The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and Junior Achievement-Rocky Mountain are proud to announce the 2024 inductees into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame, representing Colorado’s most distinguished business leaders from the past and present. The 2024 class includes leaders in a variety of industries, including banking, real estate and architectural development, restaurant franchising, and resort management:
- Rose Andom
- Pat Hamill
- John Ikard
- Robert Katz
- Steve Schuck
- Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone
These laureates, selected for their enduring and innovative professional contributions to Colorado, inspirational and ethical acumen, and philanthropic endeavors, will be inducted at the annual Colorado Business Hall of Fame dinner on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, at the Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center.
The ceremony will be emceed by Denver7 Morning Anchor Brian Sanders. Denver7 is a proud partner of the Colorado Business Hall of Fame.
For details about this event or to purchase a table or tickets, please visit www.ColoradoBusinessHallofFame.org.
About Junior Achievement-Rocky Mountain
Junior Achievement prepares young people to thrive in the 21st century workplace and global economy by inspiring a passion for free enterprise and entrepreneurship, and instilling an understanding of personal financial literacy. On average, Junior Achievement serves 70,000 students each year in Colorado and Wyoming. These programs are always free to schools thanks to thousands of volunteers and the generous support of donors. For more information, visit www.jacolorado.org.
About the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce is Colorado's largest business organization and has been the leading voice for the Metro Denver business community for more than 150 years – bringing a history of finding pragmatic solutions, using data and facts to establish our goals, and aligning Colorado's most diverse views to map a path forward. For more information, visitwww.denverchamber.org.
2024 Colorado Business Hall of Fame Laureates:
Rose Andom
Despite a difficult childhood, Rose Andom didn’t let adversity stand in her way and became the first person in her family to attend college. After working at the Hallmark Card Company and Ford Motor Company, she took a position at McDonald’s Corporation and entered an accelerated management development program. Ten years later, she left the corporate world and purchased her first McDonald’s franchise. Over the next 24 years, she owned and operated six McDonald’s restaurants, including the three at Denver International Airport. When she bought the DEN locations, the total volume was approximately $6 million, by Andom’s retirement in 2015 the annual net sales were nearly $20 million. Andom consistently donates to multiple nonprofit organizations and has contributed over $2 million to date towards the Rose Andom Center in Denver, which provides services to those suffering from domestic abuse. Her next project is to build a 70-unit affordable apartment complex in Northfield for people experiencing homelessness.
Pat Hamill
Pat Hamill founded Oakwood Homes in 1991. Under his leadership, Oakwood Homes grew to become one of the largest homebuilding companies in the Denver area. In 2017, Oakwood was sold to Berkshire Hathaway and is a premier master-plan developer in Colorado, Utah and Arizona. Oakwood Homes is a company that truly represents Hamill’s spirit and dedication to the communities it serves. In 2021, the company launched On2Homes, a modular product that provides housing at 40 percent of the area median housing price. He co-founded both the BuildStrong Education Foundation and the 21st Century High-Tech Academies at Martin Luther King Middle School and Montbello High School in the Green Valley Ranch area. He has been a member of the board for the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Denver and the Colorado Golf Foundation. He also chaired Colorado Concern, a group of top executives focused on enhancing and protecting the state’s business climate.
John Ikard
John Ikard returned home to Colorado in 1981 following college and was hired as a management trainee at FirstBank Holding Company that year. The following year, he was promoted to bank officer, in 1991 he was named the president of the FirstBank Tech Center Branch, and eight years later became the CEO of the bank, a position he held until his retirement in 2017. Ikard made a commitment to implement a culture of philanthropy and community involvement at FirstBank. From the inception of the bank in 1963 until 1999, when Ikard took over, the bank had contributed a total of $8 million to charitable causes. From 1999 to 2016, they contributed over $57 million and consistently ranked in the top three of all corporate givers in the state. Under Ikard’s leadership, FirstBank has grown to be the second-largest bank in Colorado by deposits. Ikard has chaired numerous organizations including the Denver Economic Development Corporation, the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, the Denver Boy Scout Council, and Colorado Concern.
Robert Katz
Robert Katz became the CEO of Vail Resorts in 2006 and the ski industry hasn’t been the same since. It was Katz’s idea to develop a season pass program, and the industry-changing Epic Pass launched in 2008. Since taking over, Vail Resorts has become the global leader in mountain resorts, growing its footprint from five to 41 resorts. The number of employees at their Broomfield headquarters has increased from 200 to 1,200, along with employment growth at each individual resort. Katz and his wife Elena created the Katz Amsterdam Foundation with a focus on nonprofits in mountain communities that address mental and behavioral challenges. Over $22 million has been given back to the community through the Foundation, and it has also served as a catalyst for intra-community collaboration. He stepped down as CEO in 2021 but remains on the board as executive chairman and continues to be fully involved in the strategic operations of the company.
Steve Schuck
Steve Schuck founded Schuck Communities, now Schuck Chapman Companies, more than 50 years ago, and the company continues to be a major developer of commercial, residential, industrial, and mixed-use projects in multiple markets. Throughout his stellar career, Schuck has had more than 50 joint ventures and partnerships, creating and developing thousands of residential home sites and scores of commercial projects in the Denver, Colorado Springs, Portland and Phoenix markets, valued in billions of dollars. Schuck’s entrepreneurial leadership reaches far beyond business and into public policy, including having been a candidate for governor. He and his late wife, Joyce, have been school choice activists for decades, creating Parents Challenge over 22 years ago, which has empowered low-income parents of more than 3,000 disadvantaged kids in Colorado Springs with privately funded scholarships, grants and mentoring that can be used in both public and private schools. Their private foundation, The Schuck Initiatives, is a leader and activist in advancing freedom and personal responsibility, moving people from dependency to independence.
Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone (1801-1895)
In 1862, Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone and her second husband, Lewis, packed up their covered wagon and made the move from Minnesota to Colorado, traveling down the South Platte River. After spending two years in Denver operating a restaurant and hotel in what is currently Union Station, they relocated north to a U.S. Army outpost named Camp Collins, where she played a major role in developing the city we know today as Fort Collins. She is recognized as the only woman founder of the city. Stone was instrumental in the development of the area; she built and ran multiple hotels over the next decades, including the Pioneer Cabin and Metropolitan Hotel. She built the first mill in the city and operated the region’s first brick kiln in her brick-making business. Because of her kind heart and merriness, she was nicknamed “Auntie Stone” by the officers. An advocate for women’s suffrage, Stones cast her first vote at the age of 93, two years before she passed away in 1895.
