Daniel L. Ritchie was the most uncommon CEO in America, a renaissance man as comfortable on a cattle drive, in a boardroom or wearing a dress.

But while his name seems to be everywhere, the man was something of an enigma: a high-profile leader who kept a low profile.

And yet, if things had gone another way, Ritchie might have been destined for a life on the stage himself.

Ritchie, the longtime University of Denver chancellor who at age 74 agreed to become CEO and chairman of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in 2007, was willing to do just about anything to help raise money for company causes. Like when he agreed to sport bling while performing a rap video to promote the Denver Center’s then-newfangled blog in 2010.

“I remember that his former university colleagues were incredulous because he had certainly never let loose like that when he was at DU,” current DCPA Chairman Hassan Salem said with a laugh. “He was always willing to step out of his comfort zone for the love of the theater and to make an impact.”

In 2014, Ritchie underwent a fully documented immersion into the world of drag to call attention to the DCPA Theatre Company’s world-premiere production of “The Legend of Georgia McBride” — at age 82. (His drag alter ego was named Lady Givesmore.) At various fundraisers, he dressed up as the rocker Slash, The Ghost of Christmas Present and Tom Sawyer to encourage donations for his challenge grants.

Anything for any cause.

“He was a theater leader, but was a theater lover, too,” said DCPA CEO Sinden.

Ritchie never took himself too seriously. He had fun, and he encouraged others to have fun along the way, too.

“To see that playfulness in him — someone who has carried so much serious responsibility for so many organizations – you just knew that the art spoke to him as well,” she said.

Ritchie, who suffered a serious hip injury in May 2024, died at his home in Denver on Jan. 30, Sinden said. He was 93.

During Ritchie’s tenure at the University of Denver (1989-2005), DU’s “Cowboy Chancellor” was known for borrowing money to help the university make payroll.

“Dan rescued the University of Denver from insolvency and spearheaded a campus renaissance,” Chancellor Jeremy Haefner said Friday morning.

Wherever he served, Ritchie was particularly adept at securing major gifts. He raised $274 million for academic programs and $430 million more for capital improvements to the DU campus including new buildings for student living, business, science, law and music education; a performing-arts center; and, the sports arena and recreation center that now bear his name. His personal dedication to DU included more than $75 million in gifts and a salary waiver for his term as chancellor. Ritchie also led DU’s move to NCAA Division I Athletics.

The university, Haefner said, “has lost its greatest friend and champion.”

“There aren’t adequate words to express Dan Ritchie’s impact on the University of Denver. His love of this institution was contagious. By getting others to see our potential, he built us up, literally and figuratively. Dan was known not just for his steady and visionary leadership, he was also known for his deep commitment to the people and institutions he held dear,” Haefner added.

Greg Moore, former editor of The Denver Post and now a trustee for DU, said Ritchie recreated the modern University of Denver through his vision and philanthropy.

“From its buildings to its programs, his impact remains as strong as ever,” Moore said. “Beyond that enduring legacy, he was the Good Housekeeping Seal of Colorado. If there was an institution in trouble, like History Colorado, Dan was the person called on to do the tough things to get the organization back on track. He was the man to see during tough times and everything he touched seemed to be better for his involvement.”

Gov. Jared Polis said Ritchie’s decades of service “have impacted so many individuals, and he has left our state better for his work. It was a great honor for me to have worked with Dan on many important policies including universal preschool.”

Roots in North Carolina

While the incongruously shy Ritchie harbored a performing bug, life had a much bigger stage in mind for the humble young man from North Carolina whose uncommon life took him from Harvard to Hollywood, from DU to the DCPA.

Richie was born Sept. 19, 1931, in China Grove, N.C., a small town north of Charlotte with a population that still barely tops 4,000.

He was an inquisitive kid but easily bored by traditional school. He intended to drop out of high school, Sinden said, because he was not feeling stimulated.

“He was at a crossroads, but he somehow found his way to Harvard, where they said, ‘We are going to take this very bright individual and figure out every way we can to keep him going’.”

Ritchie’s parents scraped and sacrificed, and Ritchie earned both his bachelor’s degree and MBA from Harvard.

“Dan recognized how fortunate he was that there were people — his parents in particular — who believed in him,” Sinden said. “And he committed himself then and there to do as much as he could individually and collectively to provide opportunities for youth. And he’s been paying it forward ever since.”

Ritchie briefly served in the U.S. Army and then as a securities analyst in New York before eventually settling in Denver. He first came to Colorado to run Columbia Savings and Loan in the 1960s. He then left for California, where he served as executive vice president of the MCA film studio. He lived in the house that actor Michael Wilding built for Elizabeth Taylor and struck up a friendship with Alfred Hitchcock. But Ritchie soon left what he termed the “grubby” and “heartless” business of Hollywood.

He then entered the organic foods industry as an entrepreneur and then spent eight years as CEO of Westinghouse Broadcasting (later absorbed by CBS). Ritchie was especially proud that Westinghouse broke the AIDS story nationally while he was at its helm.

Ritchie retired from Westinghouse at age 55 in favor of the Grand River Ranch near Kremmling, where he planned to spend the rest of his life raising cattle, hiking and enjoying ranch life.

