Living well.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff

THIS YEAR, 2003, IS THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF the publication of this magazine, ColoradoBiz, nee Colorado Business magazine. Coincidentally, it is also the year that marks my own 30th anniversary in this fine state.

For me, 2003 is a milestone because of both events: moving to Colorado in 1973 was the best decision I ever made, and the founding of Colorado Business that same year had a huge bearing on my professional career. (I was editor in 1981-82 and again from 1989 to '92).

The magazine had been founded by Mort Margolin, the former business editor of the Rocky Mountain News, with the help of Merrill Hastings, an investor who was involved in the founding of many regional publications, among them Colorado magazine, which was considered the flagship brand.

Back then, Colorado was a fairly small, provincial place that was thought of mostly as a tourist destination. The state's ski industry was really just in its infancy; remember, in 1973 Vail was less than 10 years old and the Eisenhower Tunnel was brand new.

Coors beer, now an icon, was just beginning to gain national popularity thanks to then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was rumored to be smuggling cases of it back to Washington. In 1973, the Rocky Mountain brew was only available in 11 Western states.

No one really gave a business magazine much of a chance of surviving in that environment. Frankly, there wasn't much business happening in Colorado.

Denver's two daily newspapers only ran business pages on Wednesday and Sunday, and there wasn't much in the way of local business news.

Margolin, however, turned out to be something of a visionary. Within a very short period of time, and continuing to this day, the top story in Colorado turned out to be business.

It started, really, in the summer of 1973. On my first day in Colorado I spent nearly an hour in a gas-station line to get some fuel, a complication caused by the Arab oil embargo. Oil and natural gas prices rose dramatically, and Colorado quickly became one of the most important development centers of the emerging domestic energy industry Everyone I knew was putting up 10 bucks to buy an option in the oil-lease lottery, a chance to become an...