Don Sturm, a successful Denver financier, knew what it was like to see billions of dollars evaporate in the dot-com bust and to watch the ownership of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, seemingly in his hands, slip away at the last minute.
But Sturm never lost his work ethic, his vision for the future, his desire to help the larger community in the present, and his sense of humor, family and colleagues said.
Sturm, a mover and shaker on Denver’s business scene in the 90s and 00s, died on Saturday at age 92, overcoming his setbacks and leaving his indelible mark on Colorado.
“He was in the office every day — even until right here at the end,” said Koger Propst, CEO at ANB Bank, which Sturm strung together from a group of troubled banks he acquired during the Savings and Loans crisis in the early 1990s.
Propst said Sturm was a thoughtful and strategic thinker who even into his late 80s and 90s never stopped planning.
Sturm’s second son, Stephen, described him as an amazing father, who was kind, attentive and thoughtful. He said his father worked until late last month and when he died this weekend, he was surrounded by family.
“He clearly lived a very busy life but he always made time for his family. You learned a lot through what he said, but you learned more through how he operated,” Stephen Sturm said.
Born Donald Lawrence Sturm to an immigrant family in Brooklyn on Jan. 10, 1932, Sturm attended City College of New York before being drafted into the U.S. Army. He moved to Denver to earn his law degree at the University of Denver, and then returned to New York, where he obtained a master’s degree in taxation law.
After working as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, Sturm joined the engineering and construction firm Peter Kiewit Sons Co. in Omaha, eventually becoming vice chairman. In 1984, he guided the company’s acquisition of Continental Group, a multi-national conglomerate.
In 1987, Sturm, previously married, met and married Susan Morgan, who survives him, along with his four children — Robert Sturm, Melanie Sturm, Stephen Sturm and Emily Sturm Ehrens.
The Sturms began acquiring failed banks and troubled properties in the early 1990s after Don left Kiewit and moved to Denver, which was especially hard hit by the S&L crisis, to be closer to their investments. The acquired banks, owned by Sturm Financial Group, came together as Denver-based ANB Bank, which now has 30 locations and $3 billion in assets.
Sturm emphasized building local management teams connected to the local community at each bank location, and understood the important role independent banks played, Propst said.
The family enterprise, named Alder, oversees the real estate holdings and has established master-planned communities over the years, the most recent being The Meadows at Castle Rock, where 20,000 residents live.
Sturm invested heavily in Cherry Creek North, redeveloping the old Tattered Cover building and creating Fillmore Plaza, and its investment arm has funded several startups.
Sturm also was part of a group that helped Continental Airlines emerge from bankruptcy in 1993 and he helped Kiewit spin off what would become Level 3 Communications.
That telecom investment, and a significant holding in WorldCom –once the country’s second-largest long-distance provider– helped Sturm reach an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion in 1999, per Forbes.
That year, he bid $461 million for Ascent Entertainment Group, owner of the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and the soon-to-open Pepsi Center, beating a $400 million bid from Bill and Nancy Laurie, heirs of Walmart founder Sam Walton.
But city officials wanted guarantees that a new owner wouldn’t move either team for 25 years, which Sturm contested. That allowed Stan Kroenke, also associated with the Walton family, to slip in and acquire the two teams and arena in 2000.
Over the years, Sturm and his foundation have supported several area groups and institutions, including Judaism Your Way, which Sturm founded after rabbis refused to marry him and Sue; the Jewish Community Center of Denver; the Denver Museum of Nature and Science; the Summit Huts Association and Arapahoe Community College.
In 2019, the Sturm Family Foundation donated $10 million for ACC’s Sturm Collaboration Campus, the largest gift in the history of Colorado’s community college system.
“Don Sturm was a visionary in imagining a fully inclusive, welcoming home to interfaith and mixed heritage families. He was steadfast and unwavering in his support of Judaism Your Way’s mission to welcome Jews and their loved ones with unconditional love. The wider Jewish world has changed and become more inclusive as a result of his dedication,” Rabbi Caryn Aviv wrote in an email.
His greatest financial generosity, however, was reserved for his alma mater, the University of Denver, where the Sturm College of Law, the classroom building Sturm Hall, and the Sturm Center, a psychology program that helps veterans and those in the military, carry his name.
“From the time he was a determined law student on our campus until the last day of his service as a trustee, Don Sturm, along with his wife, Susan, made so many contributions to the DU community,” Chancellor Jeremy Haefner in an email.
In 2016, the university awarded Don and Sue its first inaugural Founders Medal, the highest non-academic honor the university can bestow.
”You want to help people. You can’t take it with you,” Sturm said in a video accompanying his admission into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame in 2022. “You want the place where you live to be a better place because you lived there.”
The Sturm family will hold a private funeral and memorial service. Donations in Sturm’s memory can be made to Judaism Your Way, 950 South Cherry St., Suite 310, Glendale, CO 80246-2699. Those impacted by Sturm’s life are asked to share memories and stories via a letter to “The Sturm Family” at 3033 E. First Ave., Suite 300, Denver, CO 80206.
