Business
In Colorado Springs, a Club Q hero and his wife become local leaders
A photo of me hangs on the walls of the Atrevida Beer tasting room.
It’s from 2018, when I was there to profile owner Jess Fierro. At the time, she was one of the few professional Latina brewers in the country.
Although I’m more of a bourbon guy, I loved her story. She and husband Rich, two San Diego kids, fell in love, then weathered his multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army officer.
Seven days. Seven states. Nearly 3,000 miles. Gustavo Arellano talks to Latinos across the Southwest about their hopes, fears and dreams in this election year.
Once he got out and they settled in Colorado Springs, she said it was his time to follow her. A former cosmetologist, she had adopted brewing as a hobby while he was stationed in Germany. It turned into a passion, then a mission.
She won a Vice TV reality series, using the prize — a distribution deal — and the attention to open Atrevida (Spanish for “daring”) in a small strip mall with a stunning view of the Rockies. She immediately earned accolades, and not just for beers with Mexican flavors — tamarind, Mexican chocolate, chile. Atrevida’s slogan — “Diversity, it’s on tap!” — and Pride flag out front struck a chord with people looking for community in a deeply conservative and evangelical city.
Chio Scott, a Hispanic Business Council Chamber board member, top left, and Jess Fierro attend a Colorado Springs Hispanic Chamber event at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Aug. 17, 2024. Above, a view from the bar at Atrevida Beer Co. in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(Rachel Woolf / For The Times, Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)
“If you can’t stand in allyship with folks when no one’s looking,” she told me in 2018, “then what kind of person are you?”
I found the quote in one of my old notebooks. My story never published, because my mother was dying of cancer. But I promised the couple that I would return one day.
On a muggy Saturday afternoon — Day 4 of my road trip through the Southwest looking for the political soul of Latinos in a presidential election year — I found a radically transformed brewery.
It was twice as big, and there were more beers than ever. I remembered all the plaques and clippings celebrating Jess’ success. Now, there were new awards. One for “La Familia Valiente” — the Brave Family. Another that deemed Rich “Warrior of the Year.”
If you can’t stand in allyship with folks when no one’s looking, then what kind of person are you?
— Jess Fierro
On Nov. 19, 2022, a gunman stormed Club Q, Colorado Springs’ only LGBTQ+-friendly nightclub, killing five people and injuring 25. The Fierros were there to see a friend of their daughter, Kassy, perform in drag. Among the dead was Kassy’s boyfriend. The toll would have been worse if Rich hadn’t helped subdue the gunman. The national media anointed him with a label he immediately rejected: hero.
Atrevida was swarmed with orders for T-shirts and other memorabilia — a blessing and a curse for the Fierros, because what happens when the nation wants to think of you as anything but your business?
After finishing a delicious strawberry cream ale, I went to the back to greet Jess. The small fermenting tanks from my last visit had been replaced by much larger ones that she was planning to return because their tops wouldn’t open without hitting the ceiling. Rich was busy strapping down a kegerator on the back of his immaculate brown El Camino.
The couple were going to serve Atrevida suds at the summer gala for the Colorado Springs Hispanic Chamber, which calls itself the Concilio. She is the group’s chair, and he is also deeply involved. The Fierros still get requests to speak about their lives and that tragic night at Club Q. They might not like to be called heroes, but they gladly wear the label of leaders — and they want to inspire other Latinos to do the same, even as they’re still learning.
Jess and Rich Fierro still get requests to speak about their lives and the tragic night at Club Q, when a gunman massacred five people on Nov. 19, 2022. Rich helped subdue the shooter at the LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
“This is one of those scary rungs of the ladder that I’ve been able to mount,” said Jess, 47. Strong in voice and direct in temperament, she wore thick-framed glasses and a shiny red dress. Rich, also 47, in knee-length shorts and socks, blemish-free Nike Cortezes and a black Atrevida tank top, looked like a defensive lineman ready to kick it at the beach.
“So now I have to be that voice for representation in the areas that I’m at, because that’s where our community needs to be,” she continued. “You have to be loud and proud. It’s not enough to show up and say you’re here for the causa. You have to know why you show up.”
The Concilio gala was at a private country club within the Cheyenne Mountain Resort.
Lowriders lined the parking lot leading to the clubhouse, where the party would spread out next to the swimming pool and a small lake. A youth mariachi band and a baile folklorico troupe performed; a covers band played Chicano favorites such as War and Earth, Wind and Fire. Food and tequila stands offered free samples.
Small-business owners are the lifeblood of communities. A 2023 U.S. Treasury report showed that Latinos owned a quarter of all new businesses nationwide — proof of a people yearning for more. The shindig at first seemed like any other Hispanic chamber of commerce event, with people handing me business cards like dealers at a blackjack table.
