Two weeks ago, the Denver Business Journal reported Gold Star Sausage Company was moving manufacturing operations to Nebraska to be “closer to its suppliers,” as president Rick Rue described it. For the DBJ, the news was a real estate story, understandable given the high anxiety around Denver’s commercial sector. Today there’s probably more interest in […]
Colorado craft beer makers are a collegial bunch. As heady and competitive the market has become, the cooperative vibe that its first-movers established has endured and been a catalyst for growth. And so has Colorado liquor law, making it no surprise the sector is unified against a development many view as an existential threat to […]
Last week, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet announced that Manufacturer’s Edge (formerly Colorado Association of Manufacturing and Technology) is the recipient of a five-year, $8.34 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As Bennet’s release outlined, “Manufacturer’s Edge was one of 10 state MEP centers selected for […]
No doubt the executives at Anheuser-Busch Inc. who greenlighted the now-infamous craft-beer-bashing ad hope they’ve heard the last of it. But if history is a guide, the ad was only the start of what may become a very public retreat for Big Beer’s most influential brands. Successful companies reach a point where high-profile, public attacks […]
Next week Utah hosts its second-annual Outdoor Recreation Summit, a celebration and discussion of the state’s outdoor brand. I’ve written how Brad Peterson, the first director of the Outdoor Recreation Office, is smartly using Utah’s lifestyle attributes to attract companies who make lifestyle products, and the Summit will in part explore Utah’s future as a […]
The Rocky Mountain region is home to a growing sector of lifestyle manufacturers, companies innovating in categories like cycling, outdoor gear and apparel. In the run up to the SnowSports Industries America national convention in Denver this week, Outside magazine featured Pagosa Springs-based VOORMI, and a potential game-changing fabric the company is promoting. We’ve also […]
KOTA Longboard’s Mike Maloney doesn’t lack for confidence. Winner of the JP Morgan Chase Main Street Grant and $150,000, Maloney told me in September 2013, “We offer a product of high performance and high value, and I am living proof you can start a manufacturing company in the United States.” It was music to my […]
Last fall, Colorado economic development officials celebrated a significant win. The Department of Defense had awarded the Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) nearly $6.6 million to “provide immediate and sustained assistance to Colorado firms and employees impacted by reduced Department of Defense procurement . . . and to coordinate assistance to the […]
It seems Jay Timmons was born to lead NAM, the National Association of Manufacturers. He’s from America’s rust belt, Chillicothe, Ohio, with generations of manufacturing in his blood and a determined, buttoned down all-American comportment that feels a natural fit atop NAM’s 14,000-strong membership. Conjure an image for a spokesperson for U.S. industry, for its […]
Writers and analysts like Forbes‘ Tim Worstall view manufacturing as a sector neither in decline nor resurgent, but one simply changing with the times. For Worstall and others, manufacturing’s time has has come — and gone — and speculation about the health of the sector misses the broader point that U.S. manufacturing is alive and […]