ROB KAUFMANN is a stand-up guy — literally and figuratively.
Literally, since he’s more of a stander than a sitter. The work surfaces in his lofty corner office at Brownstein Farber Hyatt Schreck are all chest-high and the only chairs in sight are clearly meant for visitors.
The successful attorney and energetic community activist feels that standing up is healthier than sitting down. At 53, he looks pretty fit and trim, so who can argue with him?
Figuratively, since Kaufmann is one of those people who says he tries to do the right thing, who seems to take that ideal for granted, and who isn’t afraid to say so.
His stand-up nature also extends to modesty.
Despite the fact that he’s one of the top attorneys in a nationally recognized law firm, and that he’s spent years as an active and effective leader in the Denver Jewish and general civic communities, Kaufmann is decidedly low-profile.
Last month, the Intermountain Jewish News published a press release announcing that Kaufmann would be honored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, of which he is a former chair, with its Community Leadership Award.
A cursory check of the IJN archives suggests that this might have been the first time that Kaufmann has ever appeared in the newspaper, an interesting detail since he currently serves as chair of the Colorado chapter of AIPAC and CORHIO, a non-profit healthcare organization; as a board member of JEWISHcolorado and the Denver Zoo; and formerly served as chair of the HealthONE Alliance and on the boards of the Colorado Health Foundation and Temple Emanuel.
Despite this impressive charitable resume, Kaufmann seems to prefer standing in the shadows, out of the reach of the limelight.
“I’m kind of a doer,” he says. “I’m not really a publicity seeker. I’m very active but I don’t seek public recognition for it.”
He says the only reason he agreed to accept the JCRC honor — and the publicity that came with it — was because it would help raise funds for an organization that’s very close to his heart.
Pretty stand-up.
BORN AND bred in Denver, Kaufmann has ancestors who go back four generations in Colorado, which qualifies him — he says in a rare prideful moment — for pioneer license plates.
Both of his parents, Henny and the late Donald Kaufmann, were also native Denverites and continued long family traditions of community involvement.
One of Kaufmann’s great-grandfathers, Abrahm Judelovitz, founded a tuberculosis society in Denver and was involved in building the old BMH synagogue at 16th and Gaylord. His father was active in the Allied Jewish Federation and Temple Emanuel and served as president of the JCC. His mother was president of Emanuel and served for years in its sisterhood, as well as chairing the Colorado Hillel board.
“My parents were always just leaders by example,” Kaufmann says. “They never said, ‘This is something that you need to be doing.’ They just showed through their actions the right thing to do.”
Jewish ethics and philosophies on giving are “fundamental to our family. My wife and I try to set examples for our kids [Brandon, 26, Marissa, 22, Rachel, 11 and Alyssa, 9]. We feel it’s the right thing to do for the community, to give back, both for the Jewish and non-Jewish communities.”
His wife Jennifer, Kaufman adds, has also been an inspiration to him.
“A lot of the motivation that I have for participating in community efforts comes from my family, including my wife. She was an activist at a young age. She has a master’s in non-profit administration and spent her working years before having kids volunteering for the community.”
In professional terms, Kaufmann could have gone into the family business, the Colorado Chemical Company, founded by his father, but his passions were for real estate and law. He earned both a JD and an MBA at the University of Texas and planned to go into business after his education.
“But there was a great opportunity to come back to Denver and work at Brownstein,” which, he says, was a much smaller operation when he started there. Twenty-six years later, the firm occupies five floors of a downtown skyscraper and Kaufmann, who has developed a specialty in national and local real estate law, has become one of its star lawyers.
Although his community work on behalf of AIPAC, the primary pro-Israel lobbying organization, has given Kaufmann considerable expertise in that area, he does not engage in the well-known and extensive lobbying side of the practice at Brownstein, et. al.
He is scrupulous about keeping his professional and civic responsibilities separate but acknowledges that the skills, contacts and experience he acquires in both tend to pollinate one another in positive ways.
His online resume for Brownstein describes Kaufmann as a “strategic problem solver” adept at bringing diverse parties together to successfully close complex deals.
There are any number of Colorado non-profits who would surely describe him in very similar terms.
ONE OF Kaufmann’s primary areas of philanthropic activism is health care.
In 2003, he was asked to join the board of the HealthONE Alliance [now the Colorado Health Foundation], which at the time owned one-half of the mammoth HealthONE health care concern, created through the sale of hospitals to HCA.
In his fourth year he was elected chairman of the board.
Finding himself in a position of such authority with minimal professional or volunteer experience in health care, “was a fascinating experience,” Kaufmann says.
“I do a lot of general corporate work in connection with my real estate work. That afforded me the opportunity to lend a lot of governance and some independent thinking for people in health care. It was a great opportunity and we think we made an impact on behalf of the community and for the company.”
While at the Alliance, Kaufmann helped shepherd a period of dramatic growth in the institution’s mission of giving.
