From the collaboration between governments, the private sector and scientists and the development of vaccines, to small business woes and projected recovery time, this column delves into what we've learned over the last year. The most important lesson learned was about true leadership.
While frontline and essential workers worried about their physical health, isolation and loneliness affected nine-to-fivers during a historic rise in remote working. Employees in every sector dealt with financial insecurity due to widespread layoffs and pay cuts.
Here is how last year’s honorees adapted their business models, took care of employees and prepared for a post-pandemic world.
From curbside pickup and senior shopping hours to dining in yurts and viewing menus via smart phones, small businesses and restaurants were forced to institute a wide range of customer safety and service steps in 2020. Business owners now are examining which of those experiments were so successful that they will stay around post-pandemic.
When fitness businesses reopened during the pandemic, they implemented COVID-19 safety measures such as limited capacity, frequent equipment cleaning, reservations and waitlists, and mask mandates.
Colorado Business Committee for the Arts (CBCA) brought a new sense of accessibility, creativity and purpose to its annual Business for the Arts Awards. As the state’s art industry grapples with the devastating effects of COVID-19, the virtual event celebrates the resiliency of the arts community and the businesses that continued to lift the community.
Many breweries turned to canning beers and building a model resilient enough to survive a slow winter. For Ska Street Brewstillery in Boulder, they kept brewing and found a market thirsty for canned beer, which made up about half of all sales before the pandemic.
Since starting Commercial Concepts by American Furniture Warehouse five years ago, Goorman has built a successful portfolio of over $40 million in project sales and has won ColoradoBiz’s “Best of Colorado” office furniture dealer three years running. His dedication to community service is a result of his mission to give back.
Selzer’s full-service interior design firm specializes in resorts, vacation destinations and challenging projects in mountain locations like Snowmass, Telluride and Vail, as well as Big Sky, Montana, and Lake Tahoe, California. In the past three years alone, RIVER+LIME has seen 30% year-over-year revenue growth.
As the co-founder of LawBank, the largest and first-ever coworking space for attorneys in Colorado, Deifik has brought together more than 115 lawyers from diverse backgrounds and experience. LawBank initiated and created the first-ever Mentoring Circle group for solo and small law firm attorneys through the Colorado Attorney Mentoring Program supported by the Colorado Supreme Court.
Joe Montoya supports a team of 75 as one of Namasté Solar’s senior leaders. In 2019, Montoya oversaw the installation of 6.25 megawatts of home solar in Colorado—the equivalent of removing the CO2 emissions from 4,869,132 pounds of coal. His division hit a sales record, and his improved service division repaired nearly 1,000 systems, many of which were not originally installed by Namasté. In addition, Montoya has added more women to his teams and in leadership roles in support of a company effort to diversify Namasté Solar and the industry.
COVID-19 shut down his second Lost City coffee shop about a month after it opened. Within days, Graham and his Lost City co-owners brought together four like-minded organizations to create the Denver Metro Emergency Food Network, dedicated to addressing growing food insecurity.
In 2014, Munro created Youth Celebrate Diversity (YCD), a nonprofit designed to provide youth with the skills they need to speak out about injustice and to feel safe in their schools and communities.
In addition to leading Molson Coors’ community affairs and investment strategy for Colorado, Garcia manages the company’s national community programs for Hispanic, Asian, sustainability and United Way partnerships. She also serves on state and national nonprofit boards that reflect her passions.
Koenigsberg is the founder and president of Arula, which started as a nonprofit consulting and grant-writing company with a unique fee structure that collects fully only if the grant is successful. His 50% success rate has raised more than $1.3 million in grant funding for clients including nonprofits ChildSafe Colorado, Idea Wild and Living Her Legacy.
Goss started Point Solutions in 2017 with a vision to improve diversity in the federal and commercial technology space. A proud LGBTQ community member, Goss currently chairs the YP board for the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce.
As a designer for WolfPack—a blockchain solution that enables people experiencing homelessness to build work history, earn token funds to purchase goods and prevent wage theft – Gardner and her team won the ETHDenver 2020 Impact Award.
Being tapped to lead KeyBank’s Colorado retail bank operations in May 2020 was just the latest in a rapid succession of promotions for Munro, who has been redefining KeyBank programs since joining the company just three years ago. Munro also chairs the board of Intercambio, a nonprofit providing cultural integration and English classes to immigrants in Boulder County, and sits on the board of Latin American Education Foundation, which provides higher education scholarships to Hispanic students in Colorado.
Holly Wilson founded Women’s Recovery in 2017. As a recovered addict and one of the few female leaders in the addiction and recovery space, Wilson has a deep understanding of the kinds of care models that women need. She advocates developing services that are more affordable and accessible for women, and support women’s unique needs, including outpatient recovery programs that don’t require women to step away from familial duties and home support networks.
Esquibel’s founded Ednium: The Alumni Collective, an organization to tap the experience of DPS alumni for insights on what was missing from their education. His work was inspired by the question: How can we close the achievement gap if the community we seek to help is left out of the discussion?
In addition to being Verizon’s first Colorado manager of community engagement, Josh Miller's work to-date has included expanding Verizon’s outreach into the community and enhancing its presence in the social/racial justice, LGBTQ, STEM Education and digital inclusion communities.
As board chair for the Queer Business Alliance (QBA), Schumacher helps provide the kind of support to LGBTQ entrepreneurs she wished for when she started her own design agency. Little Shoe Studios, which specializes in websites, content, branding and logos, helps spread good by partnering with good businesses.
Myren manages $30 million in facilities, including 10 health centers and pharmacies. She helped to establish a Pilot Program for under-served patients in rural Nevada to access Mayo Clinic services. And she served as a senior manager for an onsite-health care company and helped to lead the opening of a new rural Texas health care facility—all while completing her MBA in health administration.
These 25 professionals excel in both their personal and professional lives, making contributions not only through their work but wide-ranging philanthropic activities as well
