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May 2009 Issue
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Colorado Cool Stuff: Char Bloom fishing vests
By Eric PetersonAfter she got into fly-fishing in the mid-1990s, Char Bloom found that the gear wasn’t designed with a woman in mind. “They lacked color and style,” she recalls. “Since I was living in mine, I also found they lacked organization.”
Before long, Bloom was teaching and guiding, and decided to fill the void for a woman’s vest herself. In 2004, she perfected her design, found a manufacturer and began selling her vests online. Bloom’s stylish and orderly vests are not khaki or green; rather, they’re pink or spruce. While she runs her fishing-vest business for profit, Bloom...
Articles
Colorado Cool Stuff: Char Bloom fishing vests
By Eric PetersonAfter she got into fly-fishing in the mid-1990s, Char Bloom found that the gear wasn’t designed with a woman in mind. “They lacked color and style,” she recalls. “Since I was living in mine, I also found they lacked organization.”
Before long, Bloom was teaching and guiding, and decided to fill the void for a woman’s vest herself. In 2004, she perfected her design, found a manufacturer and began selling her vests online. Bloom’s stylish and orderly vests are not khaki or green; rather, they’re pink or spruce. While she runs her fishing-vest business for profit, Bloom...
Colorado’s share of the stimulus
By Carolyn McIntoshPresident Obama signed the stimulus bill in February at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, returning to the state where he accepted the Democratic nomination for president.
That Obama has borrowed the “New Energy Economy” phrase first championed by Gov. Bill Ritter and that Colorado supported Obama in the general election likely influenced the president’s decision to sign the bill into law here. But will this help direct stimulus funding to the state?
Colorado is expected to receive almost $3.5 billion in direct funding, benefits and services from the American...
Colorado Cool Stuff: Down River equipment boats and frames
By Eric PetersonFounded in the late 1980s, Down River started as “two guys just making frames” for whitewater rafts, says Zach Svoboda, the company’s store manager. New owners Mike and Christine Prosser bought the outfit in 2000 and the growth curve got steeper.
“They’ve grown the business, got into making our own boats, and added a little business-savvy.” Down River makes pro and “weekend warrior” rafts, “catarafts” and inflatable kayaks (“duckies”), as well as its high-end custom raft frames for paddlers and anglers, including deluxe fishing frames with casting platforms and lean...
Tweet on the street
By Eric PetersonThe sign of the times that was the late February shutdown of the Rocky Mountain News is the result of a long-brewing sea change in the public’s media-consumption habits. It follows that it also represents a sea change in public relations. Less newsprint and fewer newsrooms make for less opportunity for companies to get exposure in traditional media.
In the wake of the collapse of the daily, new media is emerging at a furious pace, in the form of hundreds of social-networking sites on the Internet, with a new one seemingly sprouting every day. Facebook is the largest...
Small biz tech-startup: ION Engineering LLC
By Eric PetersonINITIAL LIGHT BULB:
As postgraduate students in chemical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Jason Bara and Dean Camper researched ionic liquids — essentially liquid salts made up of predominately charged particles. The pair found that ionic liquids worked quite well filtering carbon dioxide and other contaminants from gases.
Bara and Camper collaborated on ION’s core technology before spinning the company off via CU’s Technology Transfer Office with the help of colleague Christopher Gabriel and serial entrepreneur Alfred “Buz” Brown as chief...
Power & passion
Call them power women with a purpose.
This year’s Athena Award finalists are high-ranking professionals who care about their communities – and help other women achieve success.
On the following pages we profile Athena winner Caz Matthews, president of the WellPoint Foundation; and finalists Jill Tietjen, president and CEO of engineering consulting firm Technically Speaking; Sharon Linhart, managing partner of Linhart Public Relations; Cathy Hart, vice president of corporate services for Xcel Energy; and Tensie Homan, managing partner of accounting firm KPMG’s Denver...
State of the state: Organic produce comes a knocking
By Mike TaylorDoor to Door Organics goes to considerable lengths to deliver on the promise of the company’s name. The Louisville operation delivers boxes of organic fruits, vegetables and select groceries to customers’ doorsteps as far west as Gypsum on the Western Slope and from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs along the Front Range.
Box prices range from $22 to $56. A typical box contains five different types of organic vegetables and four different organic fruits depending on what’s in season, and customers can tailor their orders by substituting different fruits and vegetables....
State of the state: Revival of Amtrak’s Pioneer would link Denver with Cheyenne and Seattle
By Eric PetersonCatering to the coasts, Amtrak for the most part ignores the Rockies. But that could soon change: The Pioneer route that ran from 1977 to 1997, connecting Chicago to Seattle via Denver and Cheyenne, could soon be revived and boost the region’s passenger rail service.
The last Pioneer train that left Seattle 12 years ago was the last passenger line to cross the heart of the Rocky Mountain West, traversing Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado on its way east. Since then, Amtrak’s California Zephyr has been the only route offering true intrastate passenger rail service that...
Colorado Cool Stuff: Barbara Sears Nelson handbags
By Eric PetersonBarbara Sears Nelson was first entranced by the potential of fiber optics in fashion in the late 1980s while she worked as a ski instructor in Aspen. But her idea sat on the shelf for 20 years.
After jobs in interior design and nonprofit administration, she launched her eponymous handbag line from Denver in 2005. “The handbags are made with really nice Italian leather, and there’s a panel woven with fiber optics,” Nelson says.
The luminescence of the latter emanates from an LED inside the bag powered by a rechargeable battery.
Nelson also makes fiber-optic table...
State of the state: Father of carbon trading sees offsets go mainstream
By Allen BestRichard Sandor’s great experiment in commoditizing of environmental values has been a great success. The Chicago Climate Exchange, which he founded in 2003, set a record in February for contracts.
