Henry Edwin Blair’s Castle Rock brokerage firm helped people navigate the tricky world of business investment.
Blair, 61, owner of Screamin Eagle, would tell buyers which companies were promising, which weren’t, and explain the intricacies of running a business, associates said.
“He would do the due diligence to see if it was a good business to buy,” said Laurie Anderson, president of Anderson and Associates Public Relations.
Blair was murdered next to his white Mercedes sport utility vehicle last Sunday. Officials say his body was left on Happy Canyon Road near Interstate 25, where it was spotted by a passer-by Sunday night.
Investigators have received good tips and have been working around the clock to find the killer, said Cocha Heyden, Douglas County sheriff’s spokeswoman.
Friends, business associates and family said Blair walked his dog Dirty Harry twice a day, had season tickets to Denver Broncos games, was a devoted family man and recently moved into a gated community next to a golf course. He had never been arrested, hadn’t been sued and was an unlikely target for violence.
“I was shocked,” Anderson said about learning of Blair’s murder. “He was a very gentle guy. Easygoing. Easy to talk to. He was just a nice guy.”
Blair graduated with honors in business administration from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He raced a Triumph sports car when he was still a teenager, according to his nephew, Mark Blair, 46, of Florida. He served in the Army National Guard during the Vietnam War, Mark Blair said.
Blair moved to Colorado and for decades was a top salesman for Gates Rubber Inc., traveling to Asia, London, Paris and Australia selling garden hoses and automobile fan belts wholesale to car repair shops and department stores, Mark Blair said.
On one of his business trips he met his wife, Patricia, who was a flight attendant, Mark Blair said. The couple had two boys, Jonathan and Darren, ages 28 and 22, respectively.
In the early 1990s, Blair had a heart attack and left Gates. In 1992, he and his wife formed a real estate and investment company called Screamin Eagle.
He soon bought a hat-manufacturing company and later invested in Midwest Investment Holdings, a fabrication company that sold couplings, gaskets and conveyor belts, said former business partner Joseph G. Gschwendtner. He described Blair as a passionate man. The company was healthy when it sold, he said.
Since then, Blair sold commercial and residential real estate from the home-based Screamin Eagle in Englewood. Blair and his wife bought a house in Castle Pines Village in Castle Rock July 10 for $636,000, according to Douglas County records.
“They were both going to retire in the next eight months,” Mark Blair said.
His uncle’s knees were going bad and he was thinking about getting an operation, he said.
“I don’t understand this. There’s no way he hurt anybody,” Mark Blair said. “He had no enemies.”
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
