Michael (Mike) Verderaime was born in Pueblo, Colorado, but spent the earliest part of his life in Trinidad, Colorado. He completed high school in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After high school, Mike attended Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado. He majored in Spanish, with an associate degree in Business Administration. As a member of the football and wrestling teams, he experienced the importance of athletics which ultimately fueled him to become a teacher.
In 2003, Mike began his career as a public education teacher and coach. Over the course of his 15-year public education career Mike worked with a wide variety of students of all ages and backgrounds. These years of teaching and coaching in three different public high schools would ultimately set the stage for understanding the importance of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in creating a balanced playing field for lower economic communities.
Mike received an MA in education emphasizing in Spanish Language pedagogy, history and literature. While at Doherty High School he assisted in a field studies program that focused on an experiential learning environment in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Peru. Focusing on the natural, biological social, and political importance of water. Specifically, Mike focused on drought’s role in immigration and on lower-economic communities in the West, he also helped create an international program that helped doctors with health clinics in the Peruvian Amazon.
He was hired by Colorado Community Colleges in 2010. He continues to serve students, families, and his department as the World Language and Communication Department Chair at the Colorado Community College System. While teaching at Colorado Community College Online, Mike completed the Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis program through the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri in May of 2020.