John Dendahl
Encyclopedia
John Dendahl is a retired business executive. After retirement from business, he became a Republican
politician in New Mexico
and, later, a syndicated columnist. He and his wife Jackie now live near Denver, Colorado. While attending the University of Colorado
, he led two NCAA
champion skiing teams, won three individual NCAA titles and was a member of the U.S. ski team at the 1960 Winter Olympics
. He has been inducted into the University of Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame and the New Mexico Ski Hall of Fame.
fraternity, CU's Outstanding Senior Athlete in 1960 and a candidate for graduation Canebearer (outstanding senior man) in 1961.
In January 1964, Dendahl left Eberline for three-and-a-half years, then returned in 1967 to become its chief financial officer. Six years later, he became chief executive officer. He held that position, followed by a vice presidency of Thermo Electron, for seven years through 1982. A holder of Eberline shares realized a 400-percent increase in value during the four years between Dendahl's becoming Eberline's CEO and its acquisition by Thermo Electron.
During the absence from Eberline, Dendahl was for two years the first chief financial officer of the then-new Santa Fe campus of St. John's College, followed by 18 months as vice president of the Golden Cycle Corporation in Colorado Springs, CO.
In 1983, Dendahl became general manager of a partnership that owns more than 20,000 acres of largely undeveloped land adjoining the south limit of Santa Fe, supervising a variety of activities to create added value for the partners' investment. He also formed a partnership which successfully carried out historical rehabilitation of an office building he owned in downtown Santa Fe.
In 1985, Dendahl became president of The First National Bank of Santa Fe which, like many other banks and S & Ls of the period, was suffering from loan quality problems and the consequent regulatory pressure. The bank came under special supervision (a Letter Agreement) by the Comptroller of the Currency a few months after Dendahl had taken his office. Improvements under the management of Dendahl and his colleagues led to termination of the special supervision in just 364 days, an unusual achievement.
For the three years 1988 through 1990, Dendahl served in the administration of Republican Governor Garrey Carruthers
as New Mexico
's Secretary of Economic Development and Tourism. During the year prior to this appointment, Dendahl was a Carruthers appointee on the N.M. State Investment Council, which oversees officials charged with managing the state's two large permanent funds (effectively endowment funds).
During and after his business career, Dendahl has served on the boards of directors of numerous charitable organizations, beginning as do so many young businesspeople with his community's United Way. Subsequent board service has included, among others, Sangre de Cristo Girl Scout Council, New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry, The Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe Preparatory School, School of American Research (now School for Advanced Research), Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), and St. John's College. St. John's is the respected liberal arts college with campuses in Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe; Dendahl was chairman of its board for two of his many years of service. He also chaired MSLF's board for three years and remains a member emeritus.
. Later that year, Dendahl was elected chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party
(RPNM), a position he held until he was defeated in 2003 by State Senator Ramsay Gorham of Albuquerque in his bid for re-election to a fifth term.
Democrats outnumbered all other registered voters combined and had had substantial control of New Mexico government for at least five decades. Dendahl took seriously the fight to elect Republicans to public office. At one point following Republican Bill Redmond's surprising 1997 win of a U.S. House of Representatives seat never before held by a Republican, reporter Tim Archuleta of The Albuquerque Tribune called Dendahl "the most feared and loathed politician in New Mexico."
Not one to avoid controversy, Dendahl publicly agreed with Gov. Johnson when, in mid-1999, Johnson challenged the so-called War on Drugs as a failure and called for drug decriminalization. Eighteen months later, Johnson submitted to the State Legislature eight relatively minor proposals for modifying the state's drug laws, including decriminalization of possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. When Dendahl appeared at a press conference to support the governor's legislation, the state's senior U.S. senator, Republican Pete Domenici
, was furious. He and the state's two Republican U.S. House Members, Joe Skeen and Heather Wilson
, publicly called for Dendahl's removal as chairman, and Domenici aggressively sought action by the party's state central committee to effect that.
A letter to Dendahl dated March 7, 2001 and signed by all three said, “You have led the effort to…build one of the strongest Republican organizations in our state’s history. You are an effective communicator and have always stepped up to the plate when we needed your help and we will always be indebted to you for your efforts. However, we are strongly opposed to your recent actions regarding the current initiative to de-criminalize the possession of marijuana in New Mexico. …[W]e can no longer support you as our party chairman and would respectfully ask that you not seek re-election to a [fourth] term.”
Dendahl did seek, and won, a fourth term.
