Business & Entrepreneurship

CU ��ý��’s Rural Colorado Workshop Series Keeps Small Town Main Streets Alive

Anna Tolette — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 21:27:53 +0000

CU ��ý��’s Rural Colorado Workshop Series Keeps Small Town Main Streets Alive Anna Tolette Mon, 03/09/2026 - 15:27

Christie Sounart

Six years ago, southwest Colorado resident Mary Hearding launched Karma Tutors, providing academic support to students both locally in and near Telluride, Colorado, and globally through videoconferences. She also began the Karma Tutors Impact Fund to aid students who don’t have the financial means for a tutor.

The program’s successful launch was due in part to her involvement with the Rural Colorado Workshop Series (RCWS), a certificate course offered through CU ��ý��’s Leed’s Deming Center for Entrepreneurship for citizens in rural and native Colorado areas.

Led by Erick Mueller (MBA’99), executive director of the Deming Center, the volunteer-run program pairs CU business faculty with local organizations throughout Colorado. Each year for five years, community members attend an in-person, day-and-a-half meeting focused on entrepreneurship and business vitality in their region.

“CU ��ý�� is Colorado’s flagship university,” said Mueller. “I think it’s important we give back to our state.”

RCWS’ first two sessions focus on turning ideas into businesses, the third and fourth focus on scaling existing businesses and the final session provides tools for enhancing companies through aspects like technology, marketing or performance management.

Mueller has been involved in all 45 of the program’s weekend workshops since they began in 2015. He’s fueled by job creation and elevated entrepreneurial ecosystems, he said. One report out of Chaffee County, for instance, said 56 jobs were connected with workshop series attendees founding or growing companies.

“It’s such a gift to see these amazing community members act on their passions,” he said.

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Map image courtesy Raven Maps & Images

The workshop program visits regions, not cities, to help create community and collaboration.

KEY

Yellow: Southwest Colorado Region

Norwood

Telluride

Ignacio

Montrose

Red: Southeast Colorado Region

Trinidad

Pueblo

Green: Northeast Colorado Region

Sterling

Purple: Northwest Colorado Region

Hayden

Craig

Blue: Central Mountain Region

Buena Vista

Vail

The volunteer-run program pairs CU business faculty with local organizations throughout Colorado.

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Spring 2026

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CU Alum Takes An Affordable Approach to Indoor Farming

Anna Tolette — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 21:20:19 +0000

CU Alum Takes An Affordable Approach to Indoor Farming Anna Tolette Mon, 03/09/2026 - 15:20

Marc Zarefsky

Maximilian Knight (EnvEngr’17) was in sixth grade when he saw a documentary that changed his outlook on the world around him.

The Cove, which won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2010, featured an in-depth look at a small town in Japan known for capturing and selling dolphins to aquariums around the world. The film featured graphic footage and raised critical questions about dolphin hunting practices.

Knight was transfixed.

“It was a pretty tough subject, but through that film, I became more aware of things going on in the world,” Knight said. “The whole community of people trying to do good in the world and trying to make the world a better place — that really inspired me and continues to.”

Knight took that inspiration and found his own way to improve the world. As founder and CEO of ��ý��-based Rooted Robotics, Knight’s mission is to provide affordable automation systems to indoor farms of all sizes.

The company, founded in 2019, offers game-changing technology to small and mid-size controlled-environment growers who can’t afford industrial-sized — and industrial-priced — services.

“If we look to 50 or 100 years from now, if climate change does get significantly worse, as is largely expected, we need to be able to feed ourselves,” Knight said. “We need to be able to do that at scale without having millions or billions of people starve because we can’t grow as much food in the same ways that we used to.”

Enter controlled-environment agriculture, a term Knight explained refers to incorporating a more technology-focused approach to farming. In these environments, which often exist as vertical farms or greenhouses, growers can control everything from temperature and sunlight to humidity and nutrients, along with countless factors in between.

This flexibility allows growers to customize what they grow and when they grow it in a way traditional farmers cannot.

Rooted Robotics offers products that help farmers with seeding, harvesting and cleaning. Each system is designed with simplicity, reliability and sustainability in mind. Everything the company sells is also made to be upgradable with customized add-ons, allowing the machines to grow with the farms they support.

