A highlight of last year’s inaugural Colorado Apparel Manufacturing Summit was the exquisite timing and passionate comments of a determined, spunky economic developer from Phillips County, Colorado. Julie Worley, executive director of PCED, rolled into the Summit from Holyoke, on Colorado’s eastern plains, with a desire to learn about the state of apparel manufacturing in […]
CAMA was developed and funded by OEDIT to do what CAMT wasn’t, leading to Confusion Around Manufacturing Acronyms that today is more a humorous sidebar to the evolution of Colorado’s official manufacturing trade association. (We could go on: CAMT, the erstwhile Colorado Association of Manufacturing Technology — now Manufacturer’s Edge — was neither an association […]
There’s much to like about Gov. John Hickenlooper’s bold pronouncement at the Interbike conference last week to invest $100 million in Colorado cycling infrastructure — trails, bike lanes and interconnectivity. It’s practical and progressive and on the surface it’s a timely and well-aligned economic development strategy. Building on Colorado’s already strong national reputation as a […]
Since CompanyWeek debuted two years this week, we’ve shined a light on 400 or so manufacturers, chronicled the policy efforts to support them (some good, some bad), and been an advocate for manufacturing even as business voices debate the so-called manufacturing renaissance. We’ve published a standalone version in Utah for just under a year now […]
Today’s ‘Made in America’ renaissance is actually a dozen different iterations, driven by local economic realities, by regional trends and attributes. It’s a hundred distinct movements, some connected, some not, though it’s easy to find an important connection between a craft brewer and a medical products manufacturer. Companies that make stuff have things in common. […]
This past October, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International trade was awarded a $6.6 million grant to help manufacturers impacted by defense-related budget cuts retrain employees and develop advanced capabilities to better compete in a fast-changing marketplace. CAMA, the Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance, was tapped by OEDIT to administer the grant, described in […]
I mentioned last week how Colorado missed out on the latest round of the U.S. Commerce Department’s Investing in Manufacturing Community Partnership awards, but that the state’s aerospace sector, to name one, was deserving of recognition. Two events last week underscored the strength of the sector. The same day that New Horizons zipped past Pluto […]
Manufacturing’s rebound has even outspoken cynics taking note. Joel Kotkin from Forbes acknowledged as much in a useful take on the sector’s new boomtowns. The Cities Leading a U.S. Manufacturing Revival lists 10 communities experiencing measured growth, including Detroit’s eye-opening comeback: “Since 2009 the Detroit area has seen a remarkable 31.3% rebound to 89,300 industrial […]
Financing seems a universal challenge for business today, regardless of geography, and as a result we’re also featuring the recap today of last week’s Manufacturing Growth & Investor Conference held in Denver for the benefit of Utah readers. Trends shaping access to capital are more sector-specific than anything. Plus, we’re bringing the event to Utah […]
It’s generally bad form for a small media brand like CompanyWeek to publish opinions critical of the Denver Post. Especially mine. If nothing else it sends the wrong message. I’m a fan of the paper, any newspaper for that matter. And its days in print are numbered, soon to follow the halcyon years that have […]