Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine . . .
It was a Humphrey Bogart moment last night when I ran into my old pal Adam Aron, former CEO of Vail Resorts Inc.
There he was in the Elway’s Cherry Creek bar, breaking bread with local lovelies Linda Christie-Horn (who worked with Aron when she was with American Express) and Keri Christiansen from Denver Hospice.
Aron, who helmed Vail from 1996 to 2006, was instrumental in taking the ski-resort company public and guiding the acquisition of Keystone and Breckenridge ski areas.
The first time I met him was at a “meet the press” conference at the Palm, where he sported a boot on his foot after fracturing it in an airport stunt similar to the old O.J. Simpson Hertz commercials.
When he left Vail Resorts, he joined New York-based private-equity firm Apollo Management, a major Vail shareholder. While he remains a partner at Apollo, his focus these days is as the owner of Cap Juluca, a chi-chi resort on the southwest coast of Anguilla in the Caribbean.
“We plan to turn it into a dramatic real estate development with 1.5 miles of beach and 180 acres of beachfront property,” Aron said.
Which explains the surprise Denver visit. Aron was here to meet with his hotel and real estate lawyer Steve Farber, one of the founding partners of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.
Work it.
DaVita, the giant kidney-dialysis company with 1,400 centers in the U.S., has been included in the Best Places to Work in Los Angeles list by the Los Angeles Business Journal.
How’s that? Didn’t DaVita recently announce it’s moving its headquarters here — and we all know Denver is way cooler than L.A. Doesn’t matter, according to company spokeswoman Kelsey Rood.
“They’re not just talking about our corporate headquarters; the survey goes out to clinics as well,” said Rood, who added that DaVita has 49 facilities and two business offices in L.A. “It has less to do with business operations and more to do with the facilities.”
Companies included on the Best Places to Work list are based on employee surveys.
“They surveyed 1,700 teammates total in the (L.A.) area,” Rood said.
Yes, she did say “teammates.”
Eavesdropping.
A diner and a server at a Cherry Creek North restaurant:
“What’s the soup of the day?”
“Tomato quarantine.”
“You mean tomato florentine?”
Penny Parker’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-630 AM. Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail pparker@denverpost.com.
