Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Harry Lewis – The Breakfast Meeting Man

Harry Lewis attended thousands of breakfast meetings in his adult life. Even after he mostly retired from brokerage, it’s where he conducted his meetings to cajole, plan, manage, help finance and just generally encourage a myriad of civic projects. Harry was always going to board meetings from the Nature History Museum (precursor of the Museum of Nature and Science), to the Denver Chamber, to the Boettcher Foundation. He worked on the new airport, the Convention Center, and was a prime mover on the creation and planning of the reuse of Stapleton Airport. What a legacy.

I had a long series of always friendly and productive breakfasts with Harry throughout his years of support for the Scientific and Culture Facilities District (SCFD), one of the region’s most valuable civic investments. Harry, with his talent for conducting a meeting, helped guide the political action committee, Citizens for Arts to Zoo (CATZ), that supports the SCFD, especially its periodic elections from 1992 until he retired in 2012 – a twenty-year tour of leadership that involved two renewal elections, which secured the district as a respected and voter-favored institution in Denver.

Harry just passed away, but his legacy, from a host of projects along with warm remembrances of hundreds of friends and appreciative colleagues, is enduring.

Harry Lewis

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