In Memoriam: Donald Sturm LLM ’60 (1932–2024)

Donald Sturm LLM ’60, a graduate of the Graduate Tax Program who achieved notable success in the construction, energy, banking and real estate sectors, died Aug. 17 at the age of 92. The founder of ANB Bank, Sturm led numerous corporate acquisitions, first as a director and board member of Peter Kiewet Sons’ (PKS) and later as an independent investor.

Sturm began his legal career as a litigator in the Office of the General Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service. He was then recruited to work for PKS, one of the world’s largest construction companies, as its first tax attorney. When Sturm implemented an innovative strategy that ultimately turned a $35 million tax bill into a $5 million refund, his position at the firm was solidified. In a 2020 interview with Steven Dean, then faculty director of the Graduate Tax Program, Sturm said, “I would not have been able to achieve this result without the tax education I received at the NYU Tax Program.”

During Sturm’s 28-year tenure at PKS, where he eventually became vice president, his portfolio expanded beyond construction to include the energy sector, as PKS became involved in the coal industry and a pipeline company. He played a key role in the $3 billion acquisition of Continental Group, a multi-industry Fortune 500 company, of which he became CEO. In the 1980s, Sturm held a 10 percent stake in PKS as its second-largest shareholder. Those assets allowed him to buy a string of failing banks. In the 1990s, Sturm was a billionaire investor in telecommunications. At the time of his death, he was majority owner and chairman of the board of ANB, the 17th-largest bank in Colorado by customer deposits in the state.

An active philanthropist, Sturm established a family foundation dedicated to helping lower-income people. His efforts included founding more than a dozen charter schools, contributing to about 100 public housing projects and supporting various cultural and educational institutions in Denver, where he lived in his later years. In 2003, the University of Denver law school, where Sturm attended before earning an LLM from NYU Law, was renamed Sturm College of Law in his honor. Five years ago, Sturm funded the creation of the Sturm Collaboration Campus at Arapahoe Community College.

“I really think about how to help people help themselves,” Sturm said of his philanthropy during a 2020 conversation with Dean. He noted that the training he received at NYU Law was “part of the foundation” for his later career. “Education changes lives,” Sturm said. “It changed my life.”

Published September 19, 2024