One measure of today’s political dysfunction is the inability of elected officials to govern at the margins. For business, immigration is a stark example.

Last year the U.S. Senate passed the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act”, Senate Bill 744. Today it sits idle in the House, stalled indefinitely and its meaningful pieces sidetracked by the politics of ‘pathways’ and the status of millions of undocumented immigrants.

It’s unfortunate. Business would benefit from incremental progress on immigration.

The Bill is actually comprised of five distinct parts: Border Security (Title I), Immigrant Visas (Title II), Interior Enforcement (Title III), Reforms to Nonimmigrant Visa Programs (Title IV), and Jobs for Youth (Title V). And it’s here that we’re so poorly served. As a practical matter, business today would benefit greatly if Congressional leaders would set aside the ‘status’ issue, just for a moment, to find consensus on its other parts. SB 744 passed on a bipartisan basis last year. There are plenty of opportunities to agree.

Senate Bill 744 makes “enormous” investments, according to some, in border security, envisioning a truly staggering 38,405 full-time Border Patrol agents along the southern border and $46.3 billion in initial funding. In 1993, the annual budget for the U.S. border patrol was $363 million dollars.

There’s also mechanism’s to identify specialized labor. Components of Title II provide immediate relief to employers seeking qualified immigrant help. 744 creates a new “merit based point system with two tracks that award points to immigrants with educational credentials, work experience, and other qualifications.”

Additionally, key reforms in employment-based immigration would ease bottlenecks in current law by eliminating country-specific limits and exempting “highly-skilled and exceptionally talented immigrants” from the worldwide cap, including STEM graduates.

Consider the plight of Colorado manufacturers. A number of factors have contributed to a substantial ‘skills-gap’ in the manufacturing workforce. Last year, nearly 20,000 manufacturing jobs went unfilled in Colorado for a lack of qualified candidates.

Today it’s not much different. Across industries, manufacturers are searching for talent.

Industry will tell you that domestically, we’ve failed to train a generation of manufacturing employees, that there’s simply not a qualified pool of up and coming candidates to replace retiring workers or staff promising new businesses. That we’ve dissed manufacturing and trade careers while offshoring a sizable portion of our making prowess, at the same time we’ve fast-tracked kids into four-year degree programs that are expensive, or ill fitting.

The timing is particularly bad today, as manufacturing is surging. And unfortunately, there is no fast and easy fix. As aware education and policy wonks have become about the skills gap, we’re years away from delivering a steady flow of interested, engaged, qualified workers to industry.

Today Colorado companies and their regional counterparts in Utah and the Mountain West would benefit greatly from the opportunity to access appropriately trained, easily assimilated immigrant labor. The bipartisan Senate Bill envisions this scenario.

Marginal reform, if not comprehensive agreement on the status of Immigrant Visas, would be a boon to business including manufacturers. Debate the ‘status’ issue; it’s important. But reform isn’t a single-issue proposition. Make progress.

It’s not too much to ask.

Denver’s most illustrious Maker defies description. She’s a real-estate developer by trade, though the moniker understates the outcomes of her work. After all, how many developers have a hotel named after them?

No, Dana Crawford is a placemaker. Crawford’s projects – her places – are often a brick-and-mortar continuum: they remind us of who lived and worked here before, of who made it possible to build anew at the same time they embrace the future.

I met Dana a decade ago. Our connection also involved a place, Salina, Kansas, from where both of us hail, roughly. Reconnecting after a several years, our interests may again align, this time around the changing face of urban development. In a recent conversation, she mentioned how she believes light industry, manufacturing, is poised to be an integral component in modern, mixed-use development. I’ll leave Dana’s projects to speak for her, which I’m certain she prefers anyway, but the sentiment from so esteemed a placemaker confirms a trend we’ve written about previously.

The upshot is that a broad-based manufacturing revival is providing commercial real-estate a boost. Of course much of the excitement in today’s industrial real estate sector involves big-box space. A boom in e-commerce and the related need for warehousing space is a catalyst. But so is the resurgent manufacturing sector, generally. Vacancy rates for Class A space in America’s major industrial centers are dropping. A CBRE market analysis sums it up. “The nation’s factories are humming again, and industrial capacity utilization rates are back to historical averages; firms will soon need to start investing in new facilities as demand for their products increases in the expanding economy.”

The Urban Land Institute’s 2014 Emerging Trends in Real Estate forecast a similar push. “Manufacturing is coming back to the U.S., and it’s coming back faster than we thought. Back in 2011, no one thought we would see anything until 2015. Now, we are seeing dozens of companies moving back to the U.S. because the economics are shifting,” ULI’s report says, referencing the reshoring trend underway in U.S. industry that’s driving demand for commercial space.

But it’s likely that manufacturing will build differently in the future, and the demand for space will manifest accordingly. In real estate, the industrial renaissance continues to be largely defined by large increments of square feet like warehouse space, but observers like Denver’s Richard Kadzis believe that “economies of scale” are changing. “There will be a re-emergence of manufacturing in the U.S. with smaller regional facilities,” he notes.

Colorado’s manufacturing sector will certainly grow in this manner. As much as economic developers must focus on big companies, and ‘wins’, like Tesla, manufacturing growth here will also sprout from the state’s vibrant small business community, leveraging leadership in food and beverage, bioscience and medical, aerospace, consumer goods and contract manufacturing across all industrial sectors as companies seek new tech shops, materials suppliers, and labor to reshore operations.

The trend should inspire today’s placemakers. Mixed-use space that include light industry add interest and are financially more sound. They add fabric and flavor – beer and spirits, food and wine, cycles and clothing – to new our new urban settings. Imagine a city center development in Colorado without a craft brewery. They’re also tax and job generators, not simply cost centers for city services.

Moreover, any move to assimilate making and manufacturing back into our cultural fabric is a plus. We derive so much from building around our work. The products we make tend to be higher quality, at the same time we shorten supply chains, support local producers and become more efficient energy consumers. Wages from manufacturing are relatively high. We’re building careers, not just creating jobs. Residents prosper.

As rock-star placemakers like Dana Crawford envision compelling new places incorporating industry, advocates of local manufacturing will continue to push for the American-made renaissance. We’ll meet in the compelling spaces of the future.

Everybody wins.

Walmart is a study in contrast. For shareholders and Wall St. the company’s a rock star. For consumers, Walmart’s high-volume low-margin model has helped family budgets go further, at a time when wages are stagnant for a big majority of Americans.

But Walmart stores have also changed America’s economic fabric by forcing smaller retailers out of business. The iconic downtown retailer in small town America has effectively disappeared. Shopping at Walmart may extend a family budget but working at Walmart does it no favors.

Walmart’s wage scale is especially annoying to AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka, who trumpeted last week, “If Walmart is truly committed to rebuilding the American middle class, it can start with its own workers, most of whom make less than $25,000/year and struggle to make ends meet.”

Trumka was commenting on the occasion of Walmart’s annual manufacturing summit, held this year in Denver. If you missed it, you’re not alone. The event was largely ignored by the press (not a single mention in the Denver Business Journal, one article in the Denver Post), and strangely under-promoted by Denver and Colorado officials including the state’s economic and manufacturing entities. Walmart’s the world’s largest company, measured in revenue. Number one. Imagine Apple (18), Toyota (13) or Amazon (66) hosting an annual conference in Denver.

Denver’s Mayor Michael Hancock was visibly surprised to see several mayoral colleagues in the front rows during his opening remarks to delegates on day of the summit – and said as much. Governors from around the country were also in the crowd – including New Mexico’s Susana Martinez, who also addressed delegates and spoke of her state’s emphasis on manufacturing. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper wasn’t on the agenda.

Why the uninterested, awkward reception from the Summit’s home state leadership?

One possibility is that state and local officials didn’t see value in jumping in to support a Walmart supply chain event, though plenty of other state-level, high-power contingents saw fit to fly to Denver to participate. Sacramento’s Mayor, Kevin Johnson, acted more the host, and didn’t miss the chance to point out the Denver Mayor’s quick exit after his remarks.

Another is that they simply weren’t invited to participate in a meaningful way. Clearly Governor Martinez, as with Mr. Johnson, has been involved with Walmart before. Yet it was bizarre to listen to Walmart executives and Martinez laud New Mexico’s manufacturing efforts – from Colorado. It’s true that the Hickenlooper agenda has focused on ‘advanced’ manufacturing even though his state is a national leader in less high-tech goods-producing sectors (think food and beverage). But still. Walmart could have done more to highlight the host state’s manufacturing prowess.

Was Colorado business not invited? Of the hundreds of companies exhibiting in the convention center, only a handful was from Colorado. (Qualtek was one; read Chris Fagnant’s perspective here.) The Summit’s objective – connecting U.S.-based manufacturers with each other and supply chain partners to build more U.S.-made stuff that ends up in Walmart stores – would have benefitted from the presence of more local companies

Clearly the mission to connect industry players to juice U.S. manufacturing is legitimate. Walmart’s national effort is commendable. But as at least a couple of the speakers in the opening session confessed, finding suppliers, or contract manufacturers, within a ‘two-hour’ drive of a maker operation can make the biggest difference.

It will be left to local initiatives, happening across the country, to facilitate the connections that will get U.S. manufacturing off the mat and moving ahead. I wrote of two Colorado events last week that should lead to very positive outcomes. Mayor Hancock mentioned one the city is involved with – the Colorado Apparel Manufacturing Summit, October 9 in Denver.

