Last week manufacturing was in the national news as a new report called into question the health of the sector. It’s an ongoing debate in business circles: is manufacturing enjoying a true comeback, or not?

The source was the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), and a report entitled The Myth of America’s Manufacturing Renaissance: The Real State of U.S. Manufacturing.

ITIF throws water on any talk of a “renaissance,” arguing that since manufacturing hasn’t fully recovered to its previous employment and GDP levels and is growing more slowly than the broader economy, “U.S. manufacturing is shown to be in state of moderate, cyclical growth, and not,” the report emphasized, “experiencing a renaissance.” And further, any efforts to influence the “debate on U.S. manufacturing should not be informed . . . with an agenda of keeping bad news from dampening support for further global integration.”

Yahoo Finance, The Guardian, Barron’s, and CNBC ran with the story, parroting ITIF’s conclusion and calling into question its own previous reporting, with headlines like U.S. manufacturing comeback: Nice story…if only it were true and New study paints bleak picture of manufacturing rebound. CNBC seemed annoyed, Is that nice story about the return of “Made in America” simply made-up?

Is ITIF correct? And did the media get it right?

As we’ve chronicled, manufacturing employment and GDP reached all-times lows in the late 2000’s. Consider the recent arc of U.S. manufacturing, as The Atlantic described in 2011:

Manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 at 19.6 million. They drifted down slowly for the next 20 years — over that span, the impact of offshoring and the steady adoption of labor-saving technologies was nearly offset by rising demand and the continual introduction of new goods made in America. But since 2000, these jobs have fallen precipitously. The country lost factory jobs seven times faster between 2000 and 2010 than it did between 1980 and 2000. Until very recently, this trend looked inexorable — and the significance of the much-vaunted increase in manufacturing jobs since the depths of the recession seemed easy to dismiss. Only 500,000 factory jobs were created between their low, in January 2010, and September 2012 — a tiny fraction of the almost 6 million that were lost in the aughts.

Six million jobs lost in the 2000s and not as many created since.

But a renaissance, a comeback, would be measured on progress since reaching the low point, and in this context, data indicate a sector with considerable momentum as of late. As the L.A. Times noted, “Since February 2010, U.S. manufacturing employment has increased at a rate of 6.7 percent, with some Midwestern and Southern states such as Indiana and South Carolina seeing gains of 15 percent or more.” Colorado’s a bright spot. Jobs are still being offshored, but as ITIF (and The Atlantic) notes, as many are on their way back.

Money is also flowing back into the sector in the form of federal R&D funding, and business capital: Forbes recently noted that a new technology-powered supply chain is increasingly catching the eye of investors. And improving economics of making things in the U.S. is just one of several powerful national and regional trends now favoring U.S. manufacturing.

The media’s headline writers would have also benefitted from looking more closely at the source. ITIF’s agenda (or at least the author’s), its advocacy of “global integration,” puts it at odds with manufacturing from the get-go. For many, ‘globalization’ is just a catchword for ‘offshore jobs.’ It would be hard to see ITIF projecting manufacturing job growth. ITIF may be a credible source; it’s also a biased one.

It’s noteworthy that, today, manufacturing’s enjoying any good news — 40 years of misery is a long time. And, what was offshored and disassembled can’t be rebuilt overnight. ITIF may also miss the more profound trends that may influence the sectors resurgence — more than the cost of Chinese labor or domestic energy. Here and in other places, manufacturing is also broader-based than at any time in recent history.

Manufacturing is coming back — but it’s changed. The goalposts have moved. The question is: to where?

That’s probably a better story for the media anyway.

Margaret Jackson’s report on how marijuana grow operations have changed the industrial real estate market in Denver lays bare, again, the essential truth from legalization: collectively, we were unprepared to deal with its consequences, intended or otherwise.

That we have a reasonably functioning marijuana industry sector is really a testament to the ingenuity of lawmakers who crafted a business and regulatory framework in a short amount of time — and their commitment to implementing the will of voters.

As frustrating it is for Denver companies who slogged through years of tougher times only to see space costs shoot through the roof, the future still looks bright. Positive economic conditions and trends that favor sustained demand for U.S.-made products should outlast what looks like a temporary market imbalance here that’s translating into opportunity for commercial real estate and a headache for business and industry.

Equally important, the pot sector is changing. Fast. For one, the legal pot ‘experiment’ is nearing its end. As much teeth-gnashing as will continue over the wisdom of Colorado’s electorate to favor regulation in lieu of prohibition, legal pot is now less a burning existential issue in Colorado and more a policy challenge. We’ve entered a planning and management phase that, as a practical matter, should ease the short-term pain manifest in things like the cost of industrial space.

Communities are better understanding how they want to manage pot. Breckenridge voted yesterday to keep retail outlets off Main Street. Does that mean pot has no place in there? Hardly. Others will begin to ease grow restrictions on the sector, as Jackson’s article eludes. This should translate into decentralized grow operations outside Denver’s industrial areas – and more space options.

