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Steamboat resident Nagel receives Navigator honor

Steamboat Springs attorney named Businessperson of Year

Mike Lawrence
Steamboat Springs attorney and Ride4Yellow founder David Nagel will be honored today as this year’s recipient of the Navigator Award for Businessperson of the Year.
Matt Stensland





Steamboat Springs attorney and Ride4Yellow founder David Nagel will be honored today as this year’s recipient of the Navigator Award for Businessperson of the Year.
Matt Stensland

— David Nagel has had a busy year.

The 42-year-old Steamboat Springs resident is a husband, father and partner in the law firm of Feldmann Nagel, LLC. He sits on the Yampa Valley Community Foundation’s board of directors and is helping his law firm open an Austin, Texas, office that he expects to “go live” in December.

But in talking with Nagel and those who know him well, two other recent accomplishments come to the forefront: the inaugural Ride4Yellow fundraiser and mountain bike event, which raised $339,000 in August for cancer-fighting charities; and his efforts to help secure a refinancing package of as much as $21 million for redevelopment projects at the base of Steamboat Ski Area.



“Yeah, 2010,” Nagel reflected in his office this week. “It’s been a big one.”

Nagel is this year’s recipient of the Navigator Award for Businessperson of the Year. The Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association and the Steamboat Pilot & Today will present Nagel with the award during the Chamber’s 103rd annual meeting and luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. today at the Sheraton Steamboat Resort.



“I’m very humbled,” Nagel said about the recognition, which honors community in­­­volvement and leadership and in 2009 went to former Sheraton general manager Chuck Porter.

David Baldinger Jr. is co-chairman of the Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee and had a firsthand look at Nagel’s involvement in the base area refinancing effort, which overcame an April default notice from U.S. Bank to see final signatures and Steamboat Springs City Council approval last month.

“We just said, ‘We’re not going to take no for an answer on this one,’” Nagel said about the refinancing process.

Baldinger said Nagel is more than deserving of a Navigator Award this year.

“I’m just really thrilled David was selected,” Baldinger said. “It’s rare to have a person who gives so much of their time to the community all in the same year.”

Sandy Evans Hall, executive vice president of the Chamber, said she was “blown away” with the Ride4Yellow event that drew 200 riders, including Lance Armstrong, to Routt County’s backcountry Aug. 8.

Nagel became involved with cancer-fighting efforts during his sister-in-law’s successful five-year battle against a rare form of the disease that doctors initially thought would be fatal. Nagel said plans are well under way for a Ski4Yellow event March 26 at Steamboat Ski Area.

Evans Hall said Nagel has pursued that passion very persistently but without “banging a drum.”

“When I think of David, I think of someone that is not egotistical,” she said. “He goes about his leadership in a quiet and confident way.”

Nagel has called Steamboat home since 1990.

“Our community is really second to none,” he said. “There’s something really special here that we have.”


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