Photo by: Michael Furman

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper praised the University of Denver for its intellectual contributions to the city in a speech he gave on Monday to an audience of about 300 students and teachers in Sturm Hall.

“DU means more to this community than most people recognize,” Hickenlooper said. “Having a school of this caliber in this city is such a huge gift, and most people don’t recognize what the ripples are of having such a top-notch school in your community.”

He was the Daniels College of Business’s Voices of Experiences guest speaker.

Hickenlooper offered advice to upcoming graduates, which he learned as a restaurateur.

He is the founder of the Wynkoop Brewing Co., and bought the first and second floors of the building in 1981 for $11 per square foot.”

“In a recession, when things are bad, there is opportunity; you just have to work harder. And working together as much as you’re permitted is always preferential to getting into [conflict] with people you’re working with,” he said.

He stressed that the fundamentals of success are to “work hard and be nice.”

“I went to a school very much like DU, where the overwhelming theme was that what you had to learn was simply how to learn and collaborate with other people,” Hickenlooper said.

“All of the information was foreign to me when I was opening my restaurant, but the natural inclination to be in a state of wonder and learn more about a subject – that is what allows you to do anything you want.”

After his experience as a restaurateur, Hickenlooper decided to run for mayor of Denver and was elected in 2003.

He said he had never before thought about being in local government, but after a year and a half of talking to mayors around the country, he thought it would be a position he would be able to fulfill, and with it, make a difference.

He said he learned valuable lessons in the restaurant business that he carried over to his political life.

“I always say every elected executive officer should spend at least three years in the restaurant business, because you never have enough capital and the public is always ticked off about something,” he joked.

“You learn within the first couple of weeks that there’s no [benefit] in getting enemies.

“Yet, many elected officials love getting in these battles, which ultimately makes it more difficult.”

Hickenlooper discussed the economy before he took questions from the audience.

He said that part of having a successful city government is “creating confidence that we’re going to come back from this recession.”

“So much of this recession is in people’s heads,” he said. “We have no less capacity to manufacture buildings, or to make businesses and enterprises than we had a year ago.

“Our job in local government is continue to show people that things are better in Denver… to get people to not be fearful but confident that the stronger we can be, the sooner we’ll come out [of the recession.]”

He said Denver was one of the last places in the country to get into the recession, and he believes it will be one of the first to get out of it. In response to a question from an audience member, Hickenlooper said the greatest career centers coming out of Denver would probably be biotech, scientific research, the satellite and cable industry and aerospace.