Longtime Vail Valley painter Denny Shay retires as colleagues, employees give credit to the person who helped them settle here
A number of his former employees have started their own businesses
Rex Keep/Courtesy photo
Denny Shay didn’t discover his true calling until he moved to the Vail Valley. He’s helped a lot of other people find their life paths here, too.
Shay, 80, recently retired from his painting company. A number of friends gathered recently at Zino restaurant in Edwards to help him celebrate.
Shay’s wife, Teresa, recalled that she and Denny came to the valley in 1980. Denny had been selling insurance in Iowa, but started working construction when he arrived here.
“We came for a couple of weeks, then stayed for a summer, then a winter, then a summer,” Teresa said. Over that time, the couple decided to stick. Work in construction over a couple of years led to interior and exterior painting. Denny’s dedication to his customers quickly grew the business, so he needed help.
Teresa said Denny liked to hire people from the Midwest, since he was familiar with the work ethic bred into many of that area’s residents. Doing the job exactly right is important, and everyone working for Denny soon learned that.
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Matt Morgan, an owner of Sweet Basil and other restaurants in Vail, was facing his first summer in Vail without a job. Morgan had spent the winter bartending with Teresa, who recommended him to Denny. Like so many others, Morgan didn’t have painting experience when Denny hired him, but Teresa assured him her husband was a good teacher.
“He was patient, and … in my opinion, he was the best painter in town,” Morgan said. Those summer jobs helped Morgan get established in the restaurant business.
A job at the Potato Patch restaurant led Denny to referrals to some recent South African immigrants.
Nick Swanepoel was one of the first South Africans Denny hired. Swanepoel had recently arrived in Vail “with $1.25 in my pocket and two cigarettes.”
An occasional bonus
“He gave me the opportunity to work for him — he’s done that for so many people,” Swanepoel said. As another guy with no painting experience, Morgan was his teacher, with Denny’s guidance, of course.
Swanepoel recalled that Denny from time to time would come to a job site with a handful of $100 bills as a bonus for the crew.
When Swanepoel started his own business, Swanepoel Painting, in the 1990s, his former boss was happy to help.
“He would recommend us if he had overflow jobs,” Swanepoel said.
Denny kept in touch with many of his former employees who went off on their own.
“I never viewed us as competitors,” Swanepoel said. “When Denny bid on a job, we’d just move on. It’s a respect thing … And living in harmony is a much better outcome than beating each other up.”
That’s just one way Denny’s former employees returned his loyalty.
Teresa noted that Denny suffered a serious heart attack in 2006. While he was recovering, former employees Ryan Kirkman and Guy Stiebel helped keep the company running. Kirkman and Stiebel had gone off on their own a couple of years earlier, but stepped in while running their own business.
Kirkman noted that Teresa didn’t really know the painting business, so he and Stiebel would check on Denny’s crews and do estimates for the firm.
A boss and a friend
“He was a friend as much as he was our boss,” Kirkman said. “He made us feel like we belonged.”
That loyalty and friendship goes both ways.
“He would take a personal financial hit (to help someone),” Kirkman said. “He just cares so much about people.”
Besides doing a job correctly, Swanepoel noted that he and others have learned about customer service and presentation from their former boss.
“Denny always dressed very well — he’s a real example of how to carry yourself,” Swanepoel said. That’s one of the keys to getting repeat business.
A number of the people who have worked for Denny in the past came in without painting experience. That changed quickly once you were hired.
Swanepoel recalls his former boss saying, “You don’t know anything about painting? I’m going to teach you everything you need to know.”
“He gave us a skill that became a life-long career,” he added.
