Business with a global view: Top Company award winners excel beyond the bottom line.

• Author: Cole, Mike

As Colorado and the nation throw off the shackles of recession, it will take a certain class of entrepreneurs to ensure the emerging recovery becomes something more than simply relief from pain. Perhaps more than any time in modern history, there's a growing sense that business will never be usual again.

The 10 companies and one nonprofit selected as this year's Top Company winners exemplify a business ethic that transcends the bottom line, so it's fitting we're presenting profiles of them in our quarterly Planet-Profit Report issue.

This year's class includes:

* A cooperative energy supplier wrestling with the rise of renewables versus the plentiful supply of coal.

* A credit union that helps consumers living on the margins.

* A health-care provider investing in preventive care to keep people healthy.

* A community-minded law firm whose Denver roots date back to 1898.

* A nonprofit that gathers surplus medical supplies and ships them to impoverished countries.

* An asphalt paving company that asked its workers to sacrifice during tough times--and rewarded them when profit returned.

* A natural foods grocer that trusted customers to embrace a "bag-free" policy to reduce waste.

* A natural resources company that is helping to promote sustainability worldwide.

* A technology firm that is helping corporations--and nonprofits--manage the flood of electronic documents.

* A hospitality company that has been adopting schools and raising awareness for children's charities.

* A solar company that sparked the interest of President Barack Obama as the country embraces a new-energy economy.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This year, Top Company sponsor Deloitte winnowed the nominations to 33 finalists in 11 categories. A panel of judges composed of business and community leaders selected the winners. All the finalists were honored at an awards luncheon in September at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

On the following pages, we present stories of the winners, a diverse group that underscores the passion and perseverance it takes to operate profitable enterprises--organizations that understand what's good for the planet is also good for business.

ENERGY/NATURAL RESOURCES

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc.

Think of Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association as a kind of smorgasbord of innovation in a new-energy era.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Solar: In partnership with Solar Inc., the Westminster-based, nonprofit wholesale energy provider is developing one of the world's largest photovoltaic solar power plants. The sprawling, 30-megawatt, 500,000-panel plant now rising from cattle country between Springer and Cimarron, N.M., should be operational in 2010, providing power to some 9,000 homes.

Wind: Tri-State and Duke Energy are building a smaller scale, 34-turbine, 51-megawatt wind farm in Kit Carson County on the plains of eastern Colorado.

Green power and energy efficiency: For more than a quarter of a century, Tri-State has rewarded consumers with cash back for energy efficient practices--with $1.8 million paid out in 2008-which has resulted in savings of some 73 megawatts of demand and 80,000 megawatt-hours in energy used.

Environmental stewardship: The association has developed a far-reaching greenhouse-gas management road map and was the first utility to be recognized under the state health and environment department's Colorado Environmental Leadership program.

"All that is actually part of the core values of what we've been doing since the inception of the company," said Tri-State Executive Vice President/General Manager Ken Anderson.

But ask Anderson why the 57-year-old company, which provides power to 44 rural cooperatives in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming has returned money to its members for 20 straight years while increasing assets, operating revenue and sales, and he's quick to answer.

"It's because we've been focused on our primary mission ... which has been and will continue to be to provide a reliable, cost-effective supply of electricity," he said.

That means, of course, providing electricity from coal-fired plants at a time when greenhouse-gas and climate-change concerns have led some to criticize coal power, which accounts for about half of the nation's energy production.

But Anderson said coal isn't going away.

"Renewables are fine products, especially as they become more cost-effective. But they are not there 100 percent of the time," he said. "And you can't idle a work force just because the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining."

If anything, Anderson said, as America moves away from oil-powered transportation and industry, coal will be needed more than ever, to generate electricity for those purposes.

"And if people truly wanted to address carbon, they'd encourage (the construction of) brand-new coal facilities to displace the old facilities quickly," he said. "There would be a 16 percent reduction in our carbon footprint just to swap them out."

--Clay Evans

FINANCIAL SERVICE | Denver Community Credit Union

Founded in 1934 amid the Great Depression with just $50, Denver Community Credit Union has grown to serve more than 28,000 members and boasts assets of more than $225 million. But the credit union's original ideals haven't changed much in 75 years: to make a difference in people's lives as a community-oriented financial cooperative.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Credit union members gain a share in the not-for-profit organization by opening an account with as little as $25. Profits are returned to members, not to outside investors, in the form of better rates, lower fees and other benefits.

This year's Top Company winner in the Financial Services category, Denver Community Credit Union also has expanded the scope of its membership over the years. It started out serving employees of the city and county of Denver but now is open to anyone who lives, works, worships, volunteers or attends school in Denver.

A large part of the credit union's role in the community is educational, with an entire department dedicated to outreach and free classes and counseling on subjects such as how to use credit wisely, how credit cards work and instruction on investing for college. Since 2005 the credit union has provided more than 4,600 adults and youths with free financial education. It also partners with more than 40 local organizations to provide education to groups ranging from youth centers to small-business owners.

"We really like to listen to what the community needs and then create products that fit them instead of making somebody fit into a product," says Krista Ferndelli, the credit union's chief marketing officer.

Among the many community-oriented products is a payday lending program--an alternative to the notorious retail payday lenders that charge as much as 400 percent interest. Denver Community Credit Union's rate is 18 percent.

Ferndelli describes this program as "an attempt to break the cycle of the payday lender. But in conjunction with that, they have to do some budgeting and some credit counseling." The program is tiered, so that payday borrowers graduate to higher loan levels as they demonstrate an ability to pay back loans. The final tier is an unsecured credit card.

'That's a big deal, because a lot of people have been so sucked into (borrowing) that they've damaged their credit enough to not qualify for traditional loans. Whether it's with us or...