Chapter 6: The Businessman

Kenny had many business interests, but near the top was his love to sell. And it wasn’t the friendly, get-to-know-you, let’s have lunch kind of selling. It was the “haggling, scratching, fussing. It’s what I think business should be,” he told the Greeley Tribune in 1981. “I view it as a competitive world.”

And compete he did. In just about every waking moment he was thinking about his business, how to make it better and how to get a step ahead of his competition. He didn’t throw the “hate” word around a lot. But when it came to the business world and those who wanted to take his business, he could get his hands around it. He hated his competitors and he wanted their customers. He hated losing.

His business side sometimes clashed with his political side, as well as those of other local and state politicians. Having been involved in politics, he knew how the game was played. And he disliked how some used political tactics to try to gain advantage in the business world.


The year was 1970. Kenny had lost his run for the Senate in 1968, but he was still a popular figure in the Democratic Party and one of the individuals being strongly considered as a front-runner for the governor’s race in 1974. Although he was disappointed in his showing in the 68 campaign, Kenny hadn’t fully eliminated any thoughts of running for governor.

Monfort of Colorado had just gone public and had begun plans to construct a new 100,000 head feedlot near Gilcrest, Colo. The state’s unions had asked for a meeting with Kenny, so he and his right-hand-man, Hank Brown, went to Denver to sit down with union leaders from the different construction trades.

We want you to construct your new Gilcrest feedlot using union labor, the union representatives said. As a good Democrat, you should want this, too. After listening to their pitch and talking it over with them, Kenny assured them the company would consider any proposals and would give serious consideration to union contracts.

No, he didn’t understand, they told him. We want you to have a union contractor, regardless of the cost. And if you’ll do that, we’ll support your run for governor.

Even if the firm had been his alone, he wouldn’t have thought twice. It wasn’t, and he didn’t. As the representative of a now-public company Kenny knew he had to represent those people who had invested in Monfort and make decisions that were financially sound. After he thanked the union leaders for their time, he went ahead and bid the construction out to the most competitive contractors. It was the right thing to do for the company.


As Monfort of Colorado grew to a size that got the company noticed, politicians in the state would sometimes use it in examples, or single it out for criticism. Kenny sometimes thought politicians were picking on him and his company; at other times he thought they were just not listening. In 1977 he chastised then Governor Dick Lamm for criticizing business for not being progressive enough. “If the governor wants to castigate the business community, he should be sure that he has really tried to converse with that community or with the different segments of it,” he wrote. “After all, many of us think differently about different items.”

National policies also had a huge impact on the company. In response to consumer pressure and increasing prices, the government had instituted price freezes in the early 1970s. Boycotts in early 1973 had hit the beef industry as prices kept rising, and Kenny had actually recommended a ceiling price on meat because the cattle market kept getting higher and higher and he thought “it was too high…Enough is enough.”

The government announced in July 1973 that price freezes would be lifted on everything except beef. That was an absolute disaster for beef packers, as many cattle feeders could hold their cattle until the freeze was scheduled to be lifted and prices could go up, which was Sept. 12, 1973. With fewer cattle going to market the price for them went up during that two month period, but the price of beef couldn’t. So packers were destined to be the ones forced to eat any losses. Or so the theory went.


Kenny was no fan of Richard Nixon and the feeling was mutual, as Kenny’s inclusion on Nixon’s enemies list proved. Nevertheless, he saw the Nixon ruling for what it was: an attempt by the president to hold down the price of beef for consumers. It was a stupid way to do it, Kenny thought, but there it was. It had the backing of law, which meant to try to circumvent the freeze was going against the spirit of what the president was trying to do.

To have the integrity to obey a law that he felt was wrongheaded and bound for disaster was costly to Monfort monetarily. Some days trucks would leave the plant that could have carried a sign that said “$10,000 in losses inside.” When he had a hundred trucks in the yard, Kenny must have swallowed hard before loading them up and sending them on their way.

Meanwhile other packers were having their lawyers see what kinds of loopholes they could find in the freeze. Some just ignored the law. But it turns out there was a big loophole they could squeeze through. The freeze was only on carcasses and beef, not on live animals. So other plants would find ways to get their customers live cattle and custom slaughter the animals for them. This went on for weeks and weeks, and Kenny was the only one who would not do it, as to do so would violate the spirit of the law.