Within a few years of taking over his father’s public relations firm, William Kostka Jr. handled some of Colorado’s biggest controversies: An underground nuclear bomb detonation in rural Rio Blanco County, Denver’s bid for the 1976 Winter Olympics and a project that would tear down and rebuild the heart of downtown Denver.
But that’s why Kostka was hired. He was the best.
“You should know everyone has worked for Bill — at least anyone who is any good in PR!” said Denise Gliwa, a PR consultant who got her start at Kostka’s agency in 1987 and remembers jumping right into the controversy around asbestos contamination at Lakeside Mall.
The legendary public relations executive and former Rocky Mountain News reporter died Nov. 22, 2015 at 81 after battling lung cancer and a chronic pulmonary disease. His memorial service has been scheduled for Jan. 9, 2016, at 2 p.m. at Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Denver.
Friends and family remember Kostka for his professionalism, his love of Denver and his drive.
“He was a hard-driving guy. He didn’t do anything halfway. He drank heavy, he smoked heavy. We’d go skiing and I’d make my turns down the run and Bill would come shooting by, no turns at all,” recalled Ned High, a life-long friend who worked for Kostka in the ’60s.
“That’s the way he treated life. On the golf course, he never had a soft swing. He was always a hard hitter.”
Daughter Jenn Kostka Beck, who lives in Wheat Ridge, remembers a softer side. While learning to ski at not-quite-3 years old, she went with her dad to Steamboat Springs.
“He took me halfway down the bunny slopes and I fell. And I asked if we could have lunch now. He said ‘Yes,’ and pulled out our peanut-butter sandwiches right there,” Beck said. “He was just so understanding.”
Kostka began life in Minneapolis, born on Oct. 17, 1934 to Dorothy and William Kostka Sr., the latter who worked as the managing editor of Look Magazine before delving into public relations.
Kostka Jr. spent his childhood in Chappaqua, N.Y., but fell in love with Colorado after spending summers at camp in Steamboat Springs.
In 1949, the Kostka clan had moved to the Denver area, where Kostka Sr. started William Kostka & Associates with just one small but mighty client: regional brewer Adolph Coors. Dorothy worked as an editor and columnist at The Denver Post.
Kostka Jr. graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Colorado in 1956. After a stint as a public information officer in the U.S. Army, he joined the Rocky Mountain News as a crime reporter.
He was an avid news reader, subscribing to multiple papers and reading them with his children at breakfast, recalled Beck, who was a reporter at the Durango Herald before joining National Jewish Health to handle public relations.
“He loved reading the paper. He lived by it,” Beck said. “We woke up every morning to him reading both newspapers.”
Journalists also influenced Kostka’s agency. He hired many reporters from the industry, like Pete Webb, a former Channel 4 investigative reporter. Webb, founder of Webb Strategic Communications in Denver, worked for Kostka between 1981 to 1988.
“Bill’s legacy fostered and mentored recovering journalists who went on to be successful in a new field,” Webb said. “We certainly learned the basics of how to service clients, land clients, manage our time and strategically think on behalf of clients. There was a lot of camaraderie. He understood us. We all came from the same place.”
Kostka left newspapers in 1961 to write for Martin Marietta’s Aerospace Division (now Lockheed Martin) in Baltimore. He befriended astronauts like Gus Grissom, with whom he later split a bottle of champagne at a Cape Canaveral motel to celebrate the launch of the two-man Gemini spacecraft.
But in 1967, he returned to Denver. His father suffered a stroke and Kostka Jr. took over the agency as president.
And in Denver, he thrived on projects that often were complicated and controversial but also strongly focused on building Denver: The creation of the ; the , the first surround concert hall in the nation; the launch of the Colorado Prepaid Tuition Fund; and the start of the
“We were all working with all the municipalities and counties to get an agreement for the (RTD) system,” said Cynthia Gleason Kostka, a journalism graduate who joined the firm in 1972 and married Kostka two years later. “When you put a project like that together and put it up to a vote, it’s very complex. That’s the kind of issue Bill lived for.”
RTD won funding in 1973, with .
Then there was the , the block-by-block cleanup of decaying and blighted areas of downtown between Market and Champa streets. But it was also criticized for tearing down historic structures.
High, who worked for Kostka on Skyline after leaving Channel 7, remembers the the controversy and said the project became about preserving and rebuilding — not just destruction.
“Most of the buildings that needed to be torn down were torn down. What’s there now is infinitely better than what was there,” said High, who remembered walking past drunks when touring Larimer Street back in the day. “That was our job to convince the people that this needed to be done and things would be better if it was voted in.”
Thanks to budding developer Dana Crawford, was saved and revitalized. And Kostka moved his agency to Larimer Street in 1975, becoming Crawford’s first office tenant.
“Every sale initially was a hard sale but I think that Bill saw the vision and he knew that he could be a leader in terms of developing a whole new end of town, a renewed end of town,” said Crawford, the grand dame behind much of Denver’s downtown revitalization, including the recent . Her first job in Denver was working for Kostka’s father. “They (the Kostka’s) were always really involved in what was going on and very helpful in bringing about change.”
Kostka’s proudest accomplishment, say family and friends, was being part of the Denver team that won the bid for the 1976 Winter Olympics.
Brigitte Zimmer, fresh from serving as an interpreter for the Grenoble Olympics in 1968, worked with Kostka on the project. Denver had recruited her to work on the Olympics organizing committee, where she got to know Kostka — and what a great sport he was.
“In Amsterdam, we were all in the same hotel and we’d gotten in late from dinner. We knew where Bill’s room was. And in Europe, you can put your request in for what you want for breakfast (outside your door),” said Zimmer, who with fellow committee member — astronaut Wally Schirra — ordered Kostka’s breakfast and a copy of the Communist Party newspaper Pravda to be delivered at 5 a.m.
“He thought the hotel had goofed up at first and then he came down and joined at all of us later. We asked him did he enjoy the copy of the Pravda and he said, ‘Oh, it was you!’ ” Zimmer said. “He was great fun to be around.”
Denver won the Olympics bid in1970 but two years later, after Kostka’s agency had moved on to other things, voters statewide because of the high cost.
The agency, which was renamed Kostka Gleason Communications in 1997 as wife Cynthia took over as CEO, ultimately helped publicize more than 35 election issue campaigns with a 95 percent success rate at the polls.
“For me, when I think of him, I think of Denver, Colorado and how he loved the city and loved being a major player. As he got older, we would drive around town and he’d point out the things he worked on,” Beck said. “He was so proud to live here.”
Kostka remained active until he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005, Gleason-Kostka said. The couple decided to dissolve the agency five years later — nearly 60 years after it all began.
“We’ve outlived some of the buildings (we worked on),” said Gleason Kostka, who often joked with her spouse about old projects they worked on together. “It was wonderful for him to see things, and the ones that morphed into things that became event greater.”
Kostka is survived by his wife, Cynthia Gleason Kostka, of Denver; his children, Cheryl Wilks and Wendy (Mark Niedt) Kostka, both of Parker, Jennifer (Brian) Beck, of Wheat Ridge, and William (Rhonda) Kostka III, of Los Angeles; four grandsons, Cody Wilks, Zander Kostka Newman and Caden Kostka Newman, all of Parker, and Tucker Beck, of Wheat Ridge; and brother, Stefan Kostka, of Shelburne Falls, Mass.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children of Arapahoe County, 10855 E. Bethany Drive, Suite 200, Aurora, CO 80014.
Tamara Chuang: tchuang@denverpost.com or visit dpo.st/tamara
