Florence Smith Powers, co-founder of Birko and the company's former president, CEO and chairman until retiring in 2001, died Feb. 8, 2012, in Denver after a long illness. She was 94.
Along with her first husband, Ward Harris Smith, Powers co-founded Birko in 1953 in their Ogden, Utah, garage. The first Birko products were alkaline cleaners and Tripe Wash for use in federally-inspected meat plants. Ward died in 1977.