As we celebrate this most American of holidays it’s appropriate to consider a manufacturing sector that’s largely been written off by business and consumers, shipped offshore, primarily to Asia. It’s been decades since we collectively valued a thriving apparel manufacturing sector. Today we like our shoes and suits from Italy and everything else from We […]
There’s little doubt that Colorado’s transportation albatross, I-70, is having an economic impact. The only question is, how much? The stretch from Denver to Dillon now bedevils motorists in summer and winter. A drive through the Eisenhower Tunnel east to Denver on a Sunday morning in mid-June can be as frustrating as a journey home […]
Most business owners have little in common with Charlie Monfort of the Colorado Rockies. For one, owners rarely fail in major league baseball, or in the NFL, NBA, or NHL. No one loses money. It’s fantasy-business. Real companies often fail and those that succeed do so in conditions that are at times impossibly hard. Sure, […]
As we’ve chronicled the past ten months, manufacturers have begun to take important steps to organize to advance their interests. Not only must industry see these through, more is needed to address challenges like workforce development, local procurement, and public policy support that vex the manufacturing economy. Think about health care, technology, law, banking and […]
As if unconvinced and seeking guidance from readers, each week now the national business press sort through the question of whether the U.S. is in the midst of a ‘manufacturing renaissance’. An article in last week’s Wall St. Journal, ‘Why US Manufacturing is Poised for a Comeback (Maybe)’, was a good example. Today, a column […]
A Washington Post business article published last week, headlined, “There are some jobs now in manufacturing. Kids just aren’t interested in taking them”, was noteworthy on two counts. For one it summed up the workforce challenge in manufacturing without losing sight of the sector’s albatross: a more qualified workforce may be slow to materialize unless […]
It’s been decades since Coors was Colorado’s most influential beer brand, but coattails from earlier times are long. Last week IndustryWeek published an infographic entitled the ‘Corporate States of America’, depicting each state’s ‘archetypal’ business brand, and Coors was picked as the brand that ‘best represented’ the state. Over half were manufacturers. If beer drinkers […]
America’s manufacturing evolution is also the story of Ft. Collins-based Forney Industries. Founded in 1932 by James Forney, the company has evolved from primary manufacturer to a distributor of goods made by others, much of it offshore. Today Forney sells industrial goods procured from a global supply chain to thousands of U.S. retail outlets like […]
CompanyWeek began reporting on regional makers and manufacturers last September. We’ve profiled 100 companies since then – writing about their products, leadership, business strategy, challenges, needs, and more. What’s been learned, and importantly, has the hype of CompanyWeek been warranted? Does the market need maker-economy media? It’s clear the factors driving a manufacturing surge are […]
Who best represents the interests of industry, upstart entrepreneurs who innovate and force change but often flame out, or established voices who’ve paved the way for those to follow? The question frames not only the dust up between Tesla and the powerful dealer network that control auto sales in the U.S. (read Jeff Rundles overview […]