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 Don’t Care, China. We trust the brands we buy, and if those brands tell us the attributes of those products are best delivered by managing a supply-chain that spans five thousand miles, we’ve come to accept the proposition.

But things change, and business and consumers are increasingly challenging this premise. As we come to grips with what was lost as we offshored apparel jobs and expertise – like quality, control of intellectual property, the ability to innovate from product conception to delivery to customer service – we’re rethinking what truly can be gained by making and buying clothes, jackets, backpacks, shoes, and equipment here.

It’s far easier though to say we’ll cut-and-sew more stuff here than to do it. And as we’ve learned the past ten months in profiling some of the region’s apparel and accessory companies, the skills gap that afflicts much of manufacturing labor is acute in apparel. And that’s only that start. For businesses dealing in volume or in specialized production – like the Cortez, Colorado backpack company Osprey – making in the U.S. remains a bit of a pipe dream. Some of these companies, like Osprey, have invested millions to build capable and robust manufacturing operations overseas. It’s a tough investment to walk away from.

Yet a vanguard of companies are rethinking the business as they innovate, committed to brands and products inspired by the region and the people who come here to work and play. Brands like Voormi in Pagosa Springs, who source all the wool used to make innovate technical wear here, in the Rocky Mountain region. It’s a lifestyle brand inspired by place – and Voormi is sloughing off the premise that quality and innovation can’t be achieved with a domestic apparel supply chain.

Unfortunately Voormi and others will also tell you it’s not feasible, at least until now, to staff a capable cut-and-sew operation in Colorado that provides sufficient scale growing apparel firms need. That the thriving small-batch apparel manufacturing that Eric Peterson writes about today in CompanyWeek, remains too small or lacks technical acumen for companies who would grow the sector.

What makes this reality especially hard to swallow for those truly interested in a diversified economy that includes manufacturing is that the region is poised to grow this sector – if we choose. We can be at the beginning of a lifestyle manufacturing revival here, where clusters of industry grow side-by-side the tourism and recreational opportunities we’re keen to promote.

First we need to rethink the manufacturing infrastructure that would enable an apparel and accessory maker surge.

We’ll stay connected to this story as we return to profiling Colorado’s diverse manufacturers next week.

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, in major professional sports, teams occasionally suffer financial losses year-to-year. And Donald Sterling self-immolated. But an owner’s asset nearly always appreciates at a rate that offsets any short-term loss. Moreover, the rules of this fantasy economy help owners who’ve underperformed relative to their peers. Make a few bad hires or personell decisions? You get first dibs on the best future talent in the market to help right the ship.

The sad truth is that the owner of the Rockies is failing in a business rigged for him to win.

I’ve interviewed Charlie Monfort and like him, and this likeability serves Monfort well in his defense of the Rockies’ operations. But as Rockies owner he offers fans a false choice: retain management failing at their jobs or sacrifice the Rockies family-like culture. One does not follow the other. In real life only a successful business, managed and staffed by overachieving employees, provides the culture for families to prosper. Insisting his organization stand pat is tone deaf; fans and the business community that support the Rockies know better.

By one important metric, Monfort’s operation is succeeding. Fans continue to favor the Rockies entertainment value despite its won-loss record. Not surprisingly, the party-deck has been a hit with fans.

But again, few businesses have the option of failing in their primary endeavor, only to prosper because the community in which they operate provides lift – in this case MLB’s popularity offers a safety net.

As well-intentioned as he is, Monfort must make changes in his organization because that’s what well-managed businesses do. Until he does, not only will the Rockies be seen as a loser in baseball circles, respect for the brand will deteriorate in the business community. The Rockies may be a financial success, but they’re also a case study in how not to run a real business, a brand attribute Charlie Monfort should work to remedy.

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 in the Detroit News was less equivocal. “For those who know what manufacturing is like today, there’s no doubt that we’re enjoying a bona fide renaissance,” the author opined.

We’re clearly intrigued by the possibility that manufacturing is ascending. But does the evident desire to build more stuff here, and the growing awareness of what was lost in the massive offshoring of U.S. manufacturing prowess, equate to a full on comeback?

As we’re always glad to help out other manufacturers (yes, newspaper and magazine publishers are manufacturers) the answer is, not yet.

A more apt description of what we’re experiencing is a manufacturing ‘awakening’. Business, economic development and government are waking up to the appeal of a resurgent manufacturing economy.

The benefits are tangible. Maker companies build wealth by returning dollars from product sales back the community. Jobs are relatively high paying. And it’s a sector that drives innovation and the practical application of technology pouring out of higher-ed and industry incubators.

But until industry can fill thousands of positions that go unfilled due to a lack of qualified workers, or find workers at all, qualified or not, a ‘renaissance’ will remain a goal not reality. Manufacturers jammed a room at Mike Bristol’s innovative brewery in Colorado Springs last week to hear Tom Neppl, CEO at Springs Fabrication, explain why he’s leading a charge to form a new industry partnership in the region. “If I go down to the college and say I need a machinist, they’re not going to listen. If 15 of us go down there, it’s a different story,” Neppl said of industry’s need to align with higher education.

Jan Erickson, founder of Janska, a Colorado Springs-based apparel manufacturer, can’t find labor. “We need more sewers. Something has to be done,” she said at the event, referring specifically to immigration reform that would enable her to import more labor.

And we’re not close, really, to a point where youth value a manufacturing career. We’ve taught our best and brightest the opposite. