Goodwill Industries of Denver and Venoco Inc. were among the recipients of the 2012 Martin Luther King Jr. Business Social Responsibility Awards that Mayor Michael Hancock presented at a luncheon held Friday at the Marriott City Center.
Goodwill, perhaps best known for its extensive network of resale shops, was founded in 1918 at Denver’s Epworth Church to serve disabled World War I veterans and immigrants settling in the West. Today, Goodwill is one of the largest providers of services to at-risk youth and low-income and disabled adults.
Tim Marquez started Venoco, a $1.8 billion Denver-based independent oil and gas company, in 1992. Marquez and his wife, Bernadette, donated 2.5 million shares of Venoco stock, worth an estimated $42.5 million, to establish the TBM Foundation. They also gave the same amount to the Denver Foundation to use as a challenge grant in establishing the Denver Scholarship Foundation.
Other Business Social Responsibility Awards went to Hope Communities, for its 30 years of creating decent, affordable housing in the Five Points neighborhood; Hercules Industries, a manufacturer and distributor of HVAC sheet-metal products and equipment, for its annual donation of $25,000 to the employee-driven Metal of Honor Fund that assists a variety of worthy causes; Faye Wilson Tate, vice president and director of global diversity and inclusion at CH2M Hill; and Jim White of Volunteers of America.
In addition, the Trailblazer Award was given to Robbie Bean, a retired educator who is also a past president of the Denver branch of the American Association of University Women and the 1998 recipient of the University of Nebraska’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com
