Relationships best part of NCBR, beats

Champagne corks were the oddities that first captured my interest when I came to the Northern Colorado Business Report as a staff writer in June 1999.

They seemed to be everywhere. And everyone – from co-publishers Chris Wood and Jeff Nuttall to business manager Lori Buderus, and all the sales reps, writers and graphic artists – had them on their desks amid the paper clips and sticky notes.

Must have been some kind of party, I thought. Especially with the evidence lasting … what, three years?

The corks had popped in 1996 when NCBR finally outlasted two rival publications to become the region’s…