But pride radiated like I’ve rarely seen. Colorado Springs is only 18% Latino, so the Concilio mixer felt like a family reunion, in spite of the location.
Ballet Folklorico De Barajas dancer Mary Jane Deleon performs at an August 2021 Colorado Springs Hispanic Chamber event at Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado.
(Tom Cooper / Getty Images)
During introductions, an announcer pronounced “mariachi” as “marishi” and misgendered legendary East L.A. rockers Los Lobos “Las Lobos.” Country club members, almost all white and middle-aged and tanned, looked on quizzically from poolside lounge chairs.
“We need to show ourselves that we can lead,” said Julissa Soto, vice chair of the Concilio. She came to the U.S. from Mexico 27 years ago in the trunk of a car and now sits on the Colorado public health department’s Health Equity Commission. She jokes that she went “from nada to Prada.”
“I knew this country was not built for us,” she said. “That’s why we all need to step up. When you’re doing something, what goes around comes around, and people see it.”
The Concilio is nonpartisan, and its board members include both Republicans and Democrats. El Paso County, where Colorado Springs is located, has become more liberal as it has diversified but is still resolutely red. More than 50% went for Trump in 2020.
The Fierros are registered Democrats who plan to vote for Kamala Harris, but they don’t consider themselves partisans. This year, Atrevida hosted a taco truck run by a vocal Trump supporter, drawing complaints from some regulars.
Rich Fierro, right, and Taylor Salazar work on replacing a keg during a November 2023 event hosted by the Fierro family at Atrevida Beer Co. in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(Washington Post via Getty Images)
“I told them, ‘Go talk to him, and go eat some great tacos,’” Rich said. His grin was almost as wide as his shoulders. “You don’t have to agree, but we do have to learn from each other.”
He and Jess pointed people out. There went a former Orange County public defender who’s now on the Colorado Springs City Council. That guy runs a great restaurant. She’s a professor. He’s a small-business owner.
We were at the Atrevida booth, where workers and friends handed out rainbow-colored wristbands with the brewery’s name.
Suddenly, Rich got up. “I’m going to go fanboy,” he said.
As the Fierros slowly moved through the crowd, they kept getting stopped. There were hugs, there was small talk, there were thanks for their actions during the Club Q massacre. The couple acknowledged everyone but kept moving.
Joanne Law, from left, Jess Fierro and Taylor Salazar mingle at an Aug. 17, 2024, event in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(Rachel Woolf / For The Times)
He finally reached a VIP area, where Emilio Rivera — most famous for his roles in “Sons of Anarchy” and its spinoff, “Mayans M.C.” — was signing autographs. The actor didn’t know who Rich was, at first.
“Last name Fierro, like steel,” the brewery owner said as Rivera signed his Mayans M.C. T-shirt. It finally clicked, and the actor’s mood changed.
“I got to ask you a personal question,” Rivera said to Chip Law, a friend of the Fierros who also survived the Club Q massacre along with his wife. “How are you, mentally?”
“We take care of each other,” Law responded.
I knew this country was not built for us. That’s why we all need to step up.
— Julissa Soto
“On 9/11, all of us went to war,” Rich said. He gestured at his friend and referenced the date of the massacre. “On 11/19, we went to war.”
He now works for U.S. Space Command, the Department of Defense branch charged with safeguarding American interests in outer space. He travels around the country to talk to students about joining the program. The day after the Concilio shindig, he was flying to San Diego for a weeklong trek through Southern California schools.
“I’ve always wanted to do education — that was my [college] major,” he said while Rivera continued to greet fans. “But I just cussed too much, so I could never be a teacher. But now, I can. These kids get so excited. No one else from the federal government is talking to them. But we believe in them.”
Rich and Jess Fierro have taken up roles in brewing, leadership and education. “It’s not about stepping up,” he said. “It’s about showing up.”
(Rachel Woolf / For The Times )
I mentioned that what he was doing was hero—
“Nope, nope,” he interjected, shaking his head in disagreement.
I clarified that I wasn’t going to call him a hero. But what the couple are doing — stepping up in Colorado Springs, in brewing, leadership and now in education — is heroic, and more Latinos need to follow their lead.
“It’s not about stepping up,” he said. “It’s about showing up.”
His wife joined us as more people approached. One of her former cosmetology students asked for advice on how to start his own salon. Someone invited her husband to talk to students. The Fierros smiled and networked, and networked some more.
I hugged them and took off, as even more people waited to talk about joining the Concilio.
Next time, I promised, my wife — a small-business owner herself — will join us. And I won’t introduce them as Jess and Rich Fierro, Club Q survivors and heroes.
They’re Jess and Rich Fierro, local leaders. We should all follow their lead.
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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