With a slate of events planned in the weeks ahead, industry and it’s policy and development partners will have ample opportunity to do what Walmart could not: bring together the local ecosystem in a celebration of the possibilities.

And leave the clenched-teeth behind.

CompanyWeek is a year old this week. Last September we set out to do something different, to report on the manufacturing economy through the people and companies that comprise it. We profiled nearly 150 businesses and what a sector it is. Looking back, the companies are the story.

We’ve been inspired by Springs Fabrication’s role in the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan; Sparkfun’s commitment to educating a new generation of science and tech-minded kids; of Brian Burney’s connection to place, to Oliver Manufacturing’s La Junta homebase; by the ingenuity of entrepreneurs like Matt Vincent of Ska Brewing/Fabricating and the flat-out inventiveness of Dave and Jenny Hall of Glideware.

We’re awestruck by Colorado’s natural and organic food business. By Fresca Foods, who transformed an industry 18 years ago with a manufacturing innovation and today is led by stars like Todd Dutkin and Liz Myzlik; by Richard Lappen’s new gig Natural Food Works. By Boulder Soup Works to Rudi’s Organic Bakery to Hope Food’s missile tubes to 34 Degrees to New York transplant pure elizabeth, whose intrepid namesake Elizabeth Stein packed up this year to move to the ‘50-yard line’ of the industry.

It’s impossible not to respect the stalwarts of the trade and business acumen of Noel Ginsburg of Intertech Plastics, of Bill Newland at Hercules Industries, Marcia Coulson at Eldon James, Doug Rhoda at Wolf Robotics and Scott Sullivan at Grand Junction’s global star Reynolds Polymer. Many, if not all, are working to make sure their coattails are long for those who want to follow.

The beautiful slice of the region’s manufacturing economy is the passion of entrepreneurs like Trent Johnson at Greeley Hat Works, Chrissy Rogers of Spinelli’s and Julie Nirvelli of White Girl Salsa. Of Brian Dunn at Great Divide, Karen Hoskin of Montanya Distillers and Mike Koenig of Studio Shed. And small business doesn’t corner the market. Tom Cycyota started our meeting with a moving, half-hour story about an Allosource organ donor. Cycycota leads one Colorado’s most successful and unique manufacturers with the passion of a much smaller company.

Compared to the youthfulness of craft beer and natural foods, manufacturing is dotted with powerful family legacies, of compelling generational stories like RK Mechanical and Denver’s Polidori Sausage, that Ana Polidori, great-grandmother of current vice president Melodie Polidori Harris, opened in 1925. CEO Donn Schaible takes great care in maintaining Eagle Claw’s connection to Lee McGill and the Wright & McGill Co. Colorado legacy.

Bob Walker’s father Max began building mowing machines in the 1970’s. Today, Walker Manufacturing is a source of pride not only for the Walker family but for northern Colorado. Pride is the operative sentiment as Paul Harter leads a tour of Aqua-Hot in Frederick, who’s clearly gratified by continuing Hap Enander’s business legacy but immensely proud of the new company he’s building.

Builders share space in the economy with manufacturers – they both make things – and the ‘built environment’ is intrigued with the new manufacturing economy. One of our objectives over the next year is to profile the buildings and spaces of GE Johnson and others that will house a next-generation of makers and manufacturers – maker spaces that in the coming years should increasingly co-locate among retail, residential and service – modern ‘clusters’ that comprise a 2st century economy.

Visionary public-sector leaders get the value of maker businesses. They’ll take a lead from Denver’s OED, from Ogden’s city leaders, who envision a cycling manufacturing hub and Utah’s legislature, who created the position of Director of Outdoor Recreation to manage the state’s outdoor brand to the benefit of lifestyle manufacturers. This in contrast to the wretched public stewardship on display in Colorado Springs, where an ugly mayor/city council dustup selfishly hamstrings business; and Castle Rock, my hometown, where city government squanders the community’s hard-earned family-oriented brand in favor of the economic development attributes of Dodge City, circa 1880.

But the doers far exceed the obstructionists in the Rocky Mountain region. Powerful, sustaining business rationale are driving U.S. manufacturing back onshore and domestic manufacturers and supply-chain partners together again. Within five years, a more connected manufacturing economy, redefined as a modern and lucrative sector, will be shaping regional economic activity like never before.

– –

As our crusade enters its second year, with new markets like Utah among the opportunities, I’d like to thank Robinson, Webb, and Rothe for a runway and Kalkwarf and Popeil for a push; Severson and Myzlik for genuine enthusiasm and encouragement; Bugnitz for a true north; Maraschin and Goertz because they paid attention from the western slope; Neppl, Newland, and Lee because they didn’t say no; and Bingham for saying simply, yes.