Somewhat more than two months later, U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords
of Vermont switched his registration from Republican to Independent, transferring control of the United States Senate from Republican to Democrat. Domenici's tune was one of stunningly greater tolerance. An article in the Albuquerque Journal on May 25, 2001 quoted Domenici: "I believe [Jeffords’] final decision again sends a message that the Republican leadership must be more tolerant of a wide range of different views." Rep. Wilson was quoted in the same article to say, "[Jeffords] made a decision of conscience and you have to respect that. The party is big enough to reflect different views.”
"But," Dendahl noted, "apparently not big enough for a view supporting decriminalizing possession of an ounce of pot."
Dendahl and Richardson had a history of mutual dislike going back more than 25 years to Richardson's first candidacy for a U.S. House of Representatives seat. Dendahl was an outspoken advocate for nuclear power. In Dendahl's opinion, Richardson signaled opposition and later became one of Congress' most dedicated opponents.
During Dendahl's service as the state's Secretary of Economic Development and Tourism, Richardson became annoyed by official communications from Dendahl in support of a radioactive waste repository in southern New Mexico — the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
, aka WIPP — then being planned by the U.S. Government. Dendahl complained of actions taken by Richardson to delay or defeat the project. (Ironically, WIPP, a U.S. Department of Energy
facility, commenced actual operation a decade later when Richardson was serving as Pres. Clinton's Secretary of Energy.) At one point, Richardson sent a handwritten note to Dendahl saying, "Your emotional, 'factless,' incorrect and venomous comments are not worth responding to any longer. …You lower the standards of public service with your participation — perhaps that is why you have difficulty in keeping a job for very long."
That was dated January 2, 1989. However, Dendahl's "incorrect and venomous comments" had been vindicated three months earlier in an editorial headlined "WIPP failure … Richardson's folly," published October 9, 1988 by The Santa Fe New Mexican. Usually a reliable Richardson cheerleader, the paper detailed Richardson's single-handedly derailing a bill supported by all others in New Mexico's congressional delegation, thus delaying progress on WIPP and costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars it was to receive for highways and other economic development. Richardson had claimed that "a majority of the citizens of Santa Fe would have revolted" over the bill, but the paper noted that "majority" was "a small but vocal Santa Fe group" of nuclear weapons protesters "almost certainly [not representing] 'majority' thinking in Santa Fe, much less the rest of the state."
Nor was that the end of Richardson's WIPP obstruction. Pres. George H. W. Bush's administration transferred land needed for WIPP from general public use to exclusive use by the DoE for WIPP. The House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, of which Richardson was a member, countered on March 6, 1991 by exercising emergency power under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA)
to prevent the land use for WIPP. Richardson mailed a copy of that action to Dendahl with a handwritten note across the top left corner: "To John Dendahl — This bill's for you — Bill Richardson."
The Dendahl-Richardson relationship did not improve during Richardson's 2002 campaign for governor and the months following his election. Still in his post as Republican State Chairman, Dendahl challenged numerous Richardson decisions as being either illegal or bad public policy. When Dendahl was replaced as GOP chairman and became a syndicated columnist, he turned the heat up further with numerous columns critical of Richardson and his administration.
Immediately following his nomination to oppose Richardson in the 2006 general election, Dendahl made no secret of his opinion that Richardson is ruthless and corrupt. It was no surprise that Dendahl challenged Richardson to debate, and it was no surprise that the incumbent Richardson refused. An article appearing September 23, 2006 in the Albuquerque Journal reported, "Richardson's campaign chairman, Dave Contarino, said the Richardson campaign opposes a live televised debate because it doesn't want to give Dendahl an hour of free air time to tear down New Mexico. 'It would do a disservice to voters.'"
A few days later, a Journal editorial said, "The real disservice is not giving your boss — in this case the voters — an hour of your time to talk about a list of accomplishments [you've bragged to be] '10 miles long' as well as where you want to take the state in the next four years."
Richardson won re-election in a landslide, receiving nearly 69 percent of the vote. Richardson and his allies among labor and environmental organizations outspent Dendahl by at least 50-to-1. For his part, Dendahl was characteristically blunt and inexpedient. For example, he antagonized a large group of voters, government schools teachers, by releasing a statement that they spend too little time on the Three R's and too much on the three S's — "sexuality, self-esteem and socialism."
