Nelson Blair Phelps, age 86, of Aurora, Colorado, passed away peacefully on June 26, 2026.

Professionally, Nelson was a respected leader who served as the Executive Director of Human Resources at U S WEST, where his integrity and dedication left a lasting impact on countless colleagues throughout his career.

“In retirement Nels was a founder of the U S WEST Retiree Association (now CenturyLInk Retirees Association) and it’s first Executive Director.  He lead the efforts to join the three primary state-based retiree organizations (NWB, Mountain and PNB) into one organization. 

Nels realized by 1992 that, as a 1990 retiree, the health care “promised” by U S WEST could change because of benefit-plan language allowing the company the discretion to make changes. He was the named plaintiff in the Nelson case, brought by Curtis Kennedy against U S West, that secured lifetime health benefits to all retirees who retired in 1990 or before (plus ERO retirees) That legal action agreement is binding on all future mergers of Qwest and CenturyLink.“

Full obituary at https://enewspaper.denverpost.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=d34947c5-f468-4f8f-9764-05cd86440ba4&share=true