The pot industry also seems poised for a period of consolidation and major price volatility that without fail impacts growth sectors as early movers profit and exit, bubbles form and burst, and supply and demand align into equilibrium. In Colorado, it appears that retail prices for marijuana are set to fall significantly. Will it impact the sector in ways falling oil prices can shock the energy space? Will production take a hit? It’s hard to see as demand steadily rises, but volatility and unsteady growth seem likely.

And after an extended period of shock and dismay, elected officials should — should — be fully recovered, having had time to catch their breath and contemplate ways to better manage a new, growing industry sector. It’s no excuse for the near absence of things like inventive advertising — where on earth is the meaningful messaging that communicates the downside of use to youths? — but a deer-in-the-headlights gaze in some quarters is giving way to recognition that it’s time to seriously manage the reality.

As policymakers find their stride, it’s up to industry to ensure that demand for industrial space isn’t a casualty in the discussion. Manufacturing is a sector poised to again fill the (new) industrial corridors not only of our urban spaces but in places where raw materials are easily obtained — like Colorado’s Western Slope for the booming food and beverage industry there — as well as places where lifestyle and business intersect and new talent will power technology-inspired manufacturing.

Collectively we’ll set aside a short-term hiccup and continue to focus on things that matter: workforce, new markets, and the search for business partners that drive opportunity.

Regardless the outcome of next week’s individual statewide races, a more enduring electoral shift is underway. Colorado’s regional divide is widening, reflecting new alliances, interests, and economic realities.

In recent years, candidates running for statewide office have managed Colorado’s split electoral personality in a fairly straightforward way: Denver/Boulder and the liberal mountain redoubts were predictably Democratic; Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, Douglas County, and the conservative suburban bastions, Republican, and cities like Ft. Collins and the rest of the state fair game. Elections often hinged on turnout. Incumbency mattered.

As has the economy, always. In Colorado, as elsewhere, jobs and economic growth mattered most.

But something happened on the way to this year’s election. Governor John Hickenlooper has presided over a broad-sector economic recovery, and while Senator Mark Udall seems challenged to step out of an incumbent President’s shadow, the economy’s coattails appeared especially long this year. Yet both incumbents are vulnerable next Tuesday.

What gives?

Every election is unique and this cycle has featured its share of candidate missteps. On balance, GOP signature candidates have avoided pratfalls and the Dems haven’t. Presidential lift this election has disappeared. 2014 may be tough for incumbent Democrats all around.

Colorado’s regional divisions are becoming a factor. An urban/rural divide and simmering Front Range/Western Slope competition undoubtedly impact state elections today. Issues like water and the uncertain future of agriculture, gun control, and the management of public lands increasingly swing voters west of the divide and east of Denver away from their more urban counterparts.

At the same time local economies are recovering unevenly, highlighting contrasts in opportunity that vex industry and developers. Denver-metro’s recovery hasn’t benefitted voters in other parts of the state. Oil and gas, natural foods, spending on healthcare, and the metro area’s real estate boom are driving growth, but not everywhere. It’s inspiring residents to question past affiliations and look for new leadership.

Business is certainly rethinking alliances and economic partnerships. A new industry axis may be forming on the Western Slope around lifestyle, in Steamboat and Grand Junction, Telluride and Durango. It’s driven by economic self-interest and opportunity, like-minded economic development strategies and improved access to things transportation infrastructure and tourists. Some of Colorado’s Western Slope businesses feel a pull to Salt Lake City today as much as Denver.

A shift is also underway along Colorado’s Front Range. Ft. Collins and Northern Colorado are quietly building a compelling economic and political identify separate from Denver/Boulder. To the south, in conservative Colorado Springs, most everything is changing. Civic and business leaders are taking the city back from a dysfunctional city government, evaluating anew the alliances and partnerships that will define the community in the near future. One thing seems certain: the divide with Denver-metro has grown. Colorado Springs’ new leaders want a fresh, independent, unencumbered identity.

Who does this changing economic and political landscape favor? It’s worked to obviate the benefits of incumbency in 2014. The issues at the forefront of this election for Colorado’s statewide offices – indecision or ad hoc policy making around economic and social issues, Obamacare and energy regulation – now appear to be widening the divide that increasingly separates Colorado voters. They deepen cracks in old foundations.

Mastering the dynamics of a new regionalism to unify a divided state is the way forward – the winning way.

Chris Mogridge could tell his family’s Oxford, Mississippi real estate development business was in for tougher times as the financial crises of the late 2000’s deepened.

“I was on the financing side of the business and could tell things were getting harder. No matter how much advertising I would do, sales were starting to slip. And the bank was getting funny with us borrowing money.”

On a Friday afternoon in ‘08, with a backlog of offers awaiting financing, Mogridge’s bank was taken over by the FDIC. On Saturday, a bank in South Carolina bought the assets, but subsequently wouldn’t return a phone call or email.

The writing was on the wall. “I needed to figure out something else if I wanted to stay here and avoid the prospect of getting on a plane for a job Sunday nights and getting home Thursday nights,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, I would have done that, but that wasn’t my preference at the time.”

His preference was launching a business, and this past summer Mogridge and wife Karen moved Mercury Wheels, his post-real estate endeavor, from Oxford to the cycling-industry hotbed developing in Ogden. Today Mercury Wheels has 15 U.S. employees and makes a wide range of road and mountain bike wheels.

