Daniel L. Ritchie carried a worn card in his wallet that espoused 10 principles to live by — his “cowboy ethics.”

Live each day with courage. Take pride in your work. Always finish what you start. Do what has to be done. Be tough, but fair. When you make a promise, keep it. Ride for the brand. Talk less and say more. Remember that some things aren’t for sale. Know where to draw the line.

Ritchie, a private man whose generosity and hard work resurrected and shaped some of Colorado’s most important institutions, stuck to those cowboy ethics through all of his 93 years.

The University of Denver chancellor emeritus, a onetime leader of major communications corporations including Westinghouse Broadcasting, and former CEO and chairman of the board of trustees for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, died Thursday night.

Gov. Jared Polis pointed to Ritchie’s work with DU and the Daniels Fund, as well as his efforts to further childhood education through his leadership of the Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation and working with the governor on the state’s universal preschool program. “He has left our state better for his work,” Polis said in a statement.

When Ritchie’s longtime friend David Thomson — an accomplished Colorado real estate developer — considered what people should know about the man he thought of as a father figure, he said that despite Ritchie’s vast achievements, he wouldn’t have wanted a cloying, self-serving homage.

Instead, Thomson said his friend would have chosen to put his story out into the world to inspire future generations to be a good neighbor. To get involved in their own backyard. To not only envision a better world, but act to bring that vision into reality.

“Who is going to be the next Dan Ritchie?” Thomson said. “These trailblazers are gone from Denver, and who is going to lead that effort forward? Dan wanted to set an example for people. How can we teach these young people to go out and make their community better? Let’s leave not a shrine of Dan Ritchie, but a message of Dan Ritchie.”

DU’s ‘greatest friend and champion’

When Ritchie took the helm at DU in 1989, the private university was in severe financial trouble, said Thomson, who served as student body president at that time.

Thomson was figuring out how to tell his fellow students they could not return to campus.

But when Ritchie stepped in, he persuaded DU board members to participate in matching grants to the school, and he donated his ranch in Kremmling to underwrite the matches — a deal that brought in tens of millions of dollars to the university.

“There aren’t adequate words to express Dan Ritchie’s impact on the University of Denver,” DU Chancellor Jeremy Haefner said. “His love of this institution was contagious. By getting others to see our potential, he built us up, literally and figuratively. Dan was known not just for his steady and visionary leadership. He was also known for his deep commitment to the people and institutions he held dear. DU has lost its greatest friend and champion.”

Haefner described Ritchie as magical, almost angelic, before adding that he could imagine Ritchie sitting next to him shaking his head.

The DU chancellor grew emotional, saying Ritchie’s passing hit him as hard as when his own parents died about a decade ago.

“He had this very special wink — a twinkle in his eye — and if you got the wink from Dan Ritchie, you know you were OK,” Haefner said.

Ritchie came to a dinner with DU’s trustees and cabinet Wednesday, Haefner said, and it was almost as if the Denver icon was saying his goodbyes.

Haefner asked Ritchie at that meal when he realized how much he loved DU. Ritchie — who was not married and had no children — said he came to understand, a couple of years into his chancellorship, that the university was the love of his life.

“I hope people will take time to do serious reflections thinking about what he stood for,” Haefner said. “He was a man of great humility. He never really wanted people to focus on him, but, rather, what he stood for and exactly those values and virtues.”

Ritchie’s business acumen, steady leadership and knack for philanthropy righted the rough seas for a number of Denver’s most iconic organizations, and his commitment to community lives on through their storied legacies, Thomson said.

Janice Sinden, president and CEO of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, knew Ritchie personally and professionally — an honor she feels lucky to have shared with many of the city’s leaders.

“His fingerprints are on the entire community,” Sinden said.

They first met 20 years ago while working together at business coalition Colorado Concern and then Colorado EPIC (Executives Partnering to Invest in Children), where she and Ritchie brought together the local business community to support early childhood education.

When Ritchie took over at the DCPA, the organization was financially struggling. Just like he had done at DU, Ritchie performed a full assessment to examine the highest mission the organization was serving.

“He made really difficult and not always agreed-upon decisions to focus the organization to support financial sustainability,” she said.

Sinden attributes the DCPA’s survival through the turbulent pandemic years to the enduring financial management success Ritchie had left behind. He never sacrificed the arts, though, she said.

“He understood live theater is transformational,” Sinden said, noting they would often see plays together. Their last theater outing was a few months ago when she and Ritchie joined about 200 3-year-olds in viewing “Elephant & Piggie’s ‘We are in a Play.’ ”

Ritchie served as a guiding light in Sinden’s professional career, always reminding her to figure out ways to ensure everybody can enjoy the arts.

“He’s in my head every day saying who’s not here and why, and why is there an empty seat and how can we fill it,” Sinden said.

Personally, Sinden said, Ritchie was like family. They had dinner together every other week — a meal they would split because Ritchie was set on only taking as much as he needed.

“He would sit in the middle seat in economy on a plane because his personal money should be spent on philanthropy and scholarships and trying to figure out how to solve cancer,” she said. “He was never about living the high life or a very rich life. His best contribution, figuratively and literally, was that every penny he could he put toward making the world a better place.”

Business acumen and philanthropy

Ritchie grew up in China Grove, N.C. — the son to a farm implement dealer.

He earned his undergraduate education at Harvard University and graduated with an MBA in 1956.

His resume is a testament to his leadership and work ethic:

A securities analyst for Lehman Brothers on Wall Street. CEO and chairman of Columbia Savings and Loan Association in Denver. A move to Hollywood, where he served as executive vice president of the Music Corporation of America. President and founder of natural foods product company Archon Pure Products Company.

In 1974, Ritchie joined Westinghouse, later becoming the chairman and CEO of the broadcasting corporation for eight years before moving back to Colorado in 1987.

In 1983, Ritchie was elected to DU’s Board of Trustees. Through his work, the university raised more than $14 million. When Ritchie became the school’s 16th chancellor in 1989, the future of the university was in peril.

Ritchie gifted DU $15 million in 1994 by selling 19,600 acres of his prized Kremmling cattle ranch — a gift that set a philanthropy record for educational nonprofits in Colorado, according to the university. His namesake — the Daniel L. Ritchie Center for Sports & Wellness — stands on DU’s campus as a permanent remembrance of the former chancellor’s generosity.

Ritchie presided over a fundraising campaign that brought in more than $400 million toward new facilities and infrastructure at DU, and he introduced initiatives that centered his passion for education and sports — including making DU a leader in study abroad programs and spearheading the Denver Pioneers’ move to NCAA Division I Athletics.

“Being responsible in your community — I think that is what Dan has done,” Thomson said. “He has involved himself in so many things to enrich the lives of the people of Colorado. Not just Denver, but all of Colorado.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said there wasn’t a Colorado organization Ritchie didn’t have a hand in.

“He was a call to action,” Weiser said, noting Ritchie would call him up asking how Weiser was going to get involved on different civic issues around the state. “He was an inspiration and a trusted counselor. There is not a leader in Colorado who wasn’t touched by Dan Ritchie, who wasn’t inspired to do better and didn’t experience his kindness and grace.”