Our Mission... More than anything else, the O’Connor Center is meant to be a competent and trusted “resource” for key decision makers and stakeholders in the state and region in understanding the region’s past and present condition and key challenges and opportunities for the future.

Guiding Principles... Major values and beliefs underlying the Center’s work include:

		The belief that this mountainous, trans-national region of North America is unique and a place that requires special attention and study.
		The belief that understanding the region’s heritage and cultural diversity is essential to its advancement.
		The belief that we are at a point in the region’s history and development when it is increasingly important to develop regional awareness and regional capacity to chart directions for the future.
		The belief that the region’s “first people” – its many tribal peoples – must be partners in helping to design and shape the region’s future.
		The belief that interaction and exchange across the U.S.-Canada border should be expanded, creating new ways of thinking about the region’s shared future.
		The belief that the region’s advancement depends upon being able to imagine future choices and alternatives across and beyond the constraints of sometimes narrow ideological divides.
		An optimistic belief in the future of the Rocky Mountain West.