Now, Spears is interpreting Doppler radar for another Denver TV outlet, 9News; he joined the weather team as a prognostication pinch hitter shortly before the second (and apparently final) retirement of Colorado broadcasting record setter Ed Greene. Spears has been a regular substitute in assorted time periods since mid-June, and is slated to be in front of the cameras again during morning newscasts on Sunday, August 18.
The reasons for his return don't have anything to do with the financial challenges that have caused so many small businesses to close in the wake of the pandemic. Indeed, Outside the Box has been such a success at its 5760 Olde Wadsworth Boulevard location that in April, he and his partner, Dorn Nienaber, opened a second branch, dubbed Outside the Box Too!, in the same building. They also have satellite booths in two other multi-vendor settings — Curate: A Local Mercantile, at 8242 South University Boulevard in Centennial, and Sugar Mill Antiques & Vintage Depot, at 13788 Pacific Circle in Mead.
So why is he back in the prediction game? In some ways, he never really left. "A lot of customers come into the shops to ask me for a forecast," he says — and because he's kept up to date with the latest technology, he was ready when the 9News opportunity arrived. But his other motivations are more complex.
"I'm 46, and I feel like I'm in the age group that probably won't have Social Security and the kind of retirement that somebody who's eighty years old today has — and the world is getting expensive," he points out. "That's why I like to keep myself diverse. I want to have a secure future, and if one avenue is closed off, I have another way to go."
Fortunately, Spears has always enjoyed this particular form of employment. He notes that "my childhood passion was to become a broadcast meteorologist."
He's not exaggerating. As he told us in 2022, "I grew up in Arkansas. I was basically at my grandparents' house all the time, and when the Weather Channel came out in 1982, they watched it nonstop — and so I did, too. Honestly, my grandma really fostered the weather passion in me. We watched that channel from sunup to sundown, and she'd get me posterboard to make maps. That's where it all started."
The journey to his debut before the cameras was a long one. Spears calls himself a "nontraditional college student," thanks to educational stints in Arkansas and Minnesota that preceded the completion of a meteorology degree at Metropolitan State University of Denver. In addition, he handled products for Calvin Klein and Pandora jewelry, sold radio advertising, and served as an assistant to Denver weather legend Mike Nelson at both 9News and Denver7 before being hired by CBS4 Denver when he was 36.
"Most people don't start their TV career in Denver," he notes. "Fortunately, I did."
Chris Spears showing off the merch at the original Outside the Box location in Olde Town Arvada.
Courtesy of Chris Spears
Even after he left CBS4, Spears continued to share his weather thoughts on the service now called X — and a year down the line, when the non-compete clause in his CBS4 contract expired, he reached out to longtime 9News executive Tim Ryan to see if the station might be able to use his services.
Cut to April, when Ryan, who was himself on the cusp of retirement (he stepped down in June after forty years in the industry), reached out. As Spears recalls, "Tim gave me a call and said, 'We've got some challenges in our summer schedule. Would you be willing to help us out?'" He took and aced a screen test, and by his count, "I've worked ten times since Father's Day."
He might not have been so busy had Greene been more open to occasional fill-ins. Last month, Greene told Westword that 9News general manager Mark Cornetta came to him shortly before his final show and said, "'What if one of the weather guys gets stuck in a blizzard? Would you come in and work one weekend?' And I said, 'You've got to take me off the list.'"
Still, Linda Kicak, news director for 9News, maintains that there's no connection between Greene's departure and Spears's arrival. "Chris has been available to us for vacation relief prior to Ed leaving, and we appreciate him for that," she notes.
Spears will also be back at his alma mater, MSU Denver, where he started teaching introductory weather classes in 2014; although the unit hasn't been offered the past three semesters, he'll be back in the instructor role for a new session beginning next week.
Balancing all of these responsibilities can take its toll. "I recently was diagnosed with high blood pressure, and I had to get on medicine," he divulges. "It's been a wake-up call to slow down a little, and I'm really trying to make time for relaxation — to go to the gym and other things that we should be doing to improve our quality of life." He admits that he probably wouldn't have been able to maintain his current pace if Outside the Box wasn't doing well: "It used to just be my partner and me, but now we have four employees. That's really helped."
Spears isn't sure how often 9News will call on his skills, but he's optimistic that his phone will ring every so often, since the station chose to put him on the payroll rather than treating him as an independent contractor.
"It's in my nature to have a lot of irons in the fire," he says. "I like to be busy. I like to have deadlines. I know that sounds kind of weird, but I thrive on that energy. And I love what I'm doing."