Knight’s own expertise in the field dates back to his time in CU ��ý��’s College of Engineering & Applied Science, where he learned many of the technical skills he routinely applies to his work. But perhaps the biggest takeaway from his time at CU was, as he describes it, learning how to learn.

“I studied environmental engineering, which is not really what I do today,” Knight said. “Even though I’m not doing water treatment engineering or sanitation engineering, I learned how to teach myself new skills.”

Christian Maljian (left), Sebastian Vazquez-Carson (middle) and Maximilian Knight (right)

Knight also met Rooted Robotics’ chief technology officer at the school. He and Sebastian Vazquez-Carson (Phys’17) were friends as undergraduates, and the two reconnected in 2022 when Vazquez joined the company to help with a robotic system.

When Knight considered undergraduate programs, he was drawn to the community he found at CU. Today, with his company still housed in ��ý��, he has kept close ties to the school. Christian Maljian (Engr’19) is co-founder and head of mechanical engineering. Of Rooted Robotics’ seven part-time employees, six are students from the College of Engineering & Applied Science or the Leeds School of Business.

Rooted Robotics also hosts summer interns from CU ��ý��. In addition, the company partnered with the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering this year to sponsor a capstone project. The senior students involved with the project are helping Rooted Robotics develop a variation of the company’s seeding machine.

Knight’s hope is that, through the partnership and the innovation he’s brought to the company since its founding, Rooted Robotics can continue to be an inspiration and valuable resource for indoor growers.

“A beautiful vision that could exist in 50 to 100 years would be that we’re growing most of our agriculture in these controlled environments,” Knight said. “Because of that, nature will be able to reclaim a lot of the farmland that blankets the Earth. That can also help with reversing climate change at scale. That’s part of the future that we want to create.”

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Photos courtesy Maximilian Knight

Maximilian Knight’s company Rooted Robotics takes an affordable approach to indoor farming.

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Spring 2026

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Blazin’ Joe: Brewing a Sustainable Startup

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:20:32 +0000

Blazin’ Joe: Brewing a Sustainable Startup Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:20

Julia MacLean

Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs with their Blazin' Joe firelogs

In 2019, when freshman Maddie Cataldo (Mgmt’23) showed up to her first CU ��ý�� club hockey practice, she didn’t know anyone. But a spontaneous locker room conversation about skydiving ignited a friendship.

Maya Nefs (Mgmt’23), then a sophomore and fellow Leeds School of Business student, didn’t hesitate: “What are you doing next week? Let’s go.”

They went, tumbling into the air over Longmont, Colorado.

Years later, that same adventurous spirit fuels their company, Blazin’ Joe, which transforms coffee waste into sustainable firewood alternatives. Their business started in a college oven and now operates out of Nefs’ garage in Golden, Colorado.

Cataldo and Nefs’ journey as business partners is rooted in their shared CU experiences: business classes, a love for the outdoors and hockey.

“Being teammates really helped us work together,” Cataldo said. “We’re both super competitive, and there’s a level of bluntness that’s good and healthy to have. You could yell at each other on the ice and grab a beer right after.”

They’re also candid about the challenges of going into business together.

“I wouldn’t say it’s super easy going into business with a close friend,” Cataldo said. “We have a contract that tells us we need to spend a certain number of hours not talking about Blazin’ Joe, but just hanging out.”

Nefs added: “We’ll go play tennis or grab a happy hour drink. One of the most important aspects of the business is keeping our friendship healthy.”

It’s a priority that pays off personally and professionally.

“I wouldn’t be doing this with anyone else,” Nefs said. “Maddie has such a positive attitude, and I definitely find myself aspiring to carry the same positivity.”

The idea for Blazin’ Joe began in Cataldo’s senior capstone course, the New Venture Launch, taught through the business school’s Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. Her class project pitch centered on a fire log made from used coffee grounds, which was inspired by her father’s entrepreneurial research in biofuels.

Blazin' Joe firelogs

“I remember using the oven in my college house 24/7 to dry coffee grounds,” said Cataldo. “My roommates were awesome because the house always smelled like coffee — even our clothes.”

Cataldo’s professor, Brad Werner, saw something unique in her.

