Denver

Alum Shaun Goodwin Creates Sauce Leopard

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Alum Shaun Goodwin Creates Sauce Leopard Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/25/2022 - 00:00

Kiara Gelbman

After losing work in the music industry during the pandemic, Shaun Goodwin (Mktg’13) opened Sauce Leopard, a Denver-based hot sauce business. Sauce Leopard was featured on season 18 of the YouTube talk show, Hot Ones, which features celebrities as they eat saucy chicken wings and answer questions. Sauce Leopard sauces are available in select stores across the U.S. and available online.

What was your favorite part of your ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� experience?

I met a lot of people with similar interests to me. If it weren't for them, I don't think I would have had a career in music. We spent most of our time jamming Neil Young songs in the living room of our house. I also really loved being right next to the mountains. I was able to go fishing or snowboarding often and it was the perfect way to take a break from school.

What sparked the idea of creating Sauce Leopard? Why hot sauce?

I've always been super passionate about cooking and sauce making became a hobby right after college when I moved to Denver. When the pandemic hit, I lost other work in the music and service industries. I had started a concert promotion company in 2015 and spent several years booking music festivals, but I was looking for a new creative way to monetize my crafts once concerts looked unlikely for a while. My mission became to create a condiment company that looks and tastes different from almost anything else in the market. I think we've done a pretty good job of doing so!

Tell us about some of the products you’ve created.

One of our flagship sauces is the Colfax Killer. Colfax Avenue is the main street that runs east to west through Denver, and at 50 miles, is known as the longest commercial street in America. I started the business at my previous house on East Colfax, and some of the peppers that went into the first official batches were grown in our garden there. The sauce is an ode to the rich history of this street, and its role in my life during my 20s. The Colfax Killer is an upper-medium heat tropical habanero sauce and has already won several international awards for its flavor.

The sauce featured on Hot Ones is The Seventh Reaper, a red chimichurri Carolina reaper sauce. We created this sauce in collaboration with design agency Seven Designs for their seventh anniversary. Their founder, Connor Lock, designed the label on it.

Where can we find Sauce Leopard?

Sauce Leopard is available in nearly 100 retail locations in several states. For those in Boulder, grab some at Lucky's Market in North Boulder or Peppercorn on the Pearl Street Mall. Denver folks can grab them at most Natural Grocers locations. Visit sauceleopard.com to find a store near you.

What future goals do you have for the company?

We plan to be in most major super markets across the U.S. and a household name in the condiment industry. We also plan to be much more than a sauce company, staying involved with music, skateboarding and the preservation of endangered leopards, something I’m passionate about.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

We ship our products anywhere, so be sure to visit our website if your fridge looks a little bland!

Photos courtesy Shaun Goodwin

Shaun Goodwin's Denver-based company, Sauce Leopard was featured on the Youtube talk show, Hot Ones.

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Is RTD's B Line Train Coming to Boulder?

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Is RTD's B Line Train Coming to Boulder? Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/02/2021 - 00:00

Grace Dearnley

Boulder was in its formative years in the late 1800s. Westward expansion drew in hopeful settlers. Industries were booming.

But the community lacked convenient transportation and shipping: It needed a train. In 1873, the city got two when the Colorado Central Railroad Company built Boulder’s first working rail lines and the creation of the Denver and Boulder Valley Railroad connected the major cities. Soon Boulder celebrated its first luxury train — complete with lavatories — only for railroad travel to fall out of fashion when automobiles became popular in the early 1900s.

Over a century after riders traded tickets for car keys, residents yearn for a return to rail. In 2018, RTD reported that congestion caused 77 million hours of travel delay in the Metro Denver region. As urban sprawl between the cities becomes denser and carbon emissions worsen with traffic, drivers covet a commute that omits the interstate.

When a 2004 Denver Metro area vote approved RTD’s FasTracks proposal to build over 120 miles of passenger rail lines, excited residents looked forward to Colorado’s commuter-friendly future. The proposed $1.5 billion B Line would connect Denver to Boulder and Longmont.

The plan didn’t survive long. RTD took on significant debt with the Great Recession in 2008, which coincided with realizations that the B Line would cost millions more than projected. Without a means to raise the extra funds, RTD prioritized less-expensive lines, and Boulder County residents lost faith.