A connection to cycling provided a quick transition as the real estate market imploded. “That summer I’d had some success racing,” he explained. “I wanted to buy a time-trial frame, and carbon was just getting popular. But the ones I wanted were about $5,000 for a frame-set. I thought to myself, ‘Someone’s making some money here.’ And the light went on.”

Mogridge has since hustled his way to a growing carbon wheel business, not frames, sourcing components like rims, hubs, cassettes, and skewers from Taiwan but assembling here to provide his racing clientele and dealer network highly customized, performance wheel sets. “At first we were just selecting parts from catalogs or wherever, but today we’re working with factories on the design phase; for example we’re working now on a new road disc. We’re designing wheels for specific applications.”

But as growth beckons, so does the need for a qualified workforce. For Mogridge and Mercury, that meant leaving Mississippi.

“There are a couple different reasons we made the move. The first one is networking. There’s a better pool of people to hire in Utah. It was harder for me to get someone to come down to Oxford,” he says.

“In my mind there were really three cycling hubs, or clusters, to consider,” he says. “There’s southern California, Boulder, and Utah. There are too many people in California; I wouldn’t say I’m a small town boy, necessarily, but it’s still too crowded.

“Boulder’s more my style but for us we viewed it as too expensive. We weren’t going to be able to own our own commercial space, which we eventually want. So I’d heard about Ogden and what was going on there but had never been. We’d taken ski vacations in Utah – there are five or six world-class resorts accessible from Salt Lake City. It’s a clean city, and there’s no crime. Plus we’d been to DealerCamp in Deer Valley.”

“Utah was very interested in our business. Ogden, in particular. I think they understand that it takes businesses of all sizes to build a growing industry cluster.”

If there was a close second, it was Boulder. But just as Colorado’s cycling epicenter has been the choice of others, Utah seemed the inevitable destination for Mercury. “Mayor Caldwell and Steve Fishburn of Ogden rolled out the red carpet for us on our two visits. They showed us the town, introduced us to other bike companies who made the move and really made us feel like Ogden was home.”

I asked him if he’d gotten to the point of comparing incentive packages? “No, we’re really too small. But I looked at them compared to what’s available in Mississippi. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good state to run a business – overhead is low – but Ogden’s so competitive. They sat down and said, ‘what do we need to do to get businesses interested in Ogden?’”

All in all it bodes well for region’s lifestyle manufacturing prospects. The mountain West is an emerging lifestyle superpower. Ogden’s growing cycling industry, anchored by ENVE, a carbon composite powerhouse OEM, seems a healthy rival to its more established sibling east of the divide. But as Mogridge noted, the region’s national reputation as a destination for recreation-related light industry is growing. Including more manufacturing.

Reshoring the development and manufacture of new products is on Mogridge’s radar. “We’re working on a project here that would bring more manufacturing to the U.S. The irony is that Asians love American products – they’ll pay a premium for U.S.-made.”

In Utah, or Colorado. In the West.

As a modern manufacturing economy takes shape, a rush is on to identify who’s part of the community and how growth and progress should be measured.

Our lens, our perspective, is the regional, multi-industry manufacturing economy we report on every week. Today we’re providing one tool to track it’s progress. With the help of Deloitte we’re compiling an index that will track the collective stock performance of 28 regional manufacturing companies. It’s a localized if unique version of a what others are doing nationally, like IndustryWeek.

The Rocky Mountain Manufacturing Index views manufacturing through the particular lens we prefer – broad-based and big-shouldered – with 10 or so industry categories included. Manufacturing here isn’t a single-industry sector.

The Index is one part of our sustained effort over the next several months to build tools to follow the development of the new manufacturing economy.

Here’s this week’s Index.

The effort to catalogue the companies and people of manufacturing is ongoing and industry-wide, and for good reason. Today’s manufacturing economy is different than the past, comprised of new sectors, companies and people. Despite efforts to ‘map’ the sector the past several years, efforts are just now gaining traction.

The reality is that building a useful and easy-to-use directory is hard. Not everyone agrees who should be included, and manufacturers must participate to make it more than just a phone book of name and addresses. (That’s hard, too.) To build a truly interactive resource, companies must give up data and use it to actively seek connections. Proving the value of that is difficult, so participation tends to lag.

Several are trying. Manufacturer’s Edge, Colorado’s state affiliate of the national Manufacturing Extension Partnership, is leading a statewide effort to define and connect the market, with an initial focus on southern Colorado.

Another high-profile effort is set to launch as a result of Colorado’s $6.6 million SMART award. SMART is short for Strengthening Manufacturing by Accelerating Research and Technology. We’re told funds have been earmarked for the development of a “project map,” a directory of companies involved in advanced manufacturing who might benefit from participation in the infrastructure and programs contemplated by SMART. CAMA, the Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance and the facilitator of SMART, will lead the effort.

Connecting industry players for mutual benefit is an essential step in advancing the entire manufacturing sector. As connections drive the market forward, we’ll use the Rocky Mountain manufacturing index and other tools to track it.