El Paso Inc.: Tripper Goodman named 2012 El Pasoan of the Year

Leonard “Tripper” Goodman III, El Paso Inc.’s El Pasoan of the Year for 2012, heads the Goodman Financial Group and has been active in civic affairs for three decades.

Goodman was honored at the El Pasoan of the Year luncheon on Jan. 30.

Most recently, he headed up the El Paso Tomorrow PAC that financed the campaign in support of the two bond propositions and the ballpark that voters approved last month.

By Election Day, Goodman said, the political action committee raised and spent close to $400,000 on TV, radio and newspaper ads and mailers to people’s homes.

The extent to which the well-funded campaign influenced the final outcome of the election is impossible to tell. But more than 70 percent of voters supported two bond propositions totaling $473 million to pay for quality-of-life projects, and 60 percent backed the controversial Proposition 3 to finance a ballpark Downtown.

Anyone running for office would love to have that kind of voter endorsement in a contested race. And with “For” opposing “Against” on the ballot, the propositions election could be called a contested race.

Though his wife, Doris, was seriously ill with a condition that would take her life just three weeks after the election, Goodman, 61, stayed in the campaign – at her insistence, he says – effectively serving as point man for the cause.

As a couple, the Goodmans have been heavily involved in community and volunteer work over the years. Tripper Goodman said his parents were role models, but it still took mentors to draw him into participation in El Paso.

Community involvement doesn’t come naturally or particularly easily to most people, he concedes. It’s something to be taught and learned that can carry a lot of rewards: personal satisfaction, friends and business contacts, to name a few.

Read the full El Paso Inc. article here.