Paul Damian Abell

Kind. Gentle. Brave. Patient. Loving. Witty. Brilliant. Entrepreneurial. Humble. Warm & Welcoming. Adventurous. Funny. Engaging. Thoughtful. Athletic. Ornery. Intentional. Honest. Devoted. Fiercely Loyal. Zen. Visionary. Resilient. Appreciative. Singular. The Very Best.

Paul Abell embodied all of these characteristics and more. A loving husband, he and his wife, Marianne, would have celebrated 50 years of marriage in August. And for all of the companies that he conceived of and created, he was most proud of being a husband to Marianne and father to his three children: Matthew, Zachary and Sarah. Paul could often be overheard at the post office or bank sharing stories of his kids’ successes at work and in life.

Born in Grand Junction to Joseph & Billee Abell, Paul was an outstanding scholar athlete, exceling at baseball, basketball and football. Recalled by his many friends as a great athlete and friend, Paul loved the outdoors and was an exceptional downhill skier, and put his family on skis at Buttermilk and Powderhorn as soon as the kids could walk. He also loved to fish and taught his family how to cast a fly (as well as light up Swisher Sweets to ward off mosquitos and horseflies) during regular trips to Meeker, Gunnison, Crested Butte and Aspen.

Equal parts mischievous and compassionate, Paul was as apt to take part in great senior pranks, from taping an outhouse to a light pole or filling the town fountain with detergent so it would create great and memorable suds during its unveiling, as he was to drive a friend to the ER to get stitched up after getting into a tussle over a young lady.

After graduating from Grand Junction High School in 1964, Paul enrolled in Colorado State University, where he was an ATO and earned both his undergraduate as well as MBA. An 8am philosophy class at CSU is also where Paul met Marianne. After graduation, Paul became a director at Mountain States Employers Council in Denver before he and Marianne started Floramark as a fresh flower importer in the early 1980s. A lifelong entrepreneur who founded multiple companies during his life, Paul had the idea of supplying fresh-cut arrangements for grocery stores, with King Soopers as the first customer. What started as a literal mom & pop business, with Paul picking up the flowers at the airport and Marianne crafting them into bouquets in the garage before delivering the arrangements to grocery stores, quickly grew into Floral Partners, a full-fledged wholesale floral company that imported flowers from around the world to service large retailers and grocery stores.

With a proven track record of bringing products to market, Paul and Marianne started Sugarbabies Merchandising in the early 2000s, first importing coffee from New Mexico and beyond and later developing “road shows” to test, sample and launch new food and beverage brands in Costco and Sam’s stores in Colorado, Arizona and Nevada.

As the founder of Neighborhood Fencing, Paul could be seen bopping around Denver in one of his vintage Mercedes convertibles, with his four beloved dachshunds in the front seat riding shotgun as he checked in on customers, hand-wrote estimates and brought his team refreshments in the hot summer sun.

A real bon vivant, Paul & Marianne traveled to Italy, London, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Napa & Sonoma and other destinations, visiting great restaurants and off-the-beaten-path wineries, amassing a humble but stellar home cellar. During the kids’ tenures in high school and college, Paul was an avid home brewer and student of the craft who loved to crack open a crisp beer daily at 4pm – a tradition he kept until the end. Music and melody followed Paul wherever he went, from blasting Johnny Cash with the top down to mowing the lawn listening to an old-school Walkman to taking his family to concerts at Red Rocks, his soundtrack to life was as wide & diverse as his group of friends, and he was always game for a live show, from ZZ Top to Eagles to Jimmy Buffet to Kenny Rogers to Fleetwood Mac to Sting to Loggins & Messina and everything in between. Paul and Marianne were also early adopters of the Colorado Rockies, Denver’s expansion MLB team, becoming season ticket holders the first year and pulling the kids from school to go to Opening Day, a blustery April afternoon made warmer and all the better with cheap beer and ballpark franks.

Despite facing insurmountable obstacles, including a near-fatal car accident in 1995 resulting in chronic pain and countless surgeries to a diagnosis of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) in 2013, Paul’s can-do attitude and vibrancy could never be dulled or diminished. Throughout it all, he never once complained and carried on with his signature sense of humor, a twinkle in his bright blue eyes and weathered the storms with his family and pups by his side.

Paul is survived by his wife of over 49 years, Marianne, children Matthew, Zach and Sarah and their families, including five grandchildren and a grand-dog dachshund.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Paul’s name to The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration: https://www.theaftd.org/support-aftds-mission/. A celebration of Paul’s life will be held at Euclid Hall in Denver on Sunday, August 19, from 2-4pm. For more information or to RSVP, please email [email protected].