“She wasn’t just presenting a business idea — she was sharing something she truly believed in,” Werner said. “I look for students who demonstrate genuine customer obsession — not just talking about their product, but showing they truly understand their customers’ pain points.”

Cataldo’s team won the pitch at the end of the capstone class, impressing Werner with their compelling presentation, and walking away with first-place recognition.

After graduation, Cataldo tried running the business alone until Nefs stepped in.

“She was thinking of putting it on pause,” Nefs said. “I told her, ‘Don’t do that. I’ll work on it with you.’ The company had so much potential, and people were buying the product; it just needed two people behind it.”

Today, Blazin’ Joe makes fire logs and fire starters from coffee chaff — the light, flaky skin of the coffee bean discarded during roasting. It burns clean, hot and efficiently, without the toxic chemicals found in traditional fire-related products.

“We started out using coffee grounds,” Cataldo said, “but realized drying them used too much energy. Chaff was the game-changer: it’s dry, burns well and it’s a huge waste stream in the industry.”

They now collect chaff from local Colorado roasters like Sweet Bloom Coffee, Otis Craft Collective and Copper Door Coffee Roasters. They use about four pounds of chaff per log, Cataldo said, and grind it down and press it to shape in Nefs’ garage.

“I’m grateful for the setup,” Nefs said. “We’re not paying rent on a space, and for a small startup, that’s critical. We’re growing sustainably, on our own terms.”

Since launching into retail in January, Blazin’ Joe has found traction in farmers markets and local stores like McGuckin Hardware and Lucky’s Market. In May, they also won the Next Cycle Colorado Pitch, which supports companies repurposing waste streams in Colorado.

Cataldo is eager to grow the business more.

“Our ultimate goal is to work towards making the coffee industry circular,” she said. “We’d love to partner with bigger roasters on a larger scale and repurpose as much waste as possible.”

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Photos courtesy Graham Gardner (Sparrow Creative)

Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs turned a shared love of adventure and entrepreneurship into Blazin’ Joe, a sustainable startup that transforms coffee waste into firelogs and fire starters.

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Fall 2025

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The Rebuiling of a Family Business

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:49:45 +0000

The Rebuiling of a Family Business Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:49

Julia MacLean

After graduating, Rachel Etzler (MediaSt’22) began to rebuild Business Development Institute (BDI), her family’s events marketing agency, after COVID-19 dismantled the events industry. Etzler took a leadership role alongside her father, Steven, the company’s founder and CEO. As both a strategic leader and hands-on operator, Etzler has played a pivotal role in BDI’s recent success, which has included producing around 60 highly curated events annually and increasing long-term partnerships in the technology industry.

How do you describe your position at BDI?

We serve leading tech companies like NVIDIA, Adobe, Microsoft, HPE, Equinix and AMD. I support our clients directly while working closely with my dad to manage our sales. Because I have a bird’s-eye view of all our client events, I help prioritize tasks and ensure we’re aligned and efficient across every project.

What inspired you to rebuild BDI?

Entering the professional world in a post-COVID environment made me reflect on where I wanted to invest my energy. If I was going to dedicate 40-plus hours a week to a company, I wanted it to be one that truly mattered to me. BDI has played a huge role in my life — it helped make college possible for me — and I saw an opportunity to make a real difference.

What was it like stepping into a leadership role at a company your parents built?

From our earliest conversations, my dad showed a lot of trust in my leadership potential, which was a rare and meaningful opportunity for a 22-year-old. In many ways, it felt like a natural evolution as I grew up watching my parents run the business. I’ve always admired their entrepreneurial spirit, and stepping into a leadership role felt like honoring that legacy, while also building something of my own.

Looking back now, what advice do you have for yourself as you were graduating?

Be patient with yourself. Growth takes time, and it’s important to let your journey unfold naturally. Progress isn’t always linear, and that’s okay.

What else should we know about you?

I am proud of what we’ve accomplished so far — and how energized I feel about where we’re headed. Rebuilding BDI has been a mix of challenge, creativity and deep purpose. I’m grateful every day to work with my family, collaborate with an incredible team and create experiences that connect people in meaningful ways. We’ve hired my sister, Elizabeth Etzler (Edu’23), and two other employees are also Buffs: Matthew Jacobs (CritMediaSt’20) and Emi Veliz (Anth’20). BDI is a CU-powered company!

