{"id":801350,"date":"2019-11-14T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=374486"},"modified":"2019-11-14T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T17:30:00","slug":"mark-and-deb-spiers-honored-as-the-spirit-of-the-summit-in-annual-philanthropy-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/mark-and-deb-spiers-honored-as-the-spirit-of-the-summit-in-annual-philanthropy-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark and Deb Spiers honored as the Spirit of the Summit in annual philanthropy awards"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mark and Deb Spiers have been named the Spirit of the Summit award winners by The Summit Foundation<\/strong>
Courtesy Joe Kusumoto<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 The Summit Foundation has named local couple Mark and Deb Spiers as the Spirit of the Summit for the organization\u2019s annual philanthropy awards. Since moving to Breckenridge to retire from the world of pharmaceuticals, the pair has been involved in a variety of boards and community organizations, including The Summit Foundation itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many people in the community who do so much,\u201d Deb said. \u201cI think there are any number of people who could receive it. I\u2019m honored that they\u2019re recognizing Mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m honored that they\u2019re recognizing Deb,\u201d said Mark, who was president of the foundation from 2017 through September.<\/p>\n

With Mark now a past president and the Spiers thinking of moving out of Summit County, Maureen Westerland \u2014 who has worked with Mark on The Summit Foundation and Summit Community Care Clinic boards \u2014 nominated the couple in honor of their dedication to the community.<\/p>\n

Mark is now spending most of his time focusing on being the president of Peak Health Alliance, Summit County\u2019s health care purchasing cooperative. Like the mental health initiative Building Hope, the Peak Health Alliance spun off of The Summit Foundation. The foundation served as a fiscal agent and transformed the programs into their own nonprofits.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeak Health would not have been started at all if it was not for the support of The Summit Foundation, which put up $150,000 to do the initial study to understand the health care cost implications in Summit County,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Deb was on the board for Court Appointed Special Advocates of the Continental Divide from 2012-2016, Breckenridge Creative Arts from 2013-2018 and is still on the board of the Keystone Science School since joining in 2017. Deb enjoys how the school and its various programs foster critical thinking in young minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the complexity of our world right now, I think that is just a vital skill,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Though she considers herself an average arts enthusiast, Deb also was thrilled to be a part of the organization and help Breckenridge grow its arts scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge of helping the town broaden its reputation beyond just recreation and creating something that didn\u2019t exist before, or was in a nascent form in the town, was really a very engaging project to me,\u201d Deb said. <\/p>\n

The Spiers met working together for Bristol-Myers Squibb after the two pharmaceutical companies merged into one.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad was in the pharmaceutical industry, my brother was in the pharmaceutical industry, and at that time, it was a much different industry than it is now,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

Work relocated them to Australia, where they married, and a passion for skiing eventually brought them to Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, we had a timeshare in Eagle County,\u201d Deb said. \u201cOne winter, I broke my arm, and we started looking at property since I couldn\u2019t ski. We really fell in love with Breckenridge because it was a town as opposed to a ski resort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming from hectic careers of management and sales, that palpable homey feeling and neighborly love that embraces philanthropy sparked a desire to get more involved in the community than they had at their past residences.<\/p>\n

After Mark learned more about The Summit Foundation and its wide-ranging mission \u2014 from scholarships, to health, to culture and more \u2014 he was hooked and came on board in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really touched on everything, and that was the piece I found most appealing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some might think that The Summit Foundation awarding its past president is a little self-serving, but Mark said it\u2019s a common discussion that happens each year, especially given that the board has 35 members.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you find many board members of The Summit Foundation who are involved not only with the foundation, but a number of other organizations,\u201d Mark said. \u201cIn some ways, its hard not to recognize those folks for multiple contributions that they\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Summit Foundation plays a huge umbrella role for all nonprofits in the community. It is inspiring, every year when you go to this, to see what people \u2014 both adults and high school students \u2014 have done. It really is the heart of all of the philanthropy that is going on in the community and the county.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark and Deb Spiers have been named the Spirit of the Summit award winners by The Summit FoundationCourtesy Joe Kusumoto BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 The Summit Foundation has named local couple Mark and Deb Spiers as the Spirit of the Summit for the organization\u2019s annual philanthropy awards. Since moving to Breckenridge to retire from the world of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-801350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 15:36:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}