Widely recognized as an overachiever in all pursuits and a workaholic titan of industry (only fully retiring in 2016 at age 99), who grew the Coors family business from a local brewery to an internationally celebrated brand and Fortune 500 company, many are unaware of Coors' broader contributions to America's societal fabric.
The once-accomplished athlete remains astonishingly agile mentally as he and a wide circle of family, friends, associates and admirers revisit an extraordinary legacy of progressive contributions not only to industry and country - playing a historic role as part of the military's top-secret WWII program "The Manhattan Project" - but to the environment and revamping societal norms.
In 1959, Coors introduced and popularized the pop-top aluminum can to a mass audience and, in the process, effectively invented recycling. Additionally, he led a holistic health movement to overcome the stigma and lack of resources for those with mental health issues; and worked to proliferate a philosophy of tolerance and self-love, including championing LGBTQ rights and embracing his son, Scott, who came out when his father was in his 70s. Heir apparent to one of the brewing industry's premiere families, Scott agonized over revealing his sexuality, yet the response from his father was overwhelmingly positive.
But his life was also one marred by great personal adversity, tragedy and loss - including the deaths of his first wife and two children and the kidnapping-murder of his older brother - as well as crippling depression, the unfortunate, biological legacy of his grandfather who committed suicide during Prohibition, as the Great Depression loomed.
Having lost "The Will to Live" and finding no help or answers within the traditional medical community at that time, Coors eschewed prescription drugs and refused to continue self-medicating with alcohol, instead embarking on a 25-year journey to naturally overcome depression and despair ... and, in the process, launching a revolutionary, holistic approach to health and integrative medicine embraced to this day.