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Photo courtesy Rachel Etzler

Rachel Etzler stepped into a leadership role to help rebuild her family’s events marketing agency, BDI, guiding its post-COVID comeback and strengthening partnerships with major clients.

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Summer 2025

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The Scoop on Sweet Cow’s Journey to Success

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:48:50 +0000

The Scoop on Sweet Cow’s Journey to Success Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:48

Julia MacLean

Drew Honness opened Sweet Cow in 2010.

A college job at an ice cream shop shaped the rest of Drew Honness’ (Hist’96) life. At age 39, he opened Sweet Cow in Louisville, Colorado. Now with seven locations, Sweet Cow is a beloved Colorado staple with lines out the door and stickers plastered around the state.

What inspired you to start an ice cream business?

When I turned 20 years old, I got a job at a mom-and-pop ice cream shop on The Hill called Josh and John’s. It originally started in 1992 in Colorado Springs by two Colorado College graduates. I worked for them for 13 years. From this job, I learned what a great environment the ice cream industry is and how it builds community.

I discovered some wonderful friendships working there and learned how an upbeat atmosphere can change your life, day in and day out. The uniforms are the best: T-shirts, sneakers, shorts, a hat, and you’re jamming out to great music all day. People come in, and they’re excited to see you.

Within a couple of years, I knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. After graduation, I got the opportunity to run two of their shops.

What qualities does Sweet Cow prioritize when hiring staff?

75% of our staff is high school- and college-aged people. We find that the best workers are students who have a decent GPA. They go to school, they go to class, they study and they come to work two to four times a week. They also might play an instrument, sing in the choir or play a sport. The busiest people tend to make time with intention for what they’re doing. It’s one of the things we look for when thinking about location. I usually want a high school and a college nearby to help with our staffing needs.

What sets your ice cream apart?

All of our ice cream, cookie sammies and ice cream cakes are made within the seven shops, so we’re completely self-sufficient. The three key ingredients are high-quality milk, cream and sugar. What differentiates ice cream from ice cream is the percentage of butterfat, the quality of ingredients, the batch freezer or ice cream machine, the freezing process and the temperature of dipping cabinets. Everyone does it differently.

What’s your most unique flavor?

Larry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Madness, created by my son, is a chocolate peanut butter ice cream with dark chocolate chips and peanut butter chips, along with a fudge swirl and peanut butter swirl. Another fun flavor is Vermont Maple Walnut, made with maple syrup directly from Vermont and walnut pieces.

I’ve seen your stickers all over town. What’s your marketing strategy?

I thought to myself, ‘Alright, what can we do that’s going to be grassroots and budget friendly?’ I was collecting stickers for years, so it just made sense. We had this cool logo, and just let people take these stickers home. And the next thing you know, we would see them on a car, on the side of a building or on a mailbox — they were everywhere.

What’s your go-to Sweet Cow order?

It’s an impossible question. It was Oatmeal Cookie with hot fudge for a while, but I also love the Chocolate Almond, Chocolate Cinnamon, Vermont Maple Walnut, Ginger Snap Molasses — and it just keeps going.

What’s your most popular flavor?

Cookies and Cream, hands down. Most cookies and cream recipes are simply vanilla ice cream with Oreos thrown in at the end. We sprinkle our Oreos throughout, from the first minute, in the middle and again at the very end. If you get a bite without a cookie, it still tastes like a cookie.

What advice would you give those looking to start their own business?

Starting your own business should be something that gives you purpose every day and not about money. A decision based on finances may hinder one’s ability to find success, create the best work environment and service the community and its customers. Be passionate about what you’re exploring in this adventure.

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Photos by Maureen O'Neill

Drew Honness turned a college ice cream job into a thriving Colorado business, Sweet Cow, known for its quality flavors, community focus, and loyal following.

