COLORADO BUSINESS HALL OF FAME
  • Laureates By Name
  • Laureates by Year
    • 2023
  • Sponsors
  • Host Committee
  • Junior Achievement
  • PBS Specials
  • Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce
  • Nomination Form
  • Laureates By Name
  • Laureates by Year
    • 2023
  • Sponsors
  • Host Committee
  • Junior Achievement
  • PBS Specials
  • Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce
  • Nomination Form

Robert G. Tointon

​Tointon was born on May 19, 1933, on a farm near Smith Center, KS. In 1949 he moved with his family to Almena, KS, where he was one of 19 students to graduate from the small-town high school. Tointon earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Kansas State University in 1955. That same year, he married his wife Betty and went on to have two sons, Bill and Bryan.

In 1959, Tointon began working as a field engineer for Eby Construction in Wichita, KS, after leaving the Air Force. He was transferred to Colorado to supervise the construction of a nuclear missile site near Briggsdale, and in 1963 he was hired by Hensel Phelps Construction Co. and moved to Greeley, CO. During his first year with the construction company, Tointon was an estimator, project engineer, superintendent, and project manager. In 1964, he became vice president and was elected president in 1975.

When Tointon started with the company, its volume was $8 million. By 1989, the combined revenue of the company’s five operating divisions was over $600 million. In June of that same year, Tointon, along with Joe Phelps, Larry LaFollette, and Mike Holland, split off two of the five divisions of the company to form Phelps-Tointon, Inc. Tointon is currently president of the company, which owns and operates Rocky Mountain Prestress, Inc., Southern Steel Co., and Armor Safe Technologies.

In an effort to provide K-12 principals, administrators, and superintendents with the opportunity to become better leaders, Tointon started the Tointon Institute for Educational Change at the University of Northern Colorado. In 2002, he received the Bravo Entrepreneur Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Colorado Business Hall of Fame is co-presented by
Junior Achievement-Rocky Mountain Inc. and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Videos produced by Becky Holden of Biography Media, Becky@BiographyMedia.org