ColoradoBiz articles from August 2006

ColoradoBiz archives from August 2006

Was Ken Lay worth it?(On Colorado)
August 1, 2006... KEN LAY DIED IN ASPEN LAST MONTH, AND MANY PEOPLE mourned the lost opportunity to punish him. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Lay, of course, was the former chairman of Enron, one of the most expensive frauds in the nation's history, and he...

Micromanagement kills.(On Management)
August 1, 2006... MICROMANAGING ERASES LEADERSHIP POINTS YOU MAY HAVE had, limits your promotion prospects and makes you a lousy coach or teacher. Otherwise, it sometimes gets the job done. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If you want to see how to destroy...

Tough order for restaurants: wages, immigration, smoking ban.(Guest column)
August 1, 2006... HALF OF ALL ADULTS ARE RESTAURANT PATRONS ON A TYPICAL DAY. Colorado's 9,500 restaurants serve up more than 2 million meals each day. Restaurants are the largest private-sector employer in Colorado, with more than 176,000 workers. Restaurant...

Gun-control column draws fire.(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2006... I ran across an editorial you penned on your website in which you opine that no one should have guns but soldiers and the military ("Take away the guns now," by Robert Schwab, posted at cobizmag.com, June 26.) You say that you believe this...

Online readers open fire, too.(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2006... Ordinarily our policy is to only run letters after we've contacted the writers and confirmed their identity, but the column by ColoradoBiz Editor Robert Schwab for cobizmag.com recommending gun possession only for police and soldiers generated...

Teach kids retirement saving.(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2006... I enjoyed your article on pension planning ("Pension planning (yawn...) is a disaster," Jeff Rundles, May) and agreed with many of the facts you presented. The only consideration I would offer is that in terms of the education process, many...

Papers' relevance is yesterday's news.(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2006... Great job on the articles about the slow, bleeding death of Denver's daily newspapers (Allied newspapers, warring newsrooms," Robert Schwab, June, and "Newspaper free-for-all," Schwab, July.) But the answer is much worse than your description....

Correction.(Correction notice)
August 1, 2006... Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick's name was misspelled in two places in the July issue of ColoradoBiz. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SEND LETTERS AND CORRECTIONS TO: ROBERT SCHWAB, COLORADOBIZ, 7009 S. POTOMAC ST. SUITE 200....

Banking on the future: UMB's Kemper advocates more counseling on saving, less selling of debt.(Attitude at Altitude)
August 1, 2006... Mariner Kemper is the 33-year-old chairman and CEO of UMB Financial Corp., a $7.5 billion, multi-state banking company that posted a pretty good growth year in 2005. On June 1, Kemper announced that UMB had purchased Mountain States...

Nurse concierges harried hospital employees get their own caregivers.(Attitude at Altitude)
August 1, 2006... How does a nurse on a 12-hour shift manage a laundry list of errands? Get the Father's Day gift in the mail on time? Have that little black dress, or his tuxedo, cleaned in time for the weekend family wedding? Take the errand list, the...

Ice Energy LLC tech startup of the month.(Ice Energy LLC)(Company overview)
August 1, 2006... INITIAL LIGHTBULB Greg Tropsa was running a firm that monetized low-quality natural gas on the East Coast a few years ago when he came across a small company based in Powell, Ohio, with an interesting, albeit untapped, piece of...

Executive edge: Wayne Hutchens: avid climber aims to guide CU Foundation's ascent.(CU Foundation)
August 1, 2006... Wayne Hutchens has scaled all 54 Fourteeners in Colorado, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mount Elbrus in Russia and in April took on still another mountainous challenge--president and CEO of the rocky CU Foundation. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

Best companies to work for in Colorado 2006: financial-services firm Edward Jones and Texas-based WR starkey mortgage rate the best among 25 finalists judged exemplary workplaces in the state.(Cover story)
August 1, 2006... Scott Cawood was a principal in The Great Places to Work Institute, the company that teamed up with Fortune magazine several years ago to create what is becoming a new industry in America: rating company workplaces around the U.S. as the best...

Building momentum: downtown rejuvenation highlights Springs' recession rebound.(Q3 Real Estate)
August 1, 2006... From the Broadmoor to the Black Forest, from Fort Carson and Fountain to the Air Force Academy and points north, real estate in Colorado Springs and environs is, if not exactly booming, then at last fully recovered from its 2002-2003 recession....

For-profit, for every body: South Metro group believes its three-tiered health plan would avert a national crisis.(Q3 Industry Report: Health Care)
August 1, 2006... Penny Baldwin is a cancer-survivor and a Greenwood Village health-insurance agent who appeared in part of the late Peter Jennings' last ABC News documentary, "Breakdown: America's Health Insurance Crisis." The show was broadcast Dec. 15,...

Cashing in on Referendum C: business schools expect minimal benefit from tax-refund money.
August 1, 2006... The Referendum C checks are in the mail, but deans at the state's biggest business schools aren't exactly waiting by the mailbox for their arrival. "The amount of state funding we receive is so minimal that the only impact we expect (from Ref....

Platt Park redux: central locale drives buyers, builders to old Gates factory rentals.(Who owns Colorado)
August 1, 2006... Denver-area home buyers don't want much. Yeah, right: just a new home with modern amenities in an older neighborhood, close to downtown and public transportation, is all. Good luck. Because almost no open tracts of land remain in...

Close, and some cigars.(DEVON'S PUB )
August 1, 2006... FOR FIVE YEARS NOW, DEVON'S PUB IN SOUTHEAST DENVER HAS been a typical neighborhood bar, with a dozen stools for bellying up to a polished wood bar, a pool table in back, a couple TVs showing sports, and shelves of cigars along a back wall...

Tea Maestro.(Maria Uspenski shifted career gears and went into the tea business)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... After selling her IT company in 2000, Maria Uspenski shifted career gears and went into the tea business. "Tea is a rapidly evolving market," she said. "Tea rooms are opening across the U.S. at a rate of 500 a year." With partner Karen Harbor,...

Disc-O.(Nite Ize Inc.)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Rick Case founded Nite Ize in 1989 "as a solution to a problem I was having: I wanted both hands free to fish at night." After a shark-fishing trip to the Bahamas followed by a visit to the Tetons in 1989, the then-sophomore at CU realized a...

CDnub.(CDnub Inc.)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Eric Watson is something of a jack of all trades, having worked as a counselor, stockbroker, ghostwriter, graphic designer, and dot-com entrepreneur over the last 30 years. One of his many current businesses is CDnub, which grew out of him...

Froodles.(Azari Food Products)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Longtime CSU biochemistry professor Paul Azari started making homemade noodle-shaped fruit snacks--a.k.a. Froodles--for his kids in the 1970s, but it wasn't until his daughter Vicky Loran, a professional violinist, hurt her hand that it became...

Summer school for managers.(Sports Biz)(Column)
August 1, 2006... WHAT I KNOW ABOUT MANAGING PEOPLE WOULDN'T FILL TWO pages of a book, and might not even get me through this column. But the handful of valuable lessons I've learned about getting individuals to work together in a common cause came from a...

Keeping Colorado colorful.(Rundles Wrap-up)
August 1, 2006... OVER THE FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND, MY FRIEND ED AND I PLAYED an early game of golf at Denver's old City Park course. Since we were just a pair and not a foursome, the greenskeepers paired us with two other men, two delightful gentlemen from...