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Summer 2025

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From College Roommates to National Business Co-Founders

Julia Maclean — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 19:55:22 +0000

From College Roommates to National Business Co-Founders Julia Maclean Mon, 03/10/2025 - 13:55

Sophia McKeown

In 2023, Eddy Connors (Bus’21) and Luke Siegert (FilmSt’22) went from college roommates and fraternity brothers to startup co-founders when they launched Goodie Bag, a marketplace for surplus food. The app aims to reduce food waste by offering “perfectly good unsold food” from local businesses at a significant discount. Since its inception, Goodie Bag has expanded nationally to over 200 partnering shops, including OZO Coffee, Charleston Bagels and Blend Juice Bar. Connors, who serves as CEO, talks about the company here.

Eddy Connors, middle left, and Luke Siegert, far left, started Goodie Bag in 2023.

You came up with Goodie Bag during a CU entrepreneurship course. How did it come about?

From the get-go, we wanted to muster up an idea that would both make positive social change and generate profit. There was an opportunity to prevent good food from going to waste by connecting it to people at lower prices. That business idea ended up winning the “Startup Summer” pitch competition.

How did you and Luke go from college roommates to business partners?

As roommates, we would always talk about different business ideas, different industries that needed to be shaken up. We both knew there was so much opportunity to create better outcomes for people and our planet, and that excited us.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in scaling the business?

In the beginning, our biggest challenge was figuring out the technology of our app since Luke and I were not engineers ourselves. We also faced some team challenges that required difficult conversations early and often as we took the company from a school project to a full-time business. Team is everything.

With over 200 partner shops and 45,000 meals saved from going to waste, what are your next big goals for Goodie Bag?

Our greatest goal is to ensure no good food goes to waste. That’s the vision that guides us. As for what’s next, we want to increase our presence in existing markets by partnering with more shops in cities like Denver, ��ý�� and Fort Collins.

Reflecting on your journey from CU student to CEO, what advice would you give current students interested in launching their own businesses?

Do it! In all seriousness though, just remember that inaction is always the wrong answer. Know that you’re going to have failures along the way, but as long as you’re able to learn and adapt, it’ll be a worthwhile experience.

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Photo courtesy Goodie Bag

Eddy Connors and Luke Siegert transformed their college project into Goodie Bag, a successful startup that connects local businesses with consumers to reduce food waste.

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Spring 2025

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Mining the Moon: A New Era of Commercial Space Exploration

Anna Tolette — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 20:49:47 +0000

Mining the Moon: A New Era of Commercial Space Exploration Anna Tolette Tue, 11/12/2024 - 13:49

Kelsey Yandura

Elizabeth Frank (PhDGeol’14) is helping pave the way for a new era of space exploration and commerce as the chief scientist at Interlune, a Seattle-based startup aiming to become the first private company to harvest the Moon’s natural resources, namely the stable isotope helium-3.

This useful gas, while rare on Earth, is abundant on the Moon and sought after for its uses in medical imaging, nuclear fusion research, quantum computing and more. For the extraction and transportation of the isotope, Interlune plans to build a lunar harvester that the company would fly via spacecraft to the Moon.

What is the vision in terms of the future of space mining and space commerce?

We are trying to find novel ways to leverage the commercial space sector for planetary exploration. What makes people excited about Interlune is that even though we have this vision that seems kind of sci-fi, we have actual customers on Earth in areas like quantum computing, medical imaging and national security. There is an actual demand.

Your PhD was in planetary geochemistry at CU. What led you to ��ý��?

There’s an incredible space community in ��ý�� — a lot of interdisciplinary work among CU departments and organizations like LASP and the Southwest Research Institute. When I was touring CU, I was handed a list of planetary scientists in ��ý�� that was upwards of 50 people. I thought, “Oh my gosh, there’s just so much going on.”

Your work seems to challenge the idea that industries exist in a silo. Can you talk more about your multidisciplinary approach?

When you’re a PhD student, you are expected to be a specialist. But I don’t actually identify anymore as a specialist. I’m a generalist — I have a PhD in planetary geochemistry, but I’ve also worked in spacecraft engineering, mining consulting, business development and more. To move humanity forward, you need people like me to stitch the specialists’ work together in new and exciting ways.

What topics in the field have been piquing your interest these days?

Ethics and sustainability are really top of mind. The mining industry has a long legacy of harming both people and the environment. I think that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. We want to be intentional and thoughtful about how we use technology and extract space resources for human use.

