Electrical firm executive and beer baron
THE BASICS: Born Denise Kay Baker on Nov. 2, 1959, in Albuquerque; bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Arizona State University; married to Randy Baker since 1992; five children: Lenee, 32; David, 26, Jennifer, 21, Lindsey, 20, and Kristen, 17. Two German shepherd dogs, Jack and Bella; one cat, Oreo.
POSITION: President and chief financial officer for D.R.B. Electric since 1991; co-owner of Rio Bravo Brewing Co.; corporate officer for Red Horse Vineyard Bed & Breakfast.
DID YOU KNOW?
When she was younger, Baker wanted to be either an FBI agent or international flight attendant, but physical limitations kept her from both. Her vision wasn’t good enough for the FBI and, at just under 5 foot 2, she was too small to meet the size requirements to fly. “I made it to the third interview with American Airlines and they finally realized I was wearing higher shoes,” she says.
Baker and her siblings were on and around film sets often as children because their mother worked with a prominent local casting agent. As an adult, Baker was used in several scenes of the show “Wildfire" and also has produced the “The After After Party with Steven Michael Quezada.”
She is working on some children’s books, including a series that documents the Baker family’s travels from the perspective of a pair of toy monkeys that they take along on every trip.
She didn’t know it at the time, but the long-haired guy on the Harley was going to play a starring role in her life story. When Denise Baker first met her future husband, she was a teenager bound for Arizona State University. Randy Baker was visiting her dad’s Albuquerque CPA firm to file his taxes. Denise was intrigued — a little to her mother’s chagrin.
“My mom was just like ‘You’re going to college and joining a sorority,’” she recalls. “‘No, no, no. This is not the type (for you).’” But mom doesn’t always know best. Denise and Randy crossed paths repeatedly over the next 15 years and, when the timing finally was right, began dating. He won her heart — and ultimately her hand in marriage — with his humor, sunny disposition and a little homemade elk stew. He won over her mom, too.
Denise had expected to take over her dad’s business; she instead joined Randy’s electrical contracting company, where she assumed the role of president and chief financial officer. Together, the duo has steered D.R.B. through good times — the company has done projects in prominent venues such as the Albuquerque International Sunport, the Pit and Winrock — and bad, like this year’s high-profile fraud case against a former employee. (The former employee was convicted, sentenced to 54 months in prison and ordered to pay $2.4 million in restitution, though Baker says it’s only to the tune of $300 a month.)
That ordeal made the Bakers even more eager to pursue a dream they’d shared for years: opening a brewery. They recently launched Rio Bravo Brewing Co. on 2nd Street NW.
“We were going to invest a little more time in us,” she says. “And it’s been the best thing we’ve ever done.”
Besides her work at D.R.B. and the brewery, Denise has several outside pursuits as well, including work in film and TV (she’s produced “The After After Party with Steven Michael Quezada” and had bits of screen time in various locally filmed productions), and helping to market the Red Horse Vineyard Bed & Breakfast that her family launched on the South Valley farm where she grew up.
And this is actually a slower pace for Baker, a natural people person who, until launching the brewery, had also maintained leadership roles with a number of business and community organizations.
“I grew up in a family where my parents were very social. My dad had a CPA firm that, at its height, had like 5,000 clients, so we learned to be social, and entertain and interact with adults, and go talk with other people; you were expected, if there was a party, you got ready and participated, and my parents often had parties with 200, 300 people, so it only comes natural to kind of segue into this type of environment,” she says.
Q: Describe yourself as a teenager.
A: When I went into (my) teens, I was in a public school, I was a straight-A student. I was like the principal’s pet. I was on the basketball team. And then I went to high school, and I was from the South Valley and I went to (Albuquerque) Academy. It was the second year of girls, so not only was the atmosphere different — the boys didn’t really want the girls there — but I was also from the South Valley and there was only one other student even from there ... so it was a little awkward. I suddenly went from straight As to having to study a lot. But I got into sports, and I was in drama, and basketball and softball, and things like that. ... I drove a pickup truck, so it really added to my mystique because, here I am, South Valley, I’m driving a pickup truck and I’m parked in the