Paul Bunyan felled the forests of the upper Midwest. John Henry chiseled through mountains faster than a steam-powered drill. And Robert “Rocky” Scott saved Colorado Springs from an economic meltdown.
Scott, 57, is resigning after 16 years as president of the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. to join Loveland-based developer McWhinney Enterprises. There he’ll make more money and have more time to spend with family.
But in his day, Scott helped bring 42,000 jobs to a city in the shadows of Pikes Peak, luring corporate giants including Apple Computer, MCI, Oracle, Intel and Progressive Insurance.
“I’m just a guy who worked hard to get the community to work together,” he said.
But others say his accomplishments – both behind the scenes and on center stage – are legendary.
“He defied gravity,” said Colorado Springs developer and Republican activist Steve Schuck. “For decades, he has been the go-to guy for economic development, and the state is better for it.”
Wendy Mitchell said she heard about Scott when she was applying for her current job as president of the Aurora Economic Development Council in 2001.
“They said, ‘We want someone who can create an organization like Rocky’s,”‘ she said. “I knew that he was the god of economic development in this state.”
Spare no hyperbole.
“He is the embodiment of a philosopher king,” said Tom Clark of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. “He operates at the highest level of ethics. He’s ferociously courageous. When he makes a decision, he draws on a wealth of information – from history to economics and mathematics.”
Not everyone is so enthralled. Scott has long argued that the state should invest more tax dollars in education and transportation to remain competitive. For this, he has garnered sneers from Gov. Bill Owens. And Colorado Springs anti-tax crusader Douglas Bruce won’t miss him when he moves.
“He will be a vote for higher taxes, but from Larimer County as opposed to El Paso County,” Bruce quipped.
Scott spent his earliest years in Honduras, where his father was general manager for United Fruit Co. His two older brothers pronounced his name, Robert Keith, as “Ro-key.” That name stuck.
“He was the toughest kid I ever knew,” said his older brother, Stuart Scott, 59. “He was also the guy we would send to do the tasks that were impossible to do. If there was a cicada 40 feet up in a tree and we wanted to see what a cicada looked like, we sent Rocky up there.”
The Scott family moved to Greeley in 1956. Rocky got a degree in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 1969 and became an Army officer.
In 1980, Rocky joined his brother Stuart’s real-estate firm in Colorado Springs. In 1982, he began volunteering with the city’s Economic Development Corp. He became president of the organization in 1989, amid one of the worst downturns to hit Colorado Springs.
In 1990, TV news magazine “60 Minutes” called Colorado Springs “ground zero” of the savings and loan crisis. The federal Resolution Trust Corp. took control of properties after an epidemic of defaults. “For sale” signs fronted homes, buildings and tracts of land. Special districts formed to build streets and sewers for neighborhoods that went bankrupt.
I met Rocky around this time. He was straight-shooting, intelligent and well-studied. He was not a cheerleader. Yet, even as everyone was leaving town, he somehow made me feel like Colorado Springs was the greatest place in the world. This wasn’t true, of course. But Rocky tried to make it true.
In 1991, Rocky lured Apple and MCI to Colorado Springs. Those companies brought 6,000 jobs and ended the city’s four-year losing streak. From there, many more companies came.
Colorado Springs was struck again in the tech bust of the early 2000s. But the proof of Rocky’s success is that today there are folks in Colorado Springs who complain about too much growth.
They may hope for that problem once the legend is gone.
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-820-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
