Rest in peace, Joe.
You done good.
I'm one of the many making the beer with his name on it. I've met him as well. He's one of those fellas that is a walking inspiration to me.
Take care, Joe. I'll miss you!
URL:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/obituaries/article/0,1299,DRMN_45_1817400,00.html
Joe Coors Sr. dies in sleep
Brewery heir, 85, had cancer, history of heart problems
By John Accola, Rocky Mountain News
March 17, 2003
Joe Coors Sr., a patriarch of the Coors Brewing dynasty founded by his grandfather and an outspoken underwriter of ultraconservative causes, died Saturday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
The 85-year-old Coors, who retired as chief operating officer at Golden-based Adolph Coors Co. in 1988 and remained a director until three years ago, had been diagnosed recently with terminal lymphoma and had a history of heart problems.
Family members said Coors died in his sleep early Saturday at the home he shared with his second wife, Anne. Although Coors was hospitalized briefly in February and had undergone radiation treatments, his nurse said his mind remained sharp and "he seemed to be getting better."
"He would smile and talk with us, and he was especially jovial with Anne," said night nurse Liz Gayton.
Bill Coors, his elder brother by one year and the last surviving grandson of brewery founder Adolph Coors, said Joe Coors never backed down from his blunt, rock- ribbed conservatism that sometimes wreaked havoc with the beer maker's Madison Avenue image-makers.
"His extreme conservatism is what they call far right to Attila the Hun," said Bill Coors, a relative political moderate who invited his brother to help him run the family business after World War II. "There was no flexibility in his opinion.
"He was very principled and dedicated. But we got along a lot better if we didn't talk politics."
Bill Coors said his brother, despite his old-fashioned, stubborn ways and legendary political gaffes, was an astute businessman.
Brothers transformed Coors
After getting an engineering degree from Cornell University, he went to work for DuPont and another company before returning to Golden to run the Coors company's ceramics division.
During his 41 years with the company, Joe, along with his brother Bill, helped transform Coors from a small, 300,000-barrel-a-year operation into the nation's third-largest brewer.
"If it hadn't been for Joe and the two of us working together, there would be nothing left today," Bill Coors said. "I knew the brewery had to grow, and my brother Joe knew it had to grow. But we were constantly opposing my father on that. He thought the only thing keeping us alive was the quality we were building into our product, and that growth and quality were not compatible."
With his chemical engineering background, Joe Coors helped refine the cold-filtered process. Coors company spokeswoman Aimee Valdez said the brothers introduced the nation's first large-scale recycling program of aluminum cans in 1959, when the company offered a penny for each return.
Their German immigrant grandfather, who established the brewery in Golden in 1873, instilled a fierce work ethic that enabled the business to survive Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, family scandals and ultimately the right-wing politics of Joe Coors.
Besides Bill, Joe Coors had one other brother, Adolph III, who was killed in a botched kidnapping in 1960. Even before then, Bill Coors said his father, Adolph II, had laid the groundwork for the family's almost religious mission for privacy.
"It was his thinking that the best security was obscurity. We used to hire public relations firms to keep our name out of the news media . . . but it didn't help," Bill Coors said.
Backed Heritage Foundation
In the early 1970s, Joe Coors began providing the Coors family's money and famous name to launch the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
"Joe was there when most people scoffed at the notion of launching a conservative think tank," said Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner.
Joe Coors' early financial support helped Ronald Reagan to the California governor's office and later to the White House, and assured him a hand in the appointment of James Watt as secretary of the interior.
Less known was Joe Coors' behind-the-scenes work for two other conservative nonprofits, the Independence Institute, a conservative think tank in Golden, and the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a public-interest law firm.
Promoted to Coors president in 1977, Joe Coors locked horns with liberals and organized labor at a time when the company was struggling for market share against bigger Eastern competitors.
Joe Coors was said to run the company with an iron hand, insisting on lie-detector tests for new workers and standing firm in the face of an 18-month union strike.
"In the end, it was the workers at Coors who decided they didn't need union representation," said Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute.
The AFL-CIO called off a 10-year boycott in 1987, a move union organizers credit to the negotiating skills of Pete Coors, one of Joe's five sons and current president of Adolph Coors Co.
Colorado Senate President John Andrews said Joe Coors should be remembered as "one of the giants of citizenship in Colorado in the 20th century and one of the giants of American conservatism."
Involved in Iran-Contra affair
It was Joe Coors, as a member of Reagan's informal "kitchen cabinet" advisory group, who railed against what he saw as a communist menace in Central America.
In one of his more colorful public appearances, he testified in 1987 before the congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair that he funneled $65,000 to Lt. Col. Oliver North's covert supply operation. The donation bought a small airplane for the Nicaraguan Contras.
He remained supportive of North, but rankled other Reagan insiders early on, including Nancy Reagan. In 1981, Joe Coors and his cohorts advising the president were ordered to leave the Executive Office Building and find quarters elsewhere. Then-White House counselor Edwin Meese was concerned about the propriety of the Coors group occupying government property while conducting research on presidential appointees' acceptability to conservatives.
Holly Coors, Joe Coors' first wife, a Washington socialite and a director of the Heritage Foundation, remains on friendly terms with longtime Reaganites. But Joe Coors, whose marriage to Holly ended in 1987 after 46 years, was clearly disenchanted with the way Reagan ran the White House. In a 1988 interview, he maintained the former president was "way too influenced by Nancy."
"He was so excited when Ronald Reagan made it to the White House, and was convinced with a couple of years of conservatism, everything would get better," said Bill Coors.
Joe Coors' involvement in the political arena began in 1967, when he served for six years on the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado. During his tenure, he mounted a campaign against student activism, particularly Students for a Democratic Society.
Bill Coors said he talked to his brother a week ago Sunday. "He told me he was getting well, and then he says, 'I'm not terminally ill.' He just refused to accept it."
As recently as last summer, while wildfires were raging only 60 miles away, Joe Coors could be found near his favorite Colorado fishing haunts.
Anne Coors, asked about her husband's health last February following his release from Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, said he "just had a glitch" and was fine.
Anne Coors said her husband was enjoying his 15th year of retirement playing golf, corresponding with friends and keeping track of 27 grandchildren and eight great- grandchildren. "We have a busy, fun life," she said.
In a statement issued Sunday, the Heritage Foundation's Feulner lamented the loss of the group's sharp-tongued founder: "He believed in good ideas, risky or not, and putting them in action . . . May Joe Coors, my mentor and friend, rest in peace. He earned it."
In addition to his wife and brother, he is survived by his sons in Colorado, Peter, Joe, Jeff, John and Grover, and a sister, Mary Louise Tooker of Highland Beach. Fla.
Funeral arrangements are being handled by El Camino Mortuary in San Diego. Viewing will be 4-8 p.m. Friday, with services at noon Saturday.
Sarah Huntley and Jean Torkelson contributed to this report.
Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
"Besides Bill, Joe Coors had one other brother, Adolph III, who was killed in a botched kidnapping in 1960"
Forensic geology helped solve that case. The perp's car was found in a junkyard on the east coast and he had an alibi that he was never in Colorado.
The FBI dug sand and gravel samples out of the tire treads and found them to be indiginous to the area of Colorado where the kidnapping occured.
That's it. Coors is now the official soft drink of my
Softball team. A fitting tribute, and a fitting way
to support conservative corporations.
RIP to a fine gentleman.
Is there a way to access the archives? I'd love to dig out some of the old "Coors Supports Homesexuals" threads. They were a hoot.