RIP Papa Jack Weil, 1901–2008

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Papa Jack Weil, owner of Rockmont Ranch Wear in Denver, Co, died last Wednesday. He continued to show up for work every day, even when he was 107 years old.

We lost the oldest CEO in Colorado, and probably in the U.S., this week. Rockmount Ranch Wear founder Jack A. Weil died Wednesday at the age of 107.

Grandson Steve Weil, Rockmount's 49-year-old president, recently told Rocky contributor Bill Gallo that "Papa Jack" had reduced his work schedule in recent times from 12-hour days to five mornings a week. "But he was still active. He loved being the greeter. He talked to 50 people a day."

"My grandfather was to Western shirts what Levi's was to blue jeans," Steve Weil told Gallo. "One of his most remarkable traits was an ability to live on his own terms. That's probably the result of growing up in the early 1900s and enduring the Depression. He was self-made and self-educated, and he had a strong code of ethics."

RIP Papa Jack Weil, 1901–2008