When your name is Maria Garcia Berry and you’re such a powerful lobbyist that some actually consider you a force of nature, you’ve got to be prepared for anything. Especially when you’re the subject of a roast.
Former Gov. Dick Lamm, for whom she served as budget lobbyist; John Hickenlooper, who left empty-handed when he came calling for support during his ultimately successful run for mayor of Denver; and Susan Powers and Cathy Reynolds, dressed as nuns from the Sisterhood of Perpetual Politics, kept a record crowd of 940 in stitches when the Colorado I Have A Dream Foundation put Berry on a skewer at a dinner that raised $200,000 for IHAD’s student mentoring programs.
“This woman has moved more mountains in 4-inch Manolo Blahnik heels than the entire Denver Broncos line,” noted Greg Vilkin, whose relationship to Berry is unique. While a client during the time he was leading Forest City’s redevelopment of the former Stapleton International Airport (he’s now president of Forest City Residential West in Los Angeles) he married one of Berry’s staffers, Elizabeth Vail Woodward.
Berry was 9 when she left her native Cuba as part of Operation Peter Pan, which enabled more than 14,000 children to enter the United States through a special visa waiver program. She stayed with relatives in Miami for five months until her parents arrived, and then the family moved to Colorado when a Methodist church in Westminster sponsored them.
Greg Kolomitz, Berry’s partner at CRL Associates and an IHAD board member, persuaded her to accept the “honor” and chaired the benefit with his wife, Carla Lucero Kolomitz, Vilkin and Woodward, Marcy and Bruce Benson, Mark Falcone and Ellen Bruss, Rus and Linda Heise, Tracy Huggins, John Huggins and Steve Kaplan.
Mayors, city council members, state legislators, school board members, developers, clients and CRL employees both present and past attended the event.
Lisa Herzlich and Nancy Sagar represented two of Berry’s favorite haunts – Cherry Creek Shopping Center and Neiman Marcus – while Chris Frampton was there on behalf of East West Partners. Berry’s husband, Chuck, current president of the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, and two of their three children, Anne and James, also attended.
Other familiar faces in the crowd: Mexico’s consul general in Colorado, Juan Marcos Gutierrez; Chris Romer, a son of former Gov. Roy Romer and co-founder of the Colorado I Have a Dream Foundation; Small Business Administration chief Patricia Barela Rivera; University of Denver president Marc Holtzman; fellow Cubana and Mi Casa Resource Center for Women director Carmen Carrillo; attorneys Ted Trimpa, Paul Jacobs, Dawn Bookhardt, Gene Hohensee, K.C. Veio and Steve Farber, a previous roastee who emceed the program with IHAD board member and WB2 reporter Tamara Banks; Don Elliman, president of The Children’s Hospital board; banker Bruce Alexander; United Way chief Michael Durkin; retired cop Jerry Kennedy; and Doug Seserman, director of the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado.
Society editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jmdpost@aol.com.
