Bob Young honored with opera concert at CMC

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — Dreams are goals to Alpine Bank and its founder and chair, Bob Young. And he has dreamed and achieved great things for Colorado Mountain College.

CMC will honor Young and Alpine Bank with a Jan. 12 opera concert at 7 p.m. at CMC's Spring Valley theater.

This concert brings Metropolitan Opera bass Keith Miller and award-winning soprano Joyce El-Khoury to the mountains of Colorado. They met performing in an opera in Italy in 2004, and then became engaged, but haven't performed often together. They will be accompanied by pianist Debra Ayers as part of the seventh season of the series, hosted by the CMC Center for Excellence in the Arts.

"Our opening duet for Colorado is the marriage of Susanna and Figaro," El-Khoury says. "Keith is working and concentrating, and figuring something out, and I am a little bratty and always have him wrapped around my finger. It's a long scene with a lot of interaction. That is how we are together anyway, so you will see us as we are together."

When Young established his fledgling bank in the 1970's, Young didn't build a commercial bank, he built a community bank.

"I am not precisely sure where the idea started to be so closely tied to the nonprofit community," Young said. "I was raised with the ethic that you do give back; my parents were ones who tithed to the church and were supportive of things they thought were important, even when it hurt a little.

"I remember the day our first bank opened in Carbondale, 33 years ago. We had a ribbon of silver dollars taped together, and after we cut it, we gave the silver dollars to local charities, even before opening the doors."

As his first bank began to flourish, so did a community college reaching its teen years nearby.

CMC was finding its wings. As the bank and the college set about meeting goals, each created community - Alpine Bank through philanthropy and CMC through higher education.

Young has realized many dreams for the college. He assisted the college by serving on the CMC Foundation Board of Directors, setting a community-wide leadership example.

Young dreamed of a successful capital campaign for the growing college, committing personal funds with a lead gift of $250,000, inspiring benefactors to significantly expand college resources.

He dreamed of building a strong college internally. Young inspired CMC employee giving via a dollar-per-dollar match, generating $500,000 to endow scholarships at each of CMC's seven campuses, and Alpine Bank currently supports a match for scholarship giving at the Vail-Eagle Valley campus.

He dreamed of helping children of hard-working, immigrant families. The Alpine Bank Hispanic Scholarship has given more than 50 ambitious Latinos, most first-generation college students, full-ride CMC scholarships.

Treating dreams as goals, Alpine Bank has supported not only CMC, but also innumerable philanthropic causes in the communities served by the bank.

"One thing that I emphasize is that a well-integrated corporate responsibility program is the bottom line," says Young. "We have not given from just from profits during great years. Giving is a budget item, and an expense of doing business the same as any other cost of business, and this plan has survived the best of times and the worst of times and continues to have our blessing.

"It's impossible to separate where business interest ends and community interest begins."

Young established the Young Foundation eight years ago. It now sends more than $100,000 a year into the community for philanthropy.

"At this time, the bank still has the ability to do more, but the Young Foundation will grow," he continues. "It is my goal for the future to have my kids run it. I am trying to bequeath values to them instead of a whole lot of money."

These achievements are recognized at CMC's Jim Calaway Honors Series concerts. Calaway says of Young, "He is the most successful, home-grown businessman that the Roaring Fork Valley has ever had, and one of the most generous men that I have ever met."

In addition to the Glenwood concert, El-Khoury performs as a soloist Jan. 11 in Beaver Creek, at 7 p.m. at the Beaver Creek Chapel; and with Miller Jan. 10 in Breckenridge at 7 p.m., at Saint Mary's Catholic Church; and Jan. 13 in Salida, at 7:30 p.m. at the Steam Plant Theater Performing Art Center; and in Leadville, Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. at Lake County High School.