Bob Albin, CEO

Conversations with the Not-So-Famous Achievers

Robert Lyle Albin was born on January 14, 1941 in El Centro, California. He grew up in rural Missouri where he attended high school in the small town of Clinton, then worked to pay his own way through college over a seven year period that encompassed studies at the University of Missouri, Central Missouri State University and Missouri Valley College, where he received a B.A. degree in History and Political Science in 1965.

Following college Albin married his high school and college sweetheart, Karen Keck, and moved to Denver where he began a long career in business. He had more than fifty years of executive business experience beginning with the founding, initially with six partners, of what would become a world-wide sales and management training firm, American Salesmasters, Ltd. The firm presented large sales rallies annually in thirty-five major cities throughout the United States, Canada and Australia featuring world-famous authors and speaker from the field of business. As the company expanded into eighteen countries around the world, the demand for American sales expertise led the company to also produce and market audio tapes, films and videos of America’s sales and management experts to clients from a variety of industries. Bob and Karen moved frequently while building the company, living in Los Angeles, Dallas, Washington, D.C. and Boston, but always considered Denver as their home.

Albin was retained as CEO of American Salesmasters after its sale to a public company in 1980 before leaving to launch a management consulting firm, Albin Management Consultants, in 1982. The new firm provided sales and management consulting expertise to a variety of organizations such as law firms, international accounting firms, construction companies, technology companies, financial services companies and professional sports franchises.

The firm was sold in 1995 to First Data Corp., then a Fortune 500 New York Stock Exchange company. Albin followed the acquisition to First Data where he was named division president for Domestic Retail Services, responsible for MoneyGram, a worldwide money transfer company, and American Express Money Orders. He later became President of First Data Payment Services and Chief Operating Officer of Western Union North America.

Albin is a recognized authority on sales and general management, and for most of his career was a paid professional speaker on these topics. He was a charter member of the National Speakers Association headquartered in Phoenix. Active in the Denver community throughout his career, Albin served on more than thirty boards of directors of both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. He is a past chairman of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Mountain States Employers Council, the Mile High United Way Campaign, Junior Achievement of the Rocky Mountains and the Mayor’s Committee for Design of the New Denver Airport (DIA). Albin is a past national president of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta (widely known as “Fiji”) based in Lexington, Kentucky with undergraduate chapters at over 170 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.

In 1978 Bob Albin initiated a study of Denver’s existing airport, Stapleton International, to determine the remaining life of the facility. This exhaustive study led to various economic and site location studies over the next few years regarding a potential replacement of the airport. A new site was ultimately chosen, approved by voters in the two affected counties, and Denver International Airport was to become the new Denver airport. Albin was named chairman of the design committee for the new facility, capping his seventeen years of volunteer leadership to make the airport a reality.

Albin and his wife, Karen, divide their time between homes in Denver and San Diego. He is a long-time member and past director of both Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver and Pauma Valley Country Club in the San Diego, California area.

For more information about Bob Albin go to https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2021/09/24/colorado-business-hall-of-fame.html