National Western Stock Show prez Paul Andrews to retire

DENVER — National Western Stock Show and Complex CEO Paul Andrews will retire  after the 2025 National Western Stock Show in January 2025.

Andrews, who has worked for the group since late 2010, “will continue as a consultant to the organization after a new president and CEO has been selected,” National Western said in a news release.

He previously held a number of roles at Kroenke Sports & Entertainment LLC.

“Paul’s dedication, energy, and business acumen have been of incalculable value to the National Western’s recent successes,” Doug Jones, chairman of the Western Stock Show Association board, said in the release. “His successor has some big boots to fill.”

National Western hopes to have a new CEO in place by next spring or summer.

Andrews’ tenure saw the development of the Colorado State University Spur campus adjacent to the National Western Stock Show complex in Denver.

The 300,000-square-foot, three-building campus, which opened about two years ago, was built as a “way to showcase careers and the topics of food, water and health,”  Tiana Kennedy, associate vice chancellor for external relations at Colorado State University, told BizWest in a 2022 interview. 

A partnership between CSU, the Stock Show, History Colorado and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was formalized in late 2013, planning for the physical campus began in 2014, and in 2015 the state Legislature approved $250 million toward the project — $200 million for the capital construction and $50 million to the Fort Collins campus to develop Spur planning. 

“The idea is that these are buildings where real science and research take place,” Kennedy said, “but you’ll notice when you come visit that there’s a lot of glass; the theme of this campus is transparency. We’re sort of removing the blinds and letting them actually see what it looks like to be a water scientist or somebody who’s growing food in a greenhouse. You’ll have researchers working, but they’ll be behind glass so visitors can see what it means to be a researcher.”