“When I see young people who believe they don’t have opportunities, it is important to me to help,” says Meyer Saltzman, who received the DU Community Service Award at the Founders Day ceremony in March. Photo: Wayne Armstrong
Meyer Saltzman (BA accounting ’58) knows that one man can’t change the education and health care systems enough to make life better for everyone. Instead, for most of his life, he has worked to change people’s lives through education and health care, one person at a time.
“If you can get one kid into college, all the rest of the kids in that family will follow,” he says. “If you can put 100 kids into college and then see the rest of their siblings and then their own kids go, the economic benefit to this country is immeasurable. Certainly you haven’t solved the systemic problems, but you’ve taken a small bite of the apple.”
Saltzman, who received the DU Community Service Award at the Founders Day ceremony in March, was born and raised in Denver. His father died three days before he was born and his mom continued to work as a seamstress and waitress. Saltzman started working when he was 12.
He received a scholarship to attend DU and believes that was the beginning of many opportunities the Denver community provided to him. Thus, throughout his successful accounting career, Saltzman has tried to return the favor.
He has chaired the boards of National Jewish Health and the Caring for Colorado Foundation. He currently is on the board of Western State College and serves as a commissioner of the Colorado Limited Gaming Commission. He and his wife, Geri Bader Saltzman, endowed a scholarship at DU, and Saltzman serves on the board of the Denver Zoo because he likes “to see families enjoying themselves.”
But he gains the most satisfaction when he sees that the organizations he works for are changing lives.
“Some of these kids we help through Caring for Colorado have never been shown how to brush their teeth. Or they believe that they won’t live past the age of 20. They haven’t been shown any opportunities,” Saltzman says. “When I see young people who believe they don’t have opportunities, it is important to me to help. I get a lot of good feelings for doing it.”
Lynn Taussig, former president and CEO of National Jewish and special adviser to the provost for life sciences at DU’s Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, says that when Saltzman decides to join an organization or champion a cause, he commits everything he’s got—time, resources and good old-fashioned elbow grease.
“He’s a fabulous role model for community service,” Taussig says. “He works hard to enhance the community and help people who need assistance, whether financial, medical, educational or professional advancement. That’s what he feels is his role in the community and in life.”
Still working at Saltzman Hamma Nelson Massaro, the accounting firm he helped found, and volunteering many hours each week, Saltzman, 73, says that his friends ask him when he’s going to retire.
He simply states, “I am retired. I’m doing what I love to do.”