CompanyWeek is Eric Peterson and Chris Meehan, Becky Hurley and Mike Dano, Tamara O’Dell, Valarie Johnson and occasionally, Jeff Rundles. It’s Carrie Nicholson, Jessica Thomas and Doug Hunley. It’s Michael DeJager. It’s Jonathan Castner’s visuals, along with those of Cat Mayer, Judson Pryanovitch, and Scott DW. Smith, Michelle Goodall and Sara Hertwig. It’s also AJ’s daily burden. CompanyWeek is their work.

On to the next 150!

Economic development in the West is big business. In Colorado, at the state level, the investment in programs and people has almost doubled since 2012. Today about 60 full time employees staff the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

It’s become a state-by-state competition, and success is measured in jobs, in spending and investment, in start-ups and relocations. The stakes are high, including political payoffs if you win and liabilities if you lose. Kevin Grantham, Colorado state senator from Canyon City, said as much in a Denver Business Journal op-ed last week attacking the jobs record of the Hickenlooper administration. “We compete primarily with states in our region. Colorado’s total employment growth during the four-year period since the recession ended in 2009 has not matched that of Utah, Nebraska, Wyoming or most of our neighboring states,” he wrote.

Grantham has an ax to grind, but his political adversaries would likely agree that comparing Colorado’s growth to that of our neighbors is an important metric.

But is it? Can Colorado, Utah, Arizona, or New Mexico and Wyoming for that matter, compete alone in the increasingly global market? The population of the entire mountain West is about 17 million people, with an economy around $800 billion, or just 5.2% of the nation’s total. Michael Gallis, in his important analysis and advocacy of regional rail transportation, notes the totals are substantially less than a single Chinese city, Shanghai, which clearly has global ambitions to become a center of economic growth and innovation.

“..it’s a good bet that in the future industry and government will realize that hyper-localizing the economic discussion short-circuits a broader regional opportunity to drive growth.”

When should self-interest give way to support a cohesive regional development message?

Gallis and others are making the argument, and it’s a good bet that in the future industry and government will realize that hyper-localizing the economic discussion short-circuits a broader regional opportunity to drive growth. Here’s why:

· Six of the top 11 cities in Forbes ‘2014 Best Places for Business and Careers’ feature were in Colorado and Utah, and seven of the top 20. A common denominator is the influx of smart, educated young professionals migrating to the region for quality of life and bringing with them career aspirations in a lifestyle economy. The region’s a draw. Not just Colorado. Or Utah.

The story of Mercury Wheels relocating to Odgen from Oxford, Mississippi, is typical. Boulder and Ogden were clear frontrunners in the relocation decision. Ogden won – but so did the region. As Forbes confirms, Boulder, Greeley, Provo, Salt Lake City and Denver are winning their share.

· This key migration of talent is resulting in regional first-mover status in lifestyle industries connected to the West’s tourism and recreation draw. Cycling, skiing, backcountry exploration, and other regional pursuits are driving growth in equipment, apparel, and accessory maker businesses.

· The ‘Made in America’ movement has deep roots in the region and is poised to drive more growth. Industries like natural and organic foods, craft beer, energy and mining, clean-tech, aerospace and aviation operate from regional hubs and enjoy international-leading market positions. A new, progressive, retooled manufacturing sector is materializing in the west – one with international reach and a massive upside.

· Western state’s most pressing economic development challenges are regional in scope. Colorado’s water crisis is Arizona’s and Utah’s, New Mexico and Nevada’s. Workforce issues plague manufacturers regardless of state lines. Likewise, opportunity will derive from bold, region-wide solutions. Modern air and rail infrastructure will help each state that invests. But a collective effort to connect region offers exponential benefits.

Hercules Industries operates regionally, including Denver and Salt Lake City, and utilizes rail transport both east and west, avoiding the cost of traversing the Divide. Vestas, in a CompanyWeek profile, notes the rail advantages of Colorado’s central location. Osprey Packs has moved its distribution center from Durango to Salt Lake City. Regional connectivity has never been more important.

· We also know that state-level efforts are fleeting. What will become of Colorado’s development efforts if the governor’s office changes this November? With each new administration comes a different vision for how the state should be marketed.

The intrigue surrounding Tesla’s new battery mega-factory has been framed as a competition between Nevada, Texas and Arizona. I’ve not yet read the editorial celebrating Tesla’s decision to narrow its decision to the western U.S. It’s no surprise. Media will deconstruct the decision as economic development pros will – as a win or loss, with a local spin.

In the future, for the future, it may be good business to root for a broader, regional perspective to emerge in the West.