From Brew Pub Pioneer to Political Powerhouse

DENVER —  Mayor John Hickenlooper eyed the dangling rope ladder in the Swansea Elementary School gymnasium. He turned to his executive assistant, Tony Young, who suddenly looked a bit uneasy.

“Race you to the top,” the mayor said. The two men in crisp suits and black shoes sprinted past the baffled second-graders and scrambled up the ropes. The gangly Hickenlooper hit the top first, his face flush with victory. Young smiled graciously, hinting that he’d taken a dive.

“It is the mayor, you know,” he murmured. In other cities, a mayor shinnying up a rope ladder might raise eyebrows; in Denver it’s become normal.

After six months in office, Hickenlooper, 51, has established himself as perhaps the most frenetic and effective politician in the state. He’s known to dive over tables to shake a hand or bang on doors to ask people how he’s doing.

“I get excited, I get fired up, I have to do something,” he said.

And he has.

In half a year, the mayor has pared down a crippling $70-million deficit, overhauled the police force and reversed parking-meter rate increases.

“I can’t think of any mayor who has made a faster start in Colorado history,” said former Gov. Dick Lamm. “It’s almost too good to last.”

Perhaps. But so far this former geologist, bar owner and self-described geek has made few enemies. Hickenlooper’s “aw-shucks,” relentlessly self-effacing style seems to neutralize criticism, observers say. And he does the little things many big city mayors shuffle off to underlings, like helping an elementary school celebrate the arrival of new playground equipment.

“He has great political instincts but no guile, and that’s the thing that is attractive about him,” said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Hickenlooper’s chief accomplishment was reducing the largest deficit in Denver history. With the city braced for hundreds of layoffs, he cut the $70-million debt with little job loss. He eliminated pay raises for city employees, made them take five days leave without pay, put some on four-day work weeks and slashed his own salary by 25%.

He then initiated reforms at the Police Department after several officer-involved shootings prompted street protests. Civilian oversight panels now hold the force more accountable while new training aims to reduce the use of deadly force.

And though he has little control over education, Hickenlooper constantly campaigns for more resources to boost the city’s ailing schools.

Cutting deficits, buttering up bureaucrats and zipping from appointment to appointment is a far cry from Hickenlooper’s former life as the brew-pub pioneer of Denver.

In the late 1980s, he turned an empty warehouse into the Wynkoop Brewing Co., which became a political salon for the local Democratic Party.

As the business grew, he became increasingly involved in local politics, eventually serving on 40 city commissions and agencies and earning a reputation as a pragmatist.

Eventually, both Republicans and Democrats suggested he run for office. With zero political experience, Hickenlooper dived in.

“My only doubts about him running were that in one year he had gotten married, had his first child and turned 50, and I wondered if this was the right time,” said Mike Dino, Hickenlooper’s former campaign chairman. “But I didn’t realize how deep his reservoir of energy was.”

Outgoing Mayor Wellington Webb had been in office since 1991 and term limits wouldn’t allow another run. He had long dominated local Democratic politics, but critics accused him of being high-handed and combative.

Hickenlooper’s folksy style was a welcome change, but he faced other hurdles. He was seeking an office held by blacks and Latinos for the last 20 years.

The growing Latino population meant whites were no longer a majority in the city of about 547,000. Hickenlooper’s opponent, Don Mares, was Latino.

The saloon owner’s campaign stressed his goofy, outsider image. He ran ads showing himself with a change maker dropping quarters into a parking meter moments before a motorist was ticketed. It was a blatant attack on the hated meter-rate increase in which prices jumped from between 50 cents and $1 per hour to $1.50 an hour in downtown Denver.

Hickenlooper won with 65% of the vote.

“There were some tough issues he had to address quickly when he came into office,” said Robert Willis, president of the Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce.

“He went to the black community and talked to them about the police,” Willis said. “He was there and he was visible and he continues to be visible.”

Being visible is easy for the mayor, an extrovert yearning to be where the action is. But it wasn’t always so.

Born outside of Philadelphia, Hickenlooper grew up in a comfortable, middle-class home. His father, a mechanical engineer, died when he was 7.

“My mother was an editor at the Saturday Evening Post, and she was incredibly frugal,” he said. “She never bought a new dress.”

Ben Ginsberg, counsel to the 2004 Bush-Cheney reelection committee in Washington, attended high school with Hickenlooper.

“He was always an eclectic soul,” he said. “A little shyer than he is today. He’s now one of the most gregarious people on the face of the planet.”

Hickenlooper said his disarming demeanor stemmed from his youth.

“When you’re a geek in elementary school, you quickly learn the skills to make people like you,” he said.

Hickenlooper attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

“I really wanted to be a writer,” he said. “I tried to write but I was awful.”

Instead, he became interested in geology and eventually landed a job with a Denver oil company. When the company closed, Hickenlooper visited his brother in Berkeley, where he saw a brew pub. It was love at first sight.

“I couldn’t get it out of my head,” he said.

In 1989, he opened the Wynkoop, and he now owns seven other restaurants.

Hickenlooper, married to magazine writer Helen Thorpe, still lives downtown and is a relentless booster of the city, its athletic teams and its lively cultural scene.

He speaks often about education and visits one school a week.

At Swansea Elementary, he spent three hours with students and teachers.

As Hickenlooper wandered from class to class, the mostly Latino students called him “El Jefe,” or the Boss. The Spanish-speaking mayor nodded approvingly.

One pupil asked if he was more powerful than the president.

“For you, yes,” he replied.

When the kids couldn’t pronounce his name, he told them to call him “Hickenloco” instead.

“When I ran for office, people said, ‘You have never been in politics before, you can’t win,’ ” the mayor told a second-grade class. “But I had a dream, and when election day came, my dream came true.”

With Hickenlooper’s ability to bridge ideological differences and his easy connection with people, some say he is a natural for higher office.

“There has never been a mayor of Denver who has been elected to statewide office in Colorado; it’s been the kiss of death for ambition,” said former Gov. Lamm, a Democrat who co-directs the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues at the University of Denver. “This is way too early to talk about, but he may break that taboo.”

Hickenlooper says he can’t imagine living away from his beloved Denver.

“My life has been broken up into segments -- a geologist, a restaurant owner and politics,” he said. “I now have the best job in the world, but you know how it is in politics -- you never say never.”