A young Dale Rademacher remembers leaving his family farm in Weld County and visiting a much smaller Longmont with his brothers and sisters in back of a pickup. Back then, the community’s Main Street was lined with all kinds of produce stands including one that sold watermelons.
“Those watermelons were so good,” the 61-year-old Rademacher said. “Main Street always drew these great small businesses and their products. It was fun coming into town and seeing everything the town had to offer.”
Rademacher, who retired this month, likes to think he had a hand in reshaping Longmont’s Main Street and other facets of the city while serving for nearly 40 years in various posts in the city’s government. Most recently, Rademacher worked as deputy city manager while overseeing Public Works & Natural Resources and Longmont Power and Communications.
Rademacher said he and other past leaders took the ideals of the city’s farming past - independence and clear thinking - and tried to apply them to form a community that is attracting high tech businesses and giant retailers while knocking on the 100,000-population threshold.
“It’s all been fun to watch,” Rademacher said. “We knew, just by virtue of where we were located, that we were going to grow. We just didn’t want to morph into something that was unmanageable. We never panicked. We thought things through.”
Most recently, Rademacher helped shape the deal that is bringing in the 150,000-Costco retail store and fueling station. The $15 million development is projected to bring in 300 jobs and $4.06 million in new sales taxes in the store’s first year of operation.
The Costco deal also includes the creation of 9-acres for affordable housing, the largest of its kind for Longmont. “We looked at the whole picture and what would work best for Longmont, and the affordable housing portion was a huge part of the negotiations,” Rademacher said. “We went about this in a thoughtful way.”
Critics have said the $12 million in incentives Longmont offered for Costco is a desperate bid to get the retailer. Rademacher said Costco was looking at two other sites to put in a store, including one in Superior.
Longmont, he said, didn’t want to miss the opportunity to land a giant like Costco which would bring in shoppers from across the region. “We have never been desperate, and we certainly weren’t about this,” Rademacher said. “People vote with their feet and cars and we didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to bring in people from all over the area to come to Longmont and its Costco.”
Longmont’s desire to be self-reliant led to the creation of Longmont Power & Communication - the city’s not-for-profit electric and internet services utility, Rademacer said. City leaders in the 1960s also put in Longmont’s charter the provision that developers had to deed their water to Longmont once they were annexed into the city, he said.
Longmont also secured early water rights to the St. Vrain River, which has been a reliable source of water for the city, Rademacher said.
“We’ve never had to go outside our boundaries to take our water,” he said.
Rademacher carried on the tradition of making significant decisions to ensure a bright future for Longmont, said Karen Roney, Longmont Community Services Director via email. That included making sure the city had an ample water supply and owning and operating its own electric utility, Roney said.
“For nearly four decades, Dale Rademacher has been building on this legacy through his steadfast commitment to balance what resources we need today with what’s necessary to ensure the health and welfare of our community for future generations,” Roney said.
“Through Dale’s leadership and many contributions, Longmont enjoys clean water and beautiful natural spaces. We have conservation, recycling and composting programs,” Roney said. “And, Dale had an instrumental role in making sure that Longmont came back even stronger and more resilient from the devastating flood of 2013.”
“I deeply appreciate Dale’s dedicated public service, and all that he did he did to make sure Longmont stayed on course as a sustainable, thriving community,” she said. “He also had that rare gift of being compassionate and analytical.”
“And,” she added, “he was fun..”
The Rademachers grew barley, sugar beets, and sunflowers on their farm in Weld County. Dale Rademacher’s grandfather and father also emphasized public service while serving on many local boards and councils, he said.
“They instilled in us that we should be involved in the community,” Rademacher said. Some of his seven siblings also got involved in local politics, something Dale Rademacher did not consider. “I felt I could not give a political office justice,” he said.
He went to Colorado State University and got a civil engineering degree while also serving in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He also got a pilot’s license but dropped out of ROTC when it became apparent he might be pressed into being a combat pilot in future wars.
“That just wasn’t something that I felt I could do well," Rademacher said.
After graduating from college, Rademacher worked for the city of Wheat RIdge for about six months before he got on in Longmont as a Civil Engineer 1.
“I held about 11 or 12 positions and they kept me out of trouble,” he said. In 2019, he was named deputy city manager.
Along the way, he vied for the city manager post now held by Harold Dominguez, who was appointed in 2012. “I remember being on a bus touring Longmont with all the other candidates for city manager and looking around at the candidates and thinking ‘No, ‘no and ‘no,’” Rademacher said. “And then I turned to Harold and I thought, ‘This is the guy. He’s the one.’”
“I remember thinking it wasn’t too bad coming in second to him,” Rademacher said.
Rademacher will continue to help on the Costco project even after his retirement. He will also spend more time on the Rademacher farm.
“I have been so lucky, so fortunate,” Rademcher said. “I have worked with really good people in a great town.”
“And I went to work every day, driving on an old dirt road, surrounded by farms and looking straight at Longs Peak as I drove into town,” he said. “You can’t beat that.”