When Sandor spoke in Denver at the Sustainable Opportunities Summit on March 19, that one-month record had already been eclipsed during March, with 60,000 contracts and two more weeks of trading to be done.
This voluntary trading of offsets for carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases is fast becoming mainstream. Participants in the Chicago Climate Exchange include 11...
Sport biz: A game of regression
By Stewart SchleyPlaying golf requires many skills, and math is one of them. Before that first satisfying slice is launched from the tee box, there are handicaps to consider and calculations of estimated time remaining before the first beer cart appearance to be advanced.
The more progressive among you can go even deeper, taking into account slope ratings and total course yardage metrics to produce some sort of internal calculation of a theoretical personal score goal that will vanish after three thrashes from the weeds on No. 4 but that is useful nonetheless for modeling purposes.
A...
Colorado Cool Stuff: TerraLUX lights
By Eric PetersonAnthony Catalano started TerraLUX in 2003 after his wife bought a battery-powered Chinese lantern with a standard incandescent bulb that went dark after an hour. Catalano went to his garage and made an LED-based replacement bulb that lasted 10 times as long and delivered more light.
He connected with Carl Kalin, now vice president of marketing and sales, and began selling upgrade kits for Maglite flashlights that make the lights brighter and longer lasting. The most powerful one, Kalin says, makes a flashlight “equivalent to one of the headlights on your car. It...
The economist: What is legal vs. what is right
By Tucker Hart AdamsAs the country moves through this economic downturn and the government struggles to take appropriate actions to ease the severity of the contraction, I am struck by the conflict between what is legal and what is right and troubled by our unwillingness to share in the responsibility for what occurred.
Take, for example, financial institutions and the measures being adopted to deal with them. Was it right to pay management tens of millions of dollars a year? Of course not – no individual is worth that much, whether he leads a football team or a bank.
Was it legal?...
Guest column: A case for inclusive work cultures in tough times
By Caroline TurnerSince 1999, the Women’sVision Foundation has published a business case on the importance of hiring and retaining women. In its early versions, the crux of the business case was that having women in leadership roles improved business results.
It noted the growing number of women in the work force. It advocated for the unique strengths that women bring to the table and for creating inclusive cultures where women are more fully valued and engaged.
The business case evolved into a broader argument for inclusive cultures, meaning organizational environments that leverage...
Small biz: Smashburger undaunted by crowded field
By Mike TaylorThree years ago during an interview for a story on local burger wars, Good Times President and CEO Boyd Hoback described the Front Range to me as “one of the most saturated markets in the country.
He added, ”If you’ve got a really good mousetrap figured out, it’s a great market. If you’re coming in just to compete head-to-head, it’s a real tough market.”
I was reminded of Hoback’s “mousetrap” line recently when I heard an interview with the head of product development at the Victor company, the dominant mousetrap manufacturer for generations. Despite the fact the old...
Q2 real estate report: The audacity of home
By David LewisPresident Barack Obama’s stimulus package included funding for the federal Child Care and Development Fund. Colorado’s share works out to $24 million for child-care services for working families, plus another $3.3 million for vaccinations, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.
Well, enough about families and little kids. Now let’s talk real money.
We don’t mean “real federal stimulus money” like, say, Citigroup or Goldman Sachs, but “real” as in $75 billion. That’s $50 billion allocated under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act/TARP and...
Cote’s Colorado: Advertising agencies join the media dinosaurs
By Mike CotePasquale “Pocky” Marranzino thought he was edging toward retirement. He and his partners had sold Karsh & Hagan, the Denver advertising firm he co-founded and led for more than 25 years, to Omnicom Group. And he was down to working a few days a week for the agency.
But when Karsh & Hagan lost its seven-state, 16-year-old McDonald’s account in 2007, it no longer made sense for Omnicom to include the agency in its portfolio. Suddenly, Marranzino found himself considering an offer to buy back the agency from the national holding company.
“Frankly, I was getting a little...
Colorado Cool Stuff: Schultz’s Gourmet Hot Sauces
By Eric PetersonAfter a transfer to Colorado Springs, Michael Schultz settled in Monument in the mid-1990s. Schultz’s three sons all played football at Lewis-Palmer High School.
“Coach Tony Ramunno asked me if I’d organize a barbecue,” recalls Schultz, who took to the task with immediate fervor and continued helming the twice-annual feasts for 400 people for nine seasons. “I decided to start bringing gourmet wings with my homemade sauce. It became an addiction. Coaches and players were calling asking for gallons.”
So Schultz forsook his high-tech career in 2005 and launched Sedulous...
Colorado Cool Stuff: Monster Portraits
By Eric PetersonA graphic designer behind numerous websites, CD covers and comic books, Robert Elrod has been a fan of monster movies since he was a kid. “I’ve always loved this stuff, the Universal monsters and the giant monsters, Godzilla, you name it,” he says.
Elrod decided to mix business and pleasure when he launched Monster Portraits last September. The premise is simple: Send Elrod a picture of your face, and he’ll paint a portrait of you as your favorite monster. “You can be a Frankenstein’s monster or a vampire,” he says. “I even did a Klingon.”
Besides commissions from...
Executive edge: Kim Day
By Lynn BronikowskiWhat a year for Kim Day, manager of aviation at Denver International Airport.
In the year since Mayor John Hickenlooper named the former executive director of Los Angeles World Airport to replace the retiring Turner West, Day faced the steep run-up in fuel prices, the bankruptcy filing of Frontier Airlines and a global economic meltdown. The nation’s fifth busiest airport handled a record 51.2 million travelers in 2008, and she took charge of creating a road map for the 15-year-old airport’s growth.
Photo by Todd Nakashima
But it was a moment last December as she...