“When I started we were giving away about a million-and-a-half dollars a year. When I left we were giving away about $100 million a year.”
By the time he resigned his board position, after nine years, the staff was authorized to give away as much as $250,000 without even requesting committee approval
“They have a huge impact on health care and health quality in Colorado,” he says of the foundation. “And it was a huge opportunity for me.”
Today, not surprisingly, Kaufmann still takes a keen interest in the social and political aspects of health care and offers an experiential perspective on the issue.
“The health care industry has a lot of business interests that are helping shape it,” he says. “I think that Congress needs to find a way to work with those business interests to rein in the costs. In terms of changing into universal healthcare or something like that, I don’t see that that will happen politically.”
That doesn’t mean that Kaufmann has abandoned the notion that every American should have access to quality health care, however.
“It’s important that we make sure that everybody has access to health care,” he says, “and I think Obamacare went a long way in that direction.
“Many other countries do it. The United States should be able to.”
PERHAPS EVEN higher on Kaufmann’s list of philanthropic priorities is his pro-Israel activism, best exemplified by his chairmanship of the Colorado chapter of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, which will end this September.
“I was always interested in politics as a kid,” he says. “When I moved back to Denver before law school in 1986 I sought out an organization in town called the Committee for 18 which was involved in pro-Israel politics.
“I staffed for them because I couldn’t afford to write a check to be a member. I would reach out to various congressmen and senators and ask for their positions on Israel and then make recommendations to the committee on giving away money. We gave money to people who were supportive of the US-Israel relationship.”
His long experience with AIPAC has taught Kaufmann that the organization doesn’t need to bat 1.000 to be doing a good job for Israel.
“The whole purpose of AIPAC is to have relationships with members of Congress who are there from administration to administration,” he says. “That’s AIPAC’s model, to develop those longstanding relationships.
“My opinion is that over the history of AIPAC there have been many conflicts with different administrations and not every president is as pro-Israel as the next or the last.
“I feel that AIPAC has really done a great job over the last eight years in becoming as bipartisan as possible and [Israel] is one of the most bipartisan issues that Congress deals with right now. It’s hard to get Congress to agree on many issues but Israel is one that the Democrats and the Republicans really agree on. That’s really rewarding.”
That dynamic is also evident on the state level, Kaufmann says.
“We were involved in getting this anti-BDS bill passed through the JCRC. I was active in that and we got a huge bipartisan commitment in both houses.”
Kaufmann is not discouraged by last summer’s passage of President Obama’s deal with Iran over the objections of Israel and many American Jews, including AIPAC, which lobbied vigorously against it.
“I advocated against the deal,” he says, “but I think part of AIPAC’s mission is that you’re not always going to get people to vote the way that you want. There were very long odds in trying to stop it. We have a lot of friends in Congress and the administration and we don’t judge them on just one issue.
“This was a very big issue, one that we spent a lot of time on, but it’s not the only issue. Now, obviously the focus is on enforcement and continued deterrence for their improper sponsorship of terrorism.”
Nor is Kaufmann worried about this year’s already vitriolic presidential campaign and its potential impact on Israel.
While AIPAC is fastidious about avoiding campaign endorsements, including presidential elections, Kaufmann isn’t hesitant to express his personal views.
“You’ve probably heard or read Donald Trump’s speech that he gave to AIPAC. He articulated a number of very pro-Israel positions. Hillary Clinton, who has spoken to AIPAC many times in many capacities, has also articulated many pro-Israel positions and has a history of working with pro-Israel politics.”
In sum: “I think we’ll have a friend in the White House, whichever one of them wins.”
KAUFMANN IS “very optimistic” about overall relations between Israel and the
US.
“What’s really amazing is that we’ve seen a tremendous amount of support, not only from the Jewish community but also outside the Jewish community. There are many communities supporting the US-Israel relationship, which is really heartwarming and fascinating — the evangelical community, the African American community, the Latino community, veterans. They’re all saying, yes, we think the US-Israel relationship is valuable and we want to support that as well as AIPAC.”
While “very concerned” by the seemingly growing BDS movement, Kaufmann says, “that doesn’t mean that I’m not optimistic about the overall relationship and where it’s going.
“We spend a lot of time trying to combat BDS, but there will always be anti-Semitism in the world. It’s our job to fight against it, whether it’s BDS or some other form. I don’t expect that to just go away.”
His perspective as a veteran leader of JEWISHcolorado and the JCRC inspires similar confidence in Kaufmann on the future prospects of American Jewry.
“We have a very strong community,” he says.
“I understand that there is assimilation and people aren’t as involved as they may have been in prior generations but I just think it’s an opportunity to reach out to people. There are lots of young leaders who are interested in being involved and ensuring that this community survives.”
Kaufmann, who has a tendency to smile a lot, offers up the smile of an incurable optimist.
“You can probably tell that I’m an optimistic guy,” he says. “To me, the glass is always half full and it’s always about opportunities. I don’t look at things as problems, just as opportunities.”