The headline on a Las Cruces Sun-News editorial, "No indictments, but heavy stench in state deals," was typical of press reaction, and the editorial ran in several other papers. According to numerous news reports at the time, Fouratt wrote to defense attorneys stating, in part, that "pressure from the governor's office resulted in the corruption of the procurement process" and, further, that his action dropping pursuit of an indictment should not be "interpreted as an exoneration of any party's conduct …"
New Mexico voters’ attitudes changed a great deal in the four years after Richardson defeated Dendahl. Polling during the weeks ahead of the 2010 general election found Richardson with approval ratings below 30 percent. In November 2010, Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martínez handily defeated Richardson's lieutenant governor, Diane Denish, with a campaign heavily stressing Richardson administration corruption.
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
politician in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
and, later, a syndicated columnist. He and his wife Jackie now live near Denver, Colorado. While attending the University of Colorado
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
, he led two NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
champion skiing teams, won three individual NCAA titles and was a member of the U.S. ski team at the 1960 Winter Olympics
1960 Winter Olympics
The 1960 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VIII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event held between February 18 and 28, 1960 in Squaw Valley, California, United States. In 1955 at the 50th IOC meeting, the organizing committee made the surprise choice to award Squaw Valley as...
. He has been inducted into the University of Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame and the New Mexico Ski Hall of Fame.
Childhood and Education
Dendahl was born September 28, 1938 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his family's home since his great grandparents emigrated from Germany in the 1870s. He attended public schools through his 1956 graduation from Santa Fe High School. He then attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, from which he was graduated in 1961 with bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering (electronics) and business administration (finance). He was a member of Phi Gamma DeltaPhi Gamma Delta
The international fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta is a collegiate social fraternity with 120 chapters and 18 colonies across the United States and Canada. It was founded at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1848, and its headquarters are located in Lexington, Kentucky, USA...
fraternity, CU's Outstanding Senior Athlete in 1960 and a candidate for graduation Canebearer (outstanding senior man) in 1961.
Business History
Eberline Instrument Corporation, now a subsidiary of Thermo Electron Corporation, was a leading designer and manufacturer of radiation monitoring instruments and systems used in national defense, the fuel cycle for nuclear-electric power plants, and other applications of radioisotopes. It also furnished related analytical and consulting services. During his college years, Dendahl had summer jobs at Eberline, then became an Eberline engineer following college graduation.In January 1964, Dendahl left Eberline for three-and-a-half years, then returned in 1967 to become its chief financial officer. Six years later, he became chief executive officer. He held that position, followed by a vice presidency of Thermo Electron, for seven years through 1982. A holder of Eberline shares realized a 400-percent increase in value during the four years between Dendahl's becoming Eberline's CEO and its acquisition by Thermo Electron.
During the absence from Eberline, Dendahl was for two years the first chief financial officer of the then-new Santa Fe campus of St. John's College, followed by 18 months as vice president of the Golden Cycle Corporation in Colorado Springs, CO.
In 1983, Dendahl became general manager of a partnership that owns more than 20,000 acres of largely undeveloped land adjoining the south limit of Santa Fe, supervising a variety of activities to create added value for the partners' investment. He also formed a partnership which successfully carried out historical rehabilitation of an office building he owned in downtown Santa Fe.
In 1985, Dendahl became president of The First National Bank of Santa Fe which, like many other banks and S & Ls of the period, was suffering from loan quality problems and the consequent regulatory pressure. The bank came under special supervision (a Letter Agreement) by the Comptroller of the Currency a few months after Dendahl had taken his office. Improvements under the management of Dendahl and his colleagues led to termination of the special supervision in just 364 days, an unusual achievement.
For the three years 1988 through 1990, Dendahl served in the administration of Republican Governor Garrey Carruthers
Garrey Carruthers
Garrey Edward Carruthers currently serves as Dean of the College of Business at New Mexico State University. Previously Carruthers served as Special Assistant to the U.S...
as New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
's Secretary of Economic Development and Tourism. During the year prior to this appointment, Dendahl was a Carruthers appointee on the N.M. State Investment Council, which oversees officials charged with managing the state's two large permanent funds (effectively endowment funds).
During and after his business career, Dendahl has served on the boards of directors of numerous charitable organizations, beginning as do so many young businesspeople with his community's United Way. Subsequent board service has included, among others, Sangre de Cristo Girl Scout Council, New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry, The Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe Preparatory School, School of American Research (now School for Advanced Research), Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), and St. John's College. St. John's is the respected liberal arts college with campuses in Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe; Dendahl was chairman of its board for two of his many years of service. He also chaired MSLF's board for three years and remains a member emeritus.
