Bob Greenlee (born July 6, 1941, in
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...
) is the executive director of the Greenlee Family Foundation.
Greenlee was educated at
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...
where he received his
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
in 1963 and
M.A.
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
in 1968.
Decades later, in 1997, Iowa State initiated the Greenlee School of Journalism and Mass Communication in response to a large donation.
After a career in advertising, Bob, with wife Diane, moved to
Boulder, Colorado in 1975
and bought radio station KADE. In 1978, the Greenlees launched and developed the very successful
KBCO
KBCO (97.3 FM) is a radio station in Denver that is licensed to Boulder, Colorado. Owned by iHeartMedia, it broadcasts an adult album alternative (AAA) format.
Its studios are located alongside its sister stations in southeast Denver, while it ...
, an FM station programming
adult album alternative
Adult album alternative (also triple-A, AAA, or adult alternative) is a radio format. See pages 9 and 10Mills, Joshua. "A New Radio Music Format: Rock for Prosperous Adults" New York Times, Feb 28 1994, p. 2. ProQuest. Web. Accessed September 4, 2 ...
(AAA) format, which they sold in 1988 for $27M
to Noble Broadcasting, now part of the
iHeartRadio conglomerate. Greenlee also co-founded what would become
CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries
CraftWorks Holdings, Inc. was a multi-brand restaurant operator headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee with an additional Restaurant Support Office (RSO) in Broomfield, Colorado. The company owned several casual dining restaurant chain brands, inc ...
, of which he is still a board member.
He is president of Centennial Investment & Management Company, Inc., a Boulder-based venture capital and real estate firm.
Greenlee was the
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
mayor of Boulder from 1998 to 1999 and city council member from 1983-1999. In 1998, he ran a narrowly unsuccessfully race as a moderate pro-choice Republican against
Mark Udall
Mark Emery Udall ( ; born July 18, 1950) is an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Colorado from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the United States House of Representatives, repres ...
in 1998 for
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
's
2nd Congressional District.
In late December 2016, Greenlee was seriously injured when he caused a highway accident in southern Colorado involving 5 vehicles. Another driver was killed and two other people were injured. Greenlee was driving the SUV at 89 MPH that apparently started the chain reaction.
Greenlee and his wife, Diane, have two children.
2016 car accident
On Wednesday, December 28, 2016, Bob Greenlee and his wife were driving on U.S. 160 westbound across La Veta Pass between Walsenburg and Alamosa in their 2003 Cadillac Escalade. A high-speed (89 MPH) passing unsafe maneuver by Greenlee set off a chain reaction involving several passenger cars and a tractor trailer truck, resulting in one fatality, two serious injuries and five less-serious injuries. Everyone involved was wearing a seat belt and no one was ejected from a vehicle.
Pat (Patricia) Lucero, 70, from Monte Vista died instantly after the Toyota Camry she was driving was struck by Greenlee's vehicle, once she was already dead, the Camry hit a tractor trailer, then struck a Kia Spectra. The Greenlees' SUV also struck a BMW X5 head on, causing it to roll and land on its side. Both Greenlee and his wife suffered critical injuries and were hospitalized in two different facilities.
In all, seven people were transported, by ground ambulance, to three different hospitals. The highway was closed for a few hours. Initial reports indicated speed was a contributing factor.
Six weeks after the accident, a meeting between state patrol investigators and the District Attorney's office was being rescheduled and no charges had been filed.
A week later, the news turned to aggressive driving and speed, as investigators reported Greenlee was "passing improperly" at 22 mph over the speed limit: 87 mph in a 65 mph zone.
On Wednesday, Feb. 22, nine criminal charges were filed against Greenlee: two homicide charges - vehicular, criminally negligent - as well as vehicular assault, two counts of careless driving causing injury, reckless driving, speeding, reckless endangerment and improper passing on the left.
Greenlee's court arraignment was set for Tuesday, Mar. 28 in Alamosa. The most serious of the nine charges - vehicular homicide, a Class 4 felony - could lead to a prison sentence of two to six years.
In January 2018, Greenlee pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and three other charges, with potential prison time of up 3 years.
In late March 2018, Greenlee was sentenced in Costilla District Court to a year of home detention, a $100,000 fine, an annual charitable contribution of $100,000 for the ten-year probation term, and 200 hours of community service.
Although the judge called Greenlee's role in the fatal accident "egregious… inexplicable conduct… inexcusable behavior", he felt that incarceration would essentially be a death sentence and would serve no purpose, and that the $1 million in charitable funds, to an entity selected by the prosecutor, would help the San Luis Valley community. Greenlee later appealed the sentence and no donations have been made to such funds.
Greenlee Family Foundation
The Greenlee Family Foundation is a "private grant-making organization." Its mission is: "to encourage, preserve and promote the well-being, education, welfare and enlightenment of our fellow citizens by investing in creative people and ideas."
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See also
* List of people from Colorado
This is a list of notable people from the U.S. state of Colorado. It includes people that were born, raised, or have significant relations with the state.
Coloradans have been prominent in many fields, including literature, entertainment, art ...
References
External links
1998 CNN Profile
Greenlee Family Foundation
Transcript of July 21, 2008 interview
for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program, Carnegie Library for Local History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenlee, Bob
1941 births
Living people
Mayors of Boulder, Colorado
Iowa State University alumni
Colorado city council members