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.
In an expansion of its business of processing pharmaceuticals in Earth’s orbit, Varda Space Industries is renting a large El Segundo plant where toy manufacturer Mattel used to design Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls.
The plant in El Segundo’s aerospace corridor will be an extension of Varda Space Industries’ headquarters in a much smaller building on nearby Aviation Boulevard.
Varda will occupy a 205,443-square-foot industrial and office campus at 2031 E. Mariposa Ave., which will give it additional capacity to manufacture spacecraft at scale, the company said.
Originally built in the 1940s as an aircraft facility, the complex has a history as part of aerospace and defense industries that have long shaped the South Bay and is near a host of major defense and space contractors. It is also close to Los Angeles Air Force Base, headquarters to the Space Systems Command.
Workers test AstroForge’s Odin asteroid probe, which was lost in space after launch this year.
(Varda Space Industries)
Varda is one of a new generation of aerospace startups that have flourished in Southern California and the South Bay over the last several years, particularly in El Segundo, often with ties to SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s company, founded in 2002 in El Segundo, has revolutionized the industry with reusable rockets that have radically lowered the cost of lifting payloads into space. Though it has moved its headquarters to Texas, SpaceX retains large-scale operations in Hawthorne.
Varda co-founder and Chief Executive Will Bruey is a former SpaceX avionics engineer, and the company’s spacecraft are launched on SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
Varda makes automated labs that look like cylindrical desktop speakers, which it sends into orbit in capsules and satellite platforms it also builds. There, in microgravity, the miniature labs grow molecular crystals that are purer than those produced in Earth’s gravity for use in pharmaceuticals.
It has contracts with drug companies and also the military, which tests technology at hypersonic speeds as the capsules return to Earth.
Its fifth capsule was launched in November and returned to Earth in late January; its next mission is set in the coming weeks. Varda has more than 10 missions scheduled on Falcon 9s through 2028.
For the last several decades, the Mariposa Avenue property served as the research and development center for Mattel Toys. El Segundo has also long been a center for the toy industry as companies like to set up shop in the shadow of Mattel.
The Mattel facility “has always been an exceptional property with a legacy tied to aerospace innovation, and leasing to Varda Space Industries feels like a natural continuation of that story,” said Michael Woods, a partner at GPI Cos., which owns the property.
“We are proud to support a company that is genuinely pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and are excited to watch Varda grow and thrive here in El Segundo,” Woods said.
As one of the country’s most active hubs of aerospace and defense innovation, El Segundo has seen its industrial property vacancy fall to 3.4% on demand from space companies, government contractors and technology startups, real estate brokerage CBRE said.
Successful startups often have to leave the neighborhood when they want to expand, real estate broker Bob Haley of CBRE said. The 9-acre Mattel facility was big enough to keep Varda in the city.
Last year, Varda subleased about 55,000 square feet of lab space from alternative protein company Beyond Meat at 888 Douglas St. in El Segundo, which it started moving into in June.
Varda will get the keys to its new building in December and spend four to eight months building production and assembly facilities as it ramps up operations. By the end of next year, it expects to have constructed 10 more spacecraft.
In the future, Varda could consolidate offices there, given its size. Currently, though, the plan is to retain all properties, creating a campus of three buildings within a mile of one another that are served by the company’s transportation services, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Barr said.
“We already have Varda-branded shuttles running up and down Aviation Boulevard,” he said.
Ships near the Strait of Hormuz before and after attacks began
Every day, around 80 oil and gas tankers typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast that carries a fifth of the world’s oil and a significant amount of natural gas.
On Monday, just two oil and gas tankers appear to have crossed the strait, according to a New York Times analysis of shipping activity from Kpler, an industry data firm. Since then, one tanker passed through.
“It’s a de facto closure,” said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston financial services firm. “You’ve got a significant number of vessels on either side of the strait but no one is willing to go through.”
Tankers have been staying away from Hormuz since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that began on Saturday. A prolonged conflict could ripple broadly across the global economy, threatening the energy supplies of countries halfway around the world and stoking inflation.
International oil prices have climbed 12 percent since the fighting began, trading Tuesday around $81 a barrel, and natural gas prices have surged in Europe and in Asia.
A senior Iranian military official threatened on Monday to “set on fire” any ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. Vessels in the region have already come under attack. Several oil and gas facilities have also been struck or affected by nearby shelling, though the damage did not initially appear to be catastrophic.
Where ships and energy facilities have been damaged
A fire broke out Tuesday at a major energy hub in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, from the falling debris of a downed drone, the authorities said. On Monday, Qatar halted production of liquefied natural gas, or fuel that has been cooled so that it can be transported on ships, after attacks on its facilities.
The sharp reduction in tanker traffic is reducing the supply of oil and gas to world markets, pushing up prices for both commodities. And the longer that ships stay away from the Strait of Hormuz, the less oil and gas get out to the world, which could raise prices even more.
Shipping companies have paused their tankers to protect their crew and cargo, and because insurance companies are charging significantly more to cover vessels in the conflict area.
On Tuesday, President Trump said that “if necessary,” the U.S. Navy would begin escorting tankers through the strait. He also said a U.S. government agency would begin offering “political risk insurance” to shipping lines in the area.
In addition to tankers, other large vessels regularly go through the strait, including car carriers and container ships. In normal conditions, nearly 160 make the trip each day.
Some ships in the region turn off the devices that broadcast their positions, while others transmit false locations — making it hard to give a full picture of the traffic in the strait.
The Shiva is a small oil tanker that has repeatedly faked its location, according to TankerTrackers.com, which tracks global oil shipments. It is suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian oil, according to Kpler. The Shiva was one of the two tankers that crossed the strait on Monday.
The oil and gas that typically move through the strait come from big producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and United Arab Emirates, and are exported around the world.
Where tankers moving through the Strait have traveled
In 2024, more than 80 percent of the oil and gas transported through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asia. China, India, Japan and South Korea were the top importers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Countries have energy stockpiles that could last them into the coming months, but a continued shutdown of the strait could damage their economies.
Several big disruptions have roiled supply chains in recent years, but the tanker standstill in the Strait of Hormuz could have an outsize impact.
Paramount Skydance’s jubilation over its come-from-behind victory to claim Warner Bros. Discovery has entered a new phase:
Call it the deal-debt hangover.
Two major ratings agencies have raised concerns about Paramount’s credit because of the enormous debt the David Ellison-led company will have to shoulder — at least $79 billion — once it absorbs the larger Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing CNN, HBO, TBS and Cartoon Network into the Paramount fold.
Fitch Ratings said Monday that it placed Paramount on its “negative” ratings watch, and downgraded its credit to BB+ from BBB-, which puts the company’s credit into “junk” territory. Fitch said it took action due to “uncertainty” surrounding Paramount’s $110-billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery, which the boards of both companies approved on Friday.
S&P Global Ratings took similar action.
To finance the Warner takeover, Ellison’s billionaire father, Larry Ellison, has agreed to guarantee the $45.7 billion in equity needed. Bank of America, Citibank and Apollo Global have agreed to provide Paramount with more than $54 billion in debt financing.
“Potential credit risks include the prospective debt-funded structure, Fitch’s expectation of materially elevated leverage and limited visibility on post-transaction financial policy and capital structure,” Fitch said.
Late last week, Paramount sent $2.8 billion to Netflix as a “termination fee” to officially end the streaming giant’s pursuit of Warner Bros. That payment paved the way for Warner and Paramount’s board to enter into the new merger agreement.
Paramount hopes the merger will be wrapped up by the end of September. It needs the approval of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders and regulators, including the European Union.
Paramount executives acknowledged this week the new company would emerge with $79 billion in debt — a considerably higher total than what Warner Bros. Discovery had following its spinoff from AT&T. That 2022 transaction left Warner Bros. Discovery with nearly $55 billion of debt, a burden that led to endless waves of cost-cutting, including thousands of layoffs and dozens of canceled projects.
Warner still has $33.5 billion in debt, a lingering legacy that will be passed on to Paramount.
Paramount plans to restructure about $15 billion in Warner Bros. Discovery’s existing debt.
Paramount CEO David Ellison at a 2024 movie premiere for a Netflix show.
(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)
Paramount told Wall Street it would find more than $6 billion in cost cuts or “synergies” within three years — a number that has weighed heavily on entertainment industry workers, particularly in Los Angeles.
Hollywood already is reeling from previous mergers in addition to a sharp pullback in film and television production locally as filmmakers chase tax credits offered overseas and in other states, including New York and New Jersey.
Some entertainment executives, including Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos, have speculated that Paramount will need to find more than $10 billion in cost cuts to make the math work. More recently, Sarandos went higher, telling Bloomberg News that Paramount may need $16 billion in cuts.
Cognizant of widespread fears about additional layoffs, Paramount Chief Operating Officer Andrew Gordon took steps this week to try to tamp down such concerns.
Gordon is a former Goldman Sachs banker and a former executive with RedBird Capital Partners, an investor in Paramount and the proposed Warner Bros. deal. He joined Paramount last August as part of the Ellison takeover.
During a conference call Monday with analysts, Gordon said Paramount would look beyond the workforce for cuts because the company wants to maintain its film and TV production levels.
Paramount plans to look for cost savings by consolidating the “technology stacks and cloud providers” for its streaming services, including Paramount+ and HBO Max, Gordon said. The company also would search for reductions in corporate overhead, marketing expenses, procurement, business services and “optimizing the combined real estate footprint.”
It’s unclear whether Paramount would sell the historic Melrose Avenue lot or simply centralize the sprawling operations onto the Warner Bros. and Paramount lots in Burbank and Hollywood.
Workers are scattered throughout the region.
HBO, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, maintains its West Coast headquarters in Culver City; CBS television stations operate from CBS’ former lot off Radford Avenue in Studio City; and CBS Entertainment and Paramount cable channels executive teams are located in a high-rise off Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard, blocks from the Paramount movie studio lot.
“The combination of PSKY and WBD could create a materially stronger business than either individual entity,” Standard & Poor’s said in its note to investors. “However, this transaction presents unique challenges because it would involve the combination of three companies, with the smallest, Skydance, being the controlling entity.”
David Ellison’s production firm, Skydance Media, was the entity that bought Paramount, creating Paramount Skydance.
Ellison has not announced what the combined company will be called.
Paramount shares closed down more than 6% Tuesday to $12.45.
Warner Bros. Discovery fell 1% to $28.20. Netflix added less than 1% to close at $97.70.
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