Current Issue
June 2010 Issue
Cover Story
50 Colorado companies to watch 2010
The second annual 50 Colorado Companies to Watch features snapshots of businesses that are thriving - and growing - as selected by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade and economic development groups and chambers of commerce statewide. Read more about the process and the upcoming event, and check out our business resource guide.
ADPERIO
SNAPSHOT: Adperio, founded in 1994, is a privately held online marketing and advertising agency based in Denver. The company offers a suite of Internet solutions for advertisers, market research firms and advertising agencies. The company was recently recognized by…
Articles
Resources for Colorado businesses
By Mike TaylorNeed some help? Check these out.
www.colorado.gov - By going to this site and clicking on the “Business” tab, you’ll find resources for starting a business including licenses and permits, tax information, and information to help you manage your business. Also on this page is a tab, “Colorado Business,“…
Fueling the economic fire
By Mike CoteThere’s nothing more inspiring in a rough economic climate than hearing about companies that are succeeding and even adding jobs. While the Not So Great Recovery continues to emerge from the Great Recession, entrepreneurs have continued to find ways to make their businesses work and prime themselves for the future.
…Colorado’s Top 100 Public Companies
By Mike TaylorQwest Communications International is once again the state’s top-ranked public company based on 2009 revenues, but it could be for the last time. The Denver-based telecommunications carrier that was founded in 1996 by billionaire Phillip Anschutz announced in April it would be acquired by Louisiana-based CenturyTel in a $10.6 billion…
The Economist: What will the next decade bring?
By Tucker Hart AdamsThe Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the group charged with dating recessions and recoveries, met in April and announced it did not yet have enough data to determine whether the recession is over.
Despite the common belief that a recession occurs when output contracts…
Who Owns Colorado: Cherry Creek gets a makeover
By David LewisAnybody who has lived around the Denver area has “Cherry Creek” coming out of their ears.
Hereabouts we boast a Cherry Creek school district, state park, arts festival, marina, hotel, newspaper, florist and biking and hiking path, not to mention an actual creek.
This is only appropriate because Cherry Creek…
Sports biz: brand “T”
By Stewart SchleyHe hasn’t taken a snap from center, but Tim Tebow already has Bronco Nation wrapped around his throwing arm. You know, the one that used to have that weird little hitch in it.
Just listen in:
“In my heart, I believe he will go down as one of the…
State of the state: Economy
By Mike Taylor
Economic recovery will be accomplished through free enterprise, not the government, said Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And contrary to what some in Washington have led us to believe, when it comes to business, failure should be…
State of the state: Education
By Mike Cote
Training a “green collar” work force has been one of the most pressing needs of the new-energy economy advocated by Gov. Bill Ritter. A new school dubbed the first of its kind in the country aims to fill that gap with a flagship…
State of the state: brewing
By Jay DedrickA year ago at this time, craft brewers were looking at their production figures and breathing sighs of relief that the down economy wasn’t hurting them the way it was hurting others. Craft beer really was a product people were willing to pay a bit more for - an affordable…
Election 2010: Jane Norton
By Mike Cote
Jane Norton has far exceeded her Republican rivals in the race to secure funds to campaign for the Aug. 10 primary. But she had to split her front-runner status after Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck narrowly bested her in the Republican Party…
Small biz: brothers make Coda Coffee a company to watch
By Mike TaylorBrothers Tommy and Tim Thwaites were both in their 20s when they launched Coda Coffee Co. five years ago with a roaster built in 1984 in Brazil that they bought for $60,000, rebuilt and still use today. Their other major piece of equipment was Tim’s Dodge Dakota, which they used…
Tech startup: Mojofiti Inc.
By Eric Peterson
INITIAL LIGHT BULB: Friends and colleagues for more than a decade, Dennis Wakabayashi and Alan Simon were discussing the state of the Internet a year ago. Then online director for a global ad agency, Wakabayashi lamented that the Web was segmented by language…
Rundles wrap up: the new frontier of Colorado business—
By Jeff Rundles
Denver, and more broadly Colorado, has been my home now for 37 years, and while I have traveled extensively to many other U.S. locales, I can’t think of a better place to live or a better place to work.
The other day I…
Election 2010: Michael Bennet
By Mike Cote
Michael Bennet didn’t have to campaign to secure the U.S. Senate seat he’s held for the past year and half after Gov. Bill Ritter appointed him to fill out the term vacated by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. Now the 45-year-old former…
State of the state: innovation
By Mike CoteXcel Energy’s $100 million smart-grid system in Boulder and a taxpayer-backed Denver Public Schools initiative that provides incentives to teachers earned Colorado two spots in Fast Company magazine’s “Fast Cities 2010” roundup.
Fast Company singled out 12 cities nationwide in its May issue for embracing innovation: “Constructing the perfect city…
Cote’s Colorado: Power in transition
By Mike CoteWhile headlines about renewable energy mandates usually focus on the state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy, Westminster-based Tri-State Generation is undergoing a similar shift. Tri-State supplies power to 18 member electric cooperatives in Colorado, 12 in New Mexico, eight in Wyoming and six in Nebraska, serving nearly 1.5 million people.
Tri-State…
State of the state: government
By Mike Cote
While the Federal Reserve has continued to keep rates near zero, the president of its Kansas City bank says the Fed will have to begin edging rates back up so the economy can achieve long-term health and stability.
While Thomas Hoenig said he…
Planet-profit report guest voice
By Janna L. SixSustainability is booming in Colorado! Community leaders across all sectors and regions of Colorado are incorporating sustainability concepts and practices in planning and shaping economically viable, vibrant and quality places to live in Colorado. That’s the analysis from the authors of a report on a series of Sustainability Roundtable meetings…
The great expansion
By Rob Reuteman
Tom Clark hung up the phone, baffled by what he’d just been asked.
The year was 2003. The executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. had fielded a call from a national site selection firm, hired by a large company…
Guest column: a statewide tour of the economy
News regarding the state of the economy has taken center stage since we entered the recession in 2008. The upside of this focus is that many Colorado businesspeople have become astute observers of the economy.
To supplement economists’ insights, we’ve gathered some thoughts…
Colorado cool stuff
By Eric Peterson
AARN BODYPACKS
New Zealand-based Aarn doesn’t make backpacks - the company makes biomechanic-friendly bodypacks. With front and back pockets, an Aarn bodypack balances perfectly on its wearer’s center of gravity and keeps the weight off the spine and on the hips. In other…
On management: small crisis puts character on display
By Pat WiesnerIt started as a nightmare.
After being on the road for two weeks in a motor home on the way to this year’s Kentucky Derby, I scraped the back end of my rig along part of an auto-hauler trailer in a crowded Cracker Barrel parking lot.
I had been slowly…
Election 2010: Tom Wiens
By Mike Cote
Former state representative and senator Tom Wiens, 58, is mounting what some might call a dark-horse bid to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, putting up $500,000 of his own money to fund his campaign. The Castle Rock rancher faces Weld County…
Putting a price on the sun
By David Lewis
ColoradoBiz has analyzed the cost and potential of solar energy circa 2010, and some of our conclusions are going to play into the hands of the solar industry’s sales and marketing pitchmen.
This is because our analysis indicates that, when it comes to…