Any thoughts or advice for recent graduates?

I think PhD students and graduates should know that just because you got your degree in one topic, doesn’t mean you have to stay in that field. You can redirect your career in unexpected and exciting ways. Stay open to opportunities and take them — you never know where they’ll lead you.

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Photo courtesy Elizabeth Frank

Elizabeth Frank (PhDGeol’14) is helping pave the way for a new era of space exploration and commerce as the chief scientist at Interlune, a Seattle-based startup aiming to become the first private company to harvest the Moon’s natural resources.

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Fall 2024

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How Michael Washington is Uncovering Nature in L.A.

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

How Michael Washington is Uncovering Nature in L.A. Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Kiara Demare

A decade after graduating, Michael Washington (Jour’12) longed for the outdoor community he had found at CU ��ý��. In 2022, he left his career in the music industry to become founder and CEO of Usal, a community-based program helping Los Angeles residents participate in unique outdoor activities, workshops and trips. Usal hosts about 20 to 30 events per month, including woodturning, astronomy, fly-fishing, foraging, surfing and cooking.

How did you come up with the idea for Usal?

I felt there was a missing link between people who wanted to get into outdoor hobbies and activities, and a place for them to go. A group setting didn’t exist that felt safe, accessible and approachable, while also providing resources and education on how to learn to do those types of outdoor activities and experiences.

Where does the name come from?

It’s a place near and dear to my heart: Usal Beach is a dispersed beach campground at the southern tip of the coast in Northern California that I would go to from time to time. It inspired me a lot, especially when trying to figure out my next career move.

How did your time in ��ý�� influence Usal’s creation?

Having those four years in ��ý�� was crucial. I was given the opportunity to explore and be curious — both in a social sense with meeting new people, and also adventuring in the foothills of the mountains. As I grew my career in Los Angeles, I began to lose my connection to nature. Thankfully, I made a point to find it again when I realized how important it was to me.

Where do you see Usal in five years?

The obvious thing I think about is growth. Growth to me is being able to offer what we do to more people and taking what we do here in Los Angeles and bringing that to another location.

Any final thoughts?

Before anything and everything else, this endeavor feels very true to the person I am and the person who I want to continue to be. I think stumbling over the past 10 years — coming out of college and trying to understand what that means — were important steps to feeling competent and learning what interests me, what excites me and what fulfills me. All those steps led me to eventually leave the music industry to start Usal at age 32. It’s finally coming together.

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Photo courtesy Usal Project

A decade after graduating, Michael Washington (Jour’12) longed for the outdoor community he had found at CU ��ý��. In 2022, he left his career in the music industry to become founder and CEO of Usal, a community-based program helping Los Angeles residents participate in unique outdoor activities, workshops and trips.

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Jamie Seward on Recycling Flowers & Spreading Joy

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Jamie Seward on Recycling Flowers & Spreading Joy Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Tom Kertscher

Flowers have the power to improve your physical and mental well-being — even more so if they are fragrant, according to peer-reviewed research. That’s part of what Jamie Seward (PolSci’97) was after when, late last year, she revived Repeat Roses, a zero-waste solution for event florals that closed its doors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Past clients include the Super Bowl and Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle.

Mainly located in Southern California, Arizona and on the East Coast, Repeat Roses transports flowers from events such as weddings and corporate events, rearranges them into smaller bouquets and delivers them to nonprofits like homeless shelters, hospitals or nursing homes. Later, a team picks up the flowers for composting and her clients receive a receipt for their charitable donation.

Seward, a Navy veteran and former attorney, also serves as senior associate director of alumni relations for Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

What inspired you to take over Repeat Roses?

I have a passion for people, I have a passion for the planet and I want to leave the world a little better than I found it.

What’s the status of your business?

It’s what I like to call a ‘restart-up’ — it was a start-up and we’ve restarted it. We are up and running, we can operate anywhere in the U.S., and we’re hoping to get the word out. It takes time for word to spread that we’re back in business.

What’s it like when you deliver flowers?

There’s nothing quite like seeing the faces of the people in a homeless shelter, both the staff and the residents, and the joy on their faces when they see flowers — which are considered a luxury — brighten up their space. They’re worried about the basics, and to have something beautiful and joyful, it elevates everyone’s mood, it makes everyone feel better and it brightens up their environment.

