Glen E. Shellenbaum

Glen was born 8 October 1929 in the Little Apple, Manhattan, Kansas. He has always sworn that the stock market crash of 1929 was not his fault. He spent the last few months in assisted living where he charmed the staff with his midwestern bluntness and wit.

Glen met his future wife, Peggy, while an engineering student at Denver University. She was the departmental secretary, the previous secretary having been wooed and wed by Glen’s older brother Ralph. When Glen’s younger brother, Dale started at DU, family lore tells us he was informed, in no uncertain words, that the secretary was off limits to the Shellenbaum boys.

Glen was in the U.S. Army ROTC program and upon graduation and marriage began his military career.

His tour in Korea was cut short before the general found out that he knew how to build golf courses. He was sent to Taiwan where he did real military engineering. Two tours with family in Germany, where his oldest, Mary Lou, and youngest, Mark, were born, a tour at Ft. Carson where Bruce and David were born, two tours in Vietnam Nam, one tour in Alaska where he brought a battalion back into compliance with their readiness requirements. Along the way, he earned multiple commendations including The Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star. He retired from active duty in 1974, but remained subject to recall as a retiree. Sometime in his mid eighties he admitted that possibility was very small.

In 1974 Glen began his second career as Manager of Customer Services for the Denver Water Board. Highlights of his career at the Water Board include overseeing the conversion of a large portion of Denver customers from flat rate to metered water as well as a call from the Secret Service as one of his meter readers was caught on the White House grounds. Needless to say, he was soon an ex-meter reader. Glen had zero sympathy for developers who started building before finding out if the Water Department would provide water. In more than one case the answer was no. His favorite expression in such cases was “Here, the tail does not wag the dog.”

Peggy passed not long after Glen retired from the Water Board, and he spent the remaining years walking his dogs, visiting kids and grandkids and lending his engineering expertise to the South Suburban Park District, asked for or not. He delighted in making a custom rocking horse for just about any toddler, relatives and neighbors, all received a gorgeous horse.. Glen and his son, Mark played golf every weekend possible well into the 2010s.

If you wish to honor Glen with a donation, he would have appreciated donating to organizations that support veterans.

A long life lived well