Political History
In 1994, Dendahl unsuccessfully sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination in New Mexico, losing to businessman Gary JohnsonGary Johnson
Gary Johnson may refer to:*Gary Johnson , former Governor of New Mexico and candidate for President in 2012*Gary Johnson , American politician, Wisconsin State Assembly...
. Later that year, Dendahl was elected chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party
Republican Party of New Mexico
The Republican Party of New Mexico is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in New Mexico, headquartered in Albuquerque. The party is led by Chairman Monty Newman....
(RPNM), a position he held until he was defeated in 2003 by State Senator Ramsay Gorham of Albuquerque in his bid for re-election to a fifth term.
Democrats outnumbered all other registered voters combined and had had substantial control of New Mexico government for at least five decades. Dendahl took seriously the fight to elect Republicans to public office. At one point following Republican Bill Redmond's surprising 1997 win of a U.S. House of Representatives seat never before held by a Republican, reporter Tim Archuleta of The Albuquerque Tribune called Dendahl "the most feared and loathed politician in New Mexico."
Not one to avoid controversy, Dendahl publicly agreed with Gov. Johnson when, in mid-1999, Johnson challenged the so-called War on Drugs as a failure and called for drug decriminalization. Eighteen months later, Johnson submitted to the State Legislature eight relatively minor proposals for modifying the state's drug laws, including decriminalization of possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. When Dendahl appeared at a press conference to support the governor's legislation, the state's senior U.S. senator, Republican Pete Domenici
Pete Domenici
Pietro Vichi "Pete" Domenici is an American Republican politician, who served six terms as a United States Senator from New Mexico, from 1973 to 2009, the longest tenure in the state's history....
, was furious. He and the state's two Republican U.S. House Members, Joe Skeen and Heather Wilson
Heather Wilson
Heather A. Wilson , is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing from 1998 to 2009...
, publicly called for Dendahl's removal as chairman, and Domenici aggressively sought action by the party's state central committee to effect that.
A letter to Dendahl dated March 7, 2001 and signed by all three said, “You have led the effort to…build one of the strongest Republican organizations in our state’s history. You are an effective communicator and have always stepped up to the plate when we needed your help and we will always be indebted to you for your efforts. However, we are strongly opposed to your recent actions regarding the current initiative to de-criminalize the possession of marijuana in New Mexico. …[W]e can no longer support you as our party chairman and would respectfully ask that you not seek re-election to a [fourth] term.”
Dendahl did seek, and won, a fourth term.
Somewhat more than two months later, U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords
Jim Jeffords
James Merrill "Jim" Jeffords is a former U.S. Senator from Vermont. He served as a Republican until 2001, when he left the party to become an independent. He retired from the Senate in 2006.-Background:...
of Vermont switched his registration from Republican to Independent, transferring control of the United States Senate from Republican to Democrat. Domenici's tune was one of stunningly greater tolerance. An article in the Albuquerque Journal on May 25, 2001 quoted Domenici: "I believe [Jeffords’] final decision again sends a message that the Republican leadership must be more tolerant of a wide range of different views." Rep. Wilson was quoted in the same article to say, "[Jeffords] made a decision of conscience and you have to respect that. The party is big enough to reflect different views.”
"But," Dendahl noted, "apparently not big enough for a view supporting decriminalizing possession of an ounce of pot."
2006 Race for Governor
Dendahl was the 2006 Republican gubernatorial nominee in New Mexico. He became so on June 17, 2006 when Dr. J.R. Damron, the unopposed Republican who won the primary election, withdrew. In accordance with state law, the Republican Party's state central committee met to name a replacement. Dendahl was the only person nominated and became the party's general election nominee to oppose incumbent Gov. Bill Richardson.Dendahl and Richardson had a history of mutual dislike going back more than 25 years to Richardson's first candidacy for a U.S. House of Representatives seat. Dendahl was an outspoken advocate for nuclear power. In Dendahl's opinion, Richardson signaled opposition and later became one of Congress' most dedicated opponents.
During Dendahl's service as the state's Secretary of Economic Development and Tourism, Richardson became annoyed by official communications from Dendahl in support of a radioactive waste repository in southern New Mexico — the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, is the world's third deep geological repository licensed to permanently dispose of transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years that is left from the research and production of nuclear weapons...
