William Coors, head of the ultra-conservative brewery, dies at age 102



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In the turmoil that followed, the NAA in Los Angeles called for a boycott of Coors beer and 500 southern California liquor stores. Mr. Coors apologized for his comments the day after the article appeared, but he also sued the newspaper for defamation, claiming that his remarks had been distorted. (The suit was dropped later.)

Seven months later, Coors was responding to growing pressure by signing separate agreements with black and Hispanic groups to increase its minority hires, expand its distributors and invest in banks, law firms, advertising agencies and public sector organizations. other minority community enterprises over a five-year period. A pact, with a coalition comprising Operation PUSH and N.A.A.C.P., committed $ 325 million; another, with the Hispanic organization La Raza, is committed to paying up to $ 300 million. Both offers depended on increased Coors sales in minority communities.

In the 1980s, with the approval of William, two nephews, son of Joseph Coors, began to take daily control: Jeffrey as president of the company, responsible for diversified activities unrelated to wood processing including bottling, packaging, trucking, food products and recycling. and Peter as president of the brewing division that generated the vast majority of revenues. Both were market-oriented and image-conscious executives, as accommodating as their father and uncle had been combative.

In 1987, after negotiations with Peter Coors, the unions ended his boycott. A year later, workers at the Coors brewery again voted against union representation. But a wave of change had begun in society and William Coors was still at the top of the pyramid.

William Kistler Coors was born in Golden, Colorado on August 11, 1916, second of three sons of Adolph H.J. Coors Jr. and Alice May Kistler Coors. His father took over the company after the founder, William's grandfather, whose original name was Kuhrs, committed suicide in 1929. Adolphe III, the older brother of William and Joseph, was murdered in 1960 after being kidnapped for ransom.

A graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, he studied chemical engineering at Princeton, where he graduated with a BA in 1938 and a MA in 1939. He had taken piano lessons from an early age and his mother wanted he becomes a concert pianist. After college, he honored the family tradition and wishes of his father by joining Coors.

In 1941, he married Geraldine Louise Jackson. The couple has three daughters: Margaret, May Louise and Geraldine, the eldest, who suffers from depression and commits suicide, and a son, William Kistler Jr., who died at a young age. The marriage ended in a divorce in 1962. He and Phyllis Mahaffey, the company's secretary, were married in 1963. They had a son, Scott, and are divorced. In 1995, he married Rita Bass, who died in 2015.

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