14 Facts About Joseph Coors

Joseph Coors was born on November 12,1917, in Golden, Colorado, to Alice May Kistler and Adolph Joseph Coors II.

Joseph Coors's two older brothers were Adolph Coors III, born in 1915, and William Coors, born in 1916.

Joseph Coors attended Cornell University, where he graduated in 1939 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering.

Two years later, in 1940, Joseph Coors earned and his master's degree at Cornell.

Joseph Coors served one term as a regent of the University of Colorado from 1967 to 1972 and attempted to quell what he considered to be campus radicalism during the Vietnam War.

Joseph Coors was president of Coors from 1977 to 1985 and as chief operating officer from 1980 to 1988.

Joseph Coors continued brewery operations and replaced the striking workers who stayed out.

In 1977, after a regional agreement prevented the movement of toxic aluminum waste from aluminum can production across adjacent state borders, Coors set up the Mountain States Legal Foundation, headed by local lawyer James G Watt to fight the environmental constraints in the courts.

Joseph Coors was known to have privately donated $65,000 to buy a light cargo plane for the Contras' effort in Nicaragua during Reagan's presidency.

Joseph Coors was perhaps best known for his hard-right politics and his support of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, whom he first met in Palm Springs, California in 1967.

Joseph Coors was involved with the founding of the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, the Council for National Policy, and Television News Inc.

Joseph Coors was a member of Ronald Reagan's Kitchen Cabinet after helping finance Reagan's political career as governor of California and US president, and was later nominated by Reagan to sit on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Joseph Coors divorced Holly in 1987 after 46 years of marriage.

Joseph Coors died in Rancho Mirage, California, in 2003 after a three-month battle with lymphatic cancer.