, aka WIPP — then being planned by the U.S. Government. Dendahl complained of actions taken by Richardson to delay or defeat the project. (Ironically, WIPP, a U.S. Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
facility, commenced actual operation a decade later when Richardson was serving as Pres. Clinton's Secretary of Energy.) At one point, Richardson sent a handwritten note to Dendahl saying, "Your emotional, 'factless,' incorrect and venomous comments are not worth responding to any longer. …You lower the standards of public service with your participation — perhaps that is why you have difficulty in keeping a job for very long."
That was dated January 2, 1989. However, Dendahl's "incorrect and venomous comments" had been vindicated three months earlier in an editorial headlined "WIPP failure … Richardson's folly," published October 9, 1988 by The Santa Fe New Mexican. Usually a reliable Richardson cheerleader, the paper detailed Richardson's single-handedly derailing a bill supported by all others in New Mexico's congressional delegation, thus delaying progress on WIPP and costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars it was to receive for highways and other economic development. Richardson had claimed that "a majority of the citizens of Santa Fe would have revolted" over the bill, but the paper noted that "majority" was "a small but vocal Santa Fe group" of nuclear weapons protesters "almost certainly [not representing] 'majority' thinking in Santa Fe, much less the rest of the state."
Nor was that the end of Richardson's WIPP obstruction. Pres. George H. W. Bush's administration transferred land needed for WIPP from general public use to exclusive use by the DoE for WIPP. The House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, of which Richardson was a member, countered on March 6, 1991 by exercising emergency power under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA)
Federal Land Policy and Management Act
Federal Land Policy Management Act, or FLPMA , is a United States federal law that governs the way in which the public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are managed. The law was enacted in 1976 by the 94th Congress. Congress recognized the value of the public lands, declaring...
to prevent the land use for WIPP. Richardson mailed a copy of that action to Dendahl with a handwritten note across the top left corner: "To John Dendahl — This bill's for you — Bill Richardson."
The Dendahl-Richardson relationship did not improve during Richardson's 2002 campaign for governor and the months following his election. Still in his post as Republican State Chairman, Dendahl challenged numerous Richardson decisions as being either illegal or bad public policy. When Dendahl was replaced as GOP chairman and became a syndicated columnist, he turned the heat up further with numerous columns critical of Richardson and his administration.
Immediately following his nomination to oppose Richardson in the 2006 general election, Dendahl made no secret of his opinion that Richardson is ruthless and corrupt. It was no surprise that Dendahl challenged Richardson to debate, and it was no surprise that the incumbent Richardson refused. An article appearing September 23, 2006 in the Albuquerque Journal reported, "Richardson's campaign chairman, Dave Contarino, said the Richardson campaign opposes a live televised debate because it doesn't want to give Dendahl an hour of free air time to tear down New Mexico. 'It would do a disservice to voters.'"
A few days later, a Journal editorial said, "The real disservice is not giving your boss — in this case the voters — an hour of your time to talk about a list of accomplishments [you've bragged to be] '10 miles long' as well as where you want to take the state in the next four years."
Richardson won re-election in a landslide, receiving nearly 69 percent of the vote. Richardson and his allies among labor and environmental organizations outspent Dendahl by at least 50-to-1. For his part, Dendahl was characteristically blunt and inexpedient. For example, he antagonized a large group of voters, government schools teachers, by releasing a statement that they spend too little time on the Three R's and too much on the three S's — "sexuality, self-esteem and socialism."
Ahead of the times?
Dendahl's message of Richardson corruption apparently wasn't yet ripe to resonate with New Mexico voters in 2006. But in January 2009, Pres. Obama's nomination of Richardson to be Secretary of Commerce was withdrawn on account of a looming potential grand jury indictment charging Richardson with illegally rewarding donors with state contracts. U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt finally ended the yearlong inquiry without seeking indictment of Richardson, a decision "made by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C." according to "attorneys familiar with the case" as reported by the Albuquerque Journal on August 28, 2009.The headline on a Las Cruces Sun-News editorial, "No indictments, but heavy stench in state deals," was typical of press reaction, and the editorial ran in several other papers. According to numerous news reports at the time, Fouratt wrote to defense attorneys stating, in part, that "pressure from the governor's office resulted in the corruption of the procurement process" and, further, that his action dropping pursuit of an indictment should not be "interpreted as an exoneration of any party's conduct …"
New Mexico voters’ attitudes changed a great deal in the four years after Richardson defeated Dendahl. Polling during the weeks ahead of the 2010 general election found Richardson with approval ratings below 30 percent. In November 2010, Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martínez handily defeated Richardson's lieutenant governor, Diane Denish, with a campaign heavily stressing Richardson administration corruption.