As car-less first-year students at CU in 2017, the year of FasTracks’ original planned completion, my friends and I pined for a train to take us to Rockies games or the Denver Art Museum. Instead, we spent four years on the Flatiron Flyer buses.

RTD recommitted to FasTracks in February 2021, ordering engineering and environmental studies for the B Line expansion. Officials are eyeing President Biden’s recent infrastructure proposal in hopes of securing funding.

CU students will surely be some of the first to hop on board the train. Whether commuting to campus or venturing into neighboring cities, the B Line could lead to significant decreases in traffic and carbon output.

If RTD moves forward with the B Line, commuters and train enthusiasts alike may have reason to celebrate. I know I’ll be grateful for it when I visit my alma mater. And thousands of Denver-Boulder commuters can finally skip the nightmare of rush hour on Highway 36.

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Photo by Matt Tyrie

In 2021, Colorado’s RTD recommitted to study the potential for a Boulder–to–Denver railway

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The Bridge

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 16:00:00 +0000

The Bridge Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/01/2018 - 09:00

Christie Sounart

Avery Bang (MCivEngr’09) knows a simple footbridge can change lives.

As CEO of the nonprofit Bridges to Prosperity, she and her team have constructed more than 250 pathways over otherwise impassible rivers in countries as far away and far apart as Rwanda, Bolivia and Haiti. Typically built by locals working with Bridges to Prosperity staff at a cost of about $60,000, the bridges connect nearly one million people to schools, medical providers, food and jobs.

But not every community that needs a bridge is far away: As Bang sees it, parts of Denver could use one, too.

Beginning late this spring, a cable-suspended footbridge conceived, designed and funded by Bridges to Prosperity will be built across Denver’s South Platte River. It will connect the isolated, low-income Globeville neighborhood with the booming River North Art District (RiNo) and nearby Brighton Boulevard.

Bang saw a need for the bridge while running along the Platte nearly four years ago. RiNo — where she lives and Bridges to Prosperity has its headquarters — is a thriving neighborhood rich in retail stores and groceries, healthcare providers, schools and citywide transit connections. But the Platte and two interstates separate the often-neglected Globeville residents from RiNo’s abundance, mainly accessible by car or bus.

“This bridge is about serving a low-access population,” said Bang, who studied civil engineering at CU and joined Bridges to Prosperity as a volunteer in 2006 after observing a footbridge project in Fiji. She became CEO in 2008.

Denver officials have seen the need for a bridge in the area for nearly a decade, Bang said, but estimate it would take years and $6 million to build. Downstream, the Millennium and Highlands footbridges cost $10 million and $5 million, respectively.

On social media, local developer Zeppelin Development had proposed a bridge design that involved putting train boxcars in the river.

“Me being the nerdy bridge engineer thought, ‘That’s not possible,’” Bang said.

She decided the 17-year-old Bridges to Prosperity should pursue its first-ever U.S. project — and could do it for $3 million by using the same materials they would use for a bridge outside the U.S.

“We could build this same bridge in Nicaragua for $100,000,” said Bang, noting the permitting and materials cost is much higher in the U.S.

The organization partnered with Zeppelin, which pledged $1 million and serves as the developer. Bang’s group separately is working to close the remaining $750,000 fundraising gap.

Rendering

To design the bridge, Bang approached frequent collaborator Scott McNary (CivEngr’81; MS’84), founding partner of Broomfield, Colo.,-based engineering firm McNary Bergeron and Associates. Because the bridge must be built at a skew with minimal supports in the flood-prone river, he employed a standard suspension design with a more than 270-foot-long arched walkway, swooping cables and two giant steel towers.

There are plans for a street artist to adorn it, tentatively called the “Art Bridge.” It is expected to open by fall.

For now, Bang said, Bridges to Prosperity will continue to focus on needs outside the U.S. But she hopes the Globeville-RiNo project proves bridges in America can be reimagined to the benefit of underserved populations.

“There are a billion people in the world who can’t get to where they need to go,” she said.

Some of them are right here in America.

Photo courtesy Glenn Asakawa/Rendering courtesy Bridges to Prosperity

Avery Bang knows a simple footbridge can change lives.

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