Robert C. Fanch

Robert C. Fanch
Chairman, Devil’s Thumb Ranch

Bob is a longtime entrepreneur, founding businesses in Cable Television, a competitive local exchange carrier (“CLEC”), a guest ranch in the hospitality business, several real estate developments, a Private Foundation and a Family Foundation, and a Family Office.

Bob and his wife, Suzanne, acquired Devil’s Thumb Ranch in 2001 and conceived and built the current facilities that are on 90 acres of the 6000+ acres that comprise the Ranch in the beautiful Ranch Creek Valley, located in Grand County. In 2018, 550 acres was developed into 22 parcels (“The Ranches at Devil’s Thumb”) above the base area of the Ranch. He also is developing and constructing residences at “Roam”, a 575-unit mountain subdivision in Winter Park.

Fanch founded Fanch Communications Inc. (‘FCI”) in 1985, which built and acquired cable television properties, mainly in the Midwest. In 1996, FCI entered into a Joint Venture with Time Warner Cable and The Blackstone Group to acquire additional properties that FCI managed and co-owned. The JV entity was sold to Charter Communications in 1999. Part of that transaction was a spinoff of some of the fiber assets which were then merged with Conversent Communications, a CLEC that Fanch formed in 1997, to create a successful competitor to Verizon’s landline business. The company was sold in 2006.

Prior to FCI, Fanch co-founded a cable television consulting firm in 1976 to provide services to the growing cable television industry, including engineering, management, financial, and marketing services, after gaining experience at ATC, a growing cable television company in Denver that eventually became Time Warner Cable.

Bob and Suzanne formed the Sprout Foundation in 2006, so named due to its dual focus of providing grants to both Early Childhood and Environmental causes in Colorado. In 2015, Sprout Foundation funded a new operating foundation in Winter Park - Headwaters Ecology and Community Center and an interactive museum there - Headwaters River Journey - with over 30 interactive educational stations that put into focus the challenges facing the rivers in Colorado, and the opportunities to alleviate the stress on the rivers through personal conservation and creative cooperative efforts to change the equation.

Fanch serves on the Boards of the Forest Trends, Headwaters Ecology and Community Center, Headwaters River Journey, Metro State University Hotel Hospitality Foundation, and is a former Board Member of The Third Way Center. He is married to Suzanne Cyman Fanch, and they have two wonderful children. He graduated with a BS degree from Clarkson University, and an MSBA degree from the University of Denver.