Why do you compost the flowers?

It’s more advantageous for the environment for flowers to decompose naturally, versus putting them in a plastic bag in a landfill.

Did anything from your CU ��ý�� experience guide you into doing this type of work?

I was in the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority at CU, and there was often a philanthropic aspect to our activities. So, it was ingrained in me very early that helping people is something I wanted to do in as many aspects of my life as possible.

Learn more about Repeat Roses at @RepeatRoses on social media or at repeatroses.com.

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Photo courtesy Jamie Seward

In Southern California, Jamie Seward (PolSci’97) leads Repeat Roses, a zero-waste solution for event florals. Past clients include the Super Bowl and Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle.

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Cooking With Kindness: Bruce Bromberg's Unique Approach to Leading Blue Ribbon Restaurants

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Cooking With Kindness: Bruce Bromberg's Unique Approach to Leading Blue Ribbon Restaurants Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Sarah Kuta

Reality TV shows often depict chefs as cruel, heartless tyrants, willing to make their staff cry in pursuit of the perfect bite. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Just ask Bruce Bromberg (Anth’88). For the last three decades, he’s led a team of extraordinarily loyal staffers at Blue Ribbon Restaurants, the growing restaurant group he co-founded with his older brother Eric Bromberg in 1992.

Blue Ribbon started with one intimate eatery at the edge of New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. Since then, the company has expanded into different concepts — from sushi to bowling — and opened more than 20 locations nationwide.

Through it all, intentional leadership has been paramount to the team’s success.

“We wanted to create an environment where people flourished and wanted to come to work and wanted to learn, not just punch the clock,” said Bromberg. “We found that once we had that environment in place, everyone excelled.”

The results speak for themselves. Diners keep coming back to Blue Ribbon night after night — and so do its employees. Eleven of the 14 staffers who worked the restaurant’s opening night are still with the company more than 30 years later. Now, they’re all part-owners, too.

“[Eric and I] both worked in France in very oppressive and abusive kitchens,” said Bromberg. “They exist in America, they exist everywhere. But it was the last thing we wanted to have happen in our kitchens. There’s a better way.”

Bromberg’s own culinary journey started in his hometown of Morristown, New Jersey, where he grew up in a “very food-centric household.”

“Whether it was my grandmother and her traditional cooking or my father’s obsession with everything French, food was a really strong element in our childhood,” he said. “My father had a home in the south of France, and we would travel there in the summer and he would take us on day trips to every restaurant he could think of.”

Though many of his peers attended East Coast colleges and universities, Bromberg decided to head west. He enrolled at CU ��ý�� and majored in anthropology. When he graduated in 1988, he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do next — only that he didn’t want a desk job — so he moved back to the East Coast. His brother, meanwhile, had studied at Le Cordon Bleu, the famed cooking school in Paris, and was running a restaurant in the Hamptons.

One evening, a chef where his brother was working called in sick, so Bromberg offered to pitch in and help.

“That was really it,” Bromberg said. “I spent that first night in the kitchen with Eric and was instantly enamored by the whole process.”

Bromberg followed his brother’s footsteps and headed to France to study at Le Cordon Bleu. When he returned, they went into business together and opened the first Blue Ribbon, a 48-seat “little hole in the wall,” he said. The name is a nod to their culinary training: Le Cordon Bleu means “the blue ribbon” in French.

The eatery was an overnight success, partly because it was open until 4 a.m. each day, attracting musicians, chefs, servers and other people who worked in hospitality and entertainment. The food, of course, was also a big draw.

Over 30 years later, Blue Ribbon’s sweeping success has only bolstered the brothers’ commitment to their people-first leadership approach.

“As a chef, I am a teacher. I’m constantly teaching. You have to be patient and respect every single individual in your environment until the last moment.”

For more information on Blue Ribbon Restaurants visit BlueRibbonRestaurants.com.

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Photos Courtesy Blue Ribbon Restaurants

Bruce Bromberg (Anth’88) and his brother Eric founded Blue Ribbon Restaurants in 1992, and prioritized leading their employees in a productive and welcoming environment. Some staff members remain with them more than 30 years later.

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