DENVER - By any measure, Richard Lewis has a very successful IT business.
"We started in 2002 with one employee - yours truly. And today we have 70 employees scattered across 16 states," Lewis said.
RTL Networks has seen a 900 percent increase in revenue over the past few years.
"It's amazing what people can accomplish when they are no longer limited by what's in their own minds," Lewis said.
It's a lesson he learned as a young child when he and his brother were wrongly diagnosed with a learning disability.
"Our parents were told not to expect too much. When I look back at it, it did affect my life. Maybe I felt I had something to prove, and I had to work just a little bid harder," Lewis said.
Lewis has tried to work hard all his life, including at the Air Force Academy.
"Essentially that's where I grew up. Fourteen days out of high school," he said.
He then had a career in the Air Force where he became a captain. While in the service, Lewis says he found his passion for computers.
"They help you to find your limits and to understand those limits are self imposed. Break through them," Lewis said.
His office full of awards proves it has served him well. But he says there is a deeper calling.
"I know there are a lot of kids out there who weren't as fortunate as I was and who did actually fall through the cracks," he said.
Lewis has been involved with and financially supported more than 40 nonprofit youth programs. He also started the Black Chamber's Leadership Development Program and has played a large role in attracting diverse resources to the Blair Caldwell African-American Research Museum.
He is also a proud single father to a 12-year-old son Tyler. That is where the "T" in RTL Networks come from.
"I truly believe that all of our individual fates are tied, whether you're in business, education, politics, black, white, Hispanic or other," Lewis said. "We all have to work together. We all have to come together."
For these reasons and more, Lewis was named the 2011 9NEWS Leader of the Year. He was honored at a luncheon on Tuesday.
"If there's something your passionate about, if you have a vision to make something better, put a plan together, rally as many troops as you can and attack the hill," he said.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)