“Dan was not a drug-store cowboy,” said Dean Singleton, founder of Digital First Media. “He was the real deal.”

But that was just the start of a second life serving (and rescuing) the University of Denver, and third life serving (and rescuing) the DCPA and many other community organizations and boards.

In 2007, Ritchie was asked by DCPA founder Donald R. Seawell to succeed him as both CEO and chairman. At the time, Seawell said he considered arm-twisting Ritchie into succeeding him to have been the single greatest accomplishment of his life — behind marrying Eugenia Rawls.

Ritchie’s priorities included “bringing in more women playwrights, more women directors, and bringing in more Latino and African-American performers, as well as playwrights,” he said at the time. “I really believe this is a holy mission.

“I also care deeply about our education programs: Reaching out to schools, bringing young people in for student matinees. All of this is really building for the future. And that’s not just good for the DCPA — it’s good for the kids, and for their futures.”

In 2003, Ritchie arranged for DU to hand over the property its Lamont School of Music was using at the former Colorado Women’s College as a new home for Denver School of the Arts at 7111 E. Montview Blvd. Under Ritchie, DCPA Education added both a teen playwriting competition and the Bobby G Awards, which celebrate achievements in Colorado high-school musical theater. In 2015, he entered into a partnership with Denver Public Schools on its annual student Shakespeare festival, the largest of its kind in the world.

But while no one knew it then, Ritchie came to the Denver Center at a time when the world was on the precipice of a global financial collapse.

Ritchie considered steering and stabilizing the Denver Center’s finances through that rocky time to be his greatest accomplishment — even though it required tough and unpopular budgetary decisions, including the closing of the National Theatre Conservatory master’s program and the wholesale restructuring of the company’s dependence on the Bonfils Foundation for its operating budget.

“In many ways, Dan ensured the continuation of the thriving life of the Denver Center,” said Martin Semple, chairman of the Bonfils Foundation. “I don’t think most folks outside recognized the serious financial crisis that DCPA was facing when Dan took it over. It took some time — and it took a lot of tough decisions. Dan ensured that the core mission of DCPA was continued during those times. I think the strong position that we’re in today is largely due to the leadership that Dan demonstrated and implemented.”

Ritchie, who never accepted payment for his work at the Denver Center, either, stepped down after eight years, believing the worst was behind the Denver Center.

“I do think the Denver Center is in good shape,” Ritchie said in 2015. “With a nonprofit business you can never afford to rest on your laurels, but one of the reasons for doing this now is we are in a good place.”

In all, Sinden said, Ritchie personally contributed $3.5 million to the DCPA, mostly for education and to support the company’s new-play development program.

“I think it’s incredible that Dan had such a commitment to new plays and musicals, really from the moment he started here,” said former DCPA Theatre Company Artistic Director Kent Thompson. “He recognized that’s really part of our legacy to the entire field. And he not only supported it, he put his own money into it, and he brought other monies into it as well.”

Ritchie stepped back in 2015 specifically to give him more time to focus on the 2016 reauthorization vote for the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. That is the penny cultural tax on every $10 that brings in more than $5 million a year for Denver Center programs.

Ritchie was so fit and active until his hip injury last year, “I never thought he was going to die,” said Singleton. “Dan was unique in his contributions to the community because whether it was agriculture or business or education or the arts or public policy, Dan knew people in all those areas — and he had the respect of everybody in all those areas. When Dan spoke, everybody listened. He knew how to get at the core of every issue. He had a unique ability to identify problems — and fix them.”

The final curtain

The last among hundreds of plays Ritchie ever saw could not have been more perfectly chosen. On the day after Thanksgiving, the Denver business titan sat among giggling children watching the Denver Center’s Elephant & Piggie’s “We Are in a Play!” at the Denver Center’s Conservatory Theatre. Sitting next to him was Sinden, his friend and DCPA protégé.

“I looked at him, and he was in complete wonderment,” Sinden said of the 93-year-old kid who was awestruck whenever he saw children being turned on to the magic of live theater.

“It took his breath away looking around the theater at grandparents and parents and brothers and sisters and kiddos and caregivers enjoying live theater and the power of story,” she said. “I just love that he never lost that, and he continued throughout his life to seek that out.”

Memorial service

A celebration of life for Daniel Ritchie will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Feb. 13 in at Magness Arena on the University of Denver campus.

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT

• President of the Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation

• Boards of Daniels Fund, Denver Art Museum Foundation and executive committee of Colorado Concern

• Past president of Independent Higher Education of Colorado

• Honorary trustee of the Central City Opera Association

• Previously sat on the National Parks Service Advisory Board, among others

• Philanthropic gifts have included the Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering in Computer Science (named in honor of his father), the University of Denver, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and the Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus

AWARDS

• Cable Hall of Fame

• 1988 Citizen of the West (National Western Stock Show)

• National Samaritan Institute

• Gold Medal (Poor Richard Club)

• Outstanding Philanthropist (National Philanthropy Day)

• National Human Relations (American Jewish Committee)

• Community Cultural Enrichment (Mizel Museum of Judaica)

• Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service, and Ethical Leadership Award (University of Denver)

• He also has been inducted into the Tourism Hall of Fame (Visit Denver) and the Colorado Business Hall of Fame (Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce)