• Provided ad-hoc assistance with technical matters (IT support, website support, etc.).
• Using Python, developed and deployed a tool to more efficiently track which universities needed to be updated, and which staffer had most recently made updates.
• Design, build, and deploy new internal phone system based on 3CX.
• Manage the transition from Lastpass to Okta for internal security controls.

Triangle Apartment Association

Government Affairs Director | Raleigh, NC | January 2008 - March 2009

• Developed and directed governmental and regulatory policies and objectives; coordinate the operations of the organization as related to government relations.
• Analyzed facts, laws, cases, rules and regulations, and applied findings to determine the potential impact on the association’s constituency. Provided education to the membership regarding ongoing developments.
• Analyzed proposed legislative actions and determined the potential impact on the association’s membership.
• Interfaced with elected officials at all levels (municipal, state and Federal), of all political parties, to advocate for positive changes in the legal and regulatory environment.
• Coordinated with friendly groups to increase our overall impact.
• Monitored legislative and regulatory activities and developed positions on such.
• Educated association members on the legislative and regulatory environment, and coordinated member responses.

Duke University School of Law

Faculty Fellow for IP Law | Durham, NC | January 2005 - August 2006

• Faculty fellow under the Center for the study of Public Genomics.
• Researched the effects of software patents owned by universities, with specific foci on the creation and dissemination of genomic data.
• Developed and taught upper-level law course on Intellectual Property Licensing.
• Work both independently and collaboratively to produce and publish academic research, and engage in periodic academic conferences and meetings to present findings.

Academic Experience

Duke University Medical Center | Durham, NC | August 2006 - August 2007
      Doctoral Candidate, Department of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Duke University School of Law | Durham, NC | January 2005 - August 2006
      Faculty Fellow, The Center for the Study of Public Genomics

Education

Duke University Graduate School | Durham, NC | December 2004
      M.S. Biomedical Engineering
Duke University School of Law | Durham, NC | May 2003
      J.D. Cum Laude
Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, PA | May 2000
      B.S. Biology, Concentration in Computational Biology; Minor in Chemistry; Minor in Policy and Management

Professional Licenses

• Wyoming Licensed Attorney, #8-7039
• North Carolina Licensed Attorney, #31468
• Licensed before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, #52782
• North Carolina Real Estate Commission, #250323 (INACTIVE)

Publications

1. Robert Warren and Colin Crossman; Beyond the kWh: Factors That Bitcoin Miners Need To Consider. BitcoinMagazine.com (2022-07-14). Available at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/factors-bitcoin-miners-need-to-consider
2. Colin Crossman; West Virginia Vs. EPA: Good News For Bitcoin, Beyond The Obvious. BitcoinMagazine.com (2022-07-01). Available at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/west-virginia-epa-supreme-court-bitcoin
3. Colin Crossman; What Bitcoiners Need to Know About Jury Nullification in a Hostile Legal System. BitcoinMagazine.com (2022-04-03). Available at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/future-jury-nullification-for-bitcoin-users
4. Colin Crossman; Economically Incentivized Innovation Sets Bitcoin Apart: Unitary Money. BitcoinMagazine.com (2022-03-31). Available at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/innovation-sets-bitcoin-apart
5. Colin Crossman, Mark Maraia, and Heidi Porter; Bitcoin For Small Businesses: Front Line Options. BitcoinMagazine.com (2022-03-16). Available at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-for-small-businesses-options
6. Heidi Porter, Mark Maraia, and Colin Crossman; Bitcoin and the Smallest Businesses: Cantillon Effects and Why They Need Bitcoin. BitcoinMagazine.com (2022-01-29). Available at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/why-small-businesses-need-bitcoin
7. Heidi Porter, Mark Maraia, and Colin Crossman; Bitcoin and Business: What is your Bitcoin strategy? BitcoinMagazine.com (2022-01-10). Available at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-and-businesses-a-bitcoin-strategy
8. U.S. Patent No. 9,364,012 (issued Jun. 14, 2016). (Colin R. Crossman, attorney of record)
9. Kepler, T.; Crossman, C.; Cook-Deegan, R.; Metastasizing patent claims on BRCA1. Genomics (2010) doi: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2010.03.003
10. Crossman, C.; Arming our Enemies: How parallel imports could increase Anti-microbial resistance. 2006 North Carolina Journal of International Law & Commercial Regulation. Vol 31(4): 823-845.
11. Reichman J.H, Rai, A, Uhlir P, and Crossman C.; Pathways across the Valley of Death: Novel intellectual property strategies for accelerated drug discovery. 2008 Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics, Vol 8(1).
12. Colin Crossman & Arti Rai, A Brief History of BioPerl (December 2, 2005). Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/3686
13. Webbink, Crossman, Griffin, and Silverstein; Red Hat’s Comments to the Joint FTC/DOJ hearing on Competition and Intellectual Property Law, March 20, 2002. http://www.ftc.gov/opp/intellect/020320webbink.pdf (alternate link: https://crc32.com/020320webbink.pdf)