Bill Landsberg

Bill was born at the U.S. Naval Training Station in Bainbridge, Maryland on October 29, 1943, to his mother Doris Teegarden Landsberg, a teacher, and his father Theodore Wright Landsberg, a pharmacist and WWII Navy Corpsmen.

Bill had an idyllic childhood growing up in Ames, Iowa, a few blocks from his father’s pharmacy and the campus of Iowa State University. As young boys, Bill and his brother Tom roamed the campus and labs of ISU and played basketball for Ames High. Bill attended Grinnell College, where he played basketball, and graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 1967. He served for three years in the United States Army and was a First Lieutenant and tank commander stationed near Bad Windsheim, Germany. Bill received a Juris Doctor from Creighton University School of Law in 1973.

After passing both the Nebraska and Colorado State Bars, Bill became a Deputy Public Defender in Colorado Springs. He worked there until 1978, the last two years as Director of the Colorado Springs Office. For the next 20 years, Bill ran a successful private practice in civil litigation in Colorado Springs. In 1998, Bill received a graduate certificate in Public Administration from UCCS and was hired by Pikes Peak Mental health as the Executive Director of their foundation. He became General Counsel for the organization, as they rebranded to AspenPointe. He retired in 2015. Over the years, Bill served on the boards of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, the Clean Air Campaign, the Colorado Mountain Club, and Adopt-a-Village International.

In 1993, at age 50, Bill married Cynthia Jones Quicksall, widow of fellow attorney and friend David Quicksall. Bill adopted their two young daughters, Sarah and Rachel. They bonded as a family by spending their first three months together volunteering in the Dominican Republic for Flying Doctors of America. In 1995, Bill and Cindy welcomed the birth of their son, Samuel and later volunteered with him in Ecuador for Adopt-a-Village International.

Bill was an explorer at heart and traveled the world. He biked in China, trekked in Nepal, and sought lost ruins in Peru. He was an avid mountain climber and summitted all of Colorado’s 14ers and 98 of the 100 Centennials. He climbed Mt. Rainer, Mt. Kenya, and ice capped peaks of more than 20,000 feet in Bolivia and Uzbekistan. To stay in shape for his adventures, Bill summitted Pikes Peak dozens of times and ran thousands of miles, including the 1985 New York City Marathon. Bill biked the RAGBRAI more than once. He rafted the Zambezi River and was a Master Scuba Diver making frequent trips to the Caribbean.

Bill earned his private pilot’s license in 1989, logging over 1,400 hours in his Cessna 182. Bill used his plane to take friends to remote canyons and peaks for backpacking trips. He flew a horticulturist to Mexico’s Copper Canyon to help the Tarahumara tribe and crossed the Caribbean Sea in his plane loaded with medical supplies for the underserved in the Dominican Republic.

Bill greatly enjoyed time with his family and the adventures they had together. In his last years, he wrote a post-Civil War era Western novel about two brothers, “Two Riders in the Pale Grey,” which he dedicated to his brother, Tom Landsberg.

More than his career or his travels, Bill often said, Cindy and the family they built together were what made his life most meaningful. In all his endeavors, Bill’s innate sense of direction and his strong moral compass meant he never put a foot wrong. We called him The Pathfinder.

Bill is held in loving memory by his wife, Cindy Landsberg, daughters Sarah (David) Lipka and Rachel (Dennis) Brehm and son Samuel (Bailey) Landsberg. He was a loving and devoted grandfather to Anastasia, David, Ruth, Molly and Carter Brehm and Carmen and Kai Lipka. He will be dearly missed by his brother Tom (Joyce) Landsberg and niece Nicole (Marc) Kleiner along with their children Max and Leah, as well as many other family members and close friends.

A private memorial is planned in his honor. In lieu of flowers, donations in Bill’s memory may be made to the cause or charity that is dear to your heart, as he was dear to ours.