Jim Kurtz, 88, built big business with lumber

Alpine Lumber Co. co-founder Jim Kurtz built an employee-owned business empire spanning Colorado and New Mexico on a foundation of tough lessons learned as a boy working for his dad at Independent Lumber in Grand Junction.

“He had to start with the most menial tasks and work his way up. And his father always paid him less than other employees, so as not to give the impression of favoritism,” said his son-in-law, Joe Rassenfoss. “While Jim never liked that, it impressed on him the significance of every job in the yard and how important it was to acknowledge everyone’s contribution.”

Kurtz died Dec. 3 after a heart attack. He was 88.

Funeral services are set for 11 a.m. Dec. 21 at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, 1350 Washington St. in Denver.

Kurtz graduated from Yale University in 1950 and served three years in the U.S. Navy and then returned to the Western Slope, where he was president and director of Independent Lumber until 1978, when the company was sold to Boise Cascade.

He had signed a five-year noncompete agreement, and in the first year of his hiatus, he joined the Denver Zoo Foundation’s board of trustees. He was board president in 1993, the year the ambitious Tropical Discovery exhibit opened. The next year, he was named an honorary life trustee. He remained a member of the executive committee until 2015.

“When you have a big board, people might have different motivations. He was clearly there to roll up his sleeves, dig in and make the Denver Zoo successful,” said past board chairwoman Katie Philpott Schoelzel. “I don’t think it dawned on him that he wouldn’t be doing all of these things while he was busy building a business and raising a family.”

In 1983, Kurtz and his sister and brother went into Jim business together, Kurtz launching Alpine

Lumber from a small yard on South Santa Fe Drive.

Six years in, as the family was doing succession and estate planning, the company’s auditors and bankers recommended an employee stockownership plan as an exit strategy. Alpine was one of the first companies in Colorado to begin transferring ownership to its employees.

Alpine thrived as more employees got a bigger ownership stake in the company, growing to include 13 builder-oriented lumber yards in Colorado and northern New Mexico, three truss shops, three millwork factories, a pre-built stair shop and a rail-serviced material handling unit.

In the process, Alpine hired and retained top-flight employees, some of whom worked decades as truck drivers and forklift operators for no more than $10 an hour but retired “well on the road” to being millionaires, Alpine’s board chairman Kip Oram said.

The Kurtzes “pioneered ESOPs in Colorado. And I think they did it for the right reasons,” Oram said. “Some ESOPs were just trying to get the money out and some were questionable. You have to have strong leadership and they were our directors through the very end.”

Kurtz remained an Alpine director until this year.

“Jim Kurtz deserves a lot of credit,” Oram said. “He stayed very close to us. He was always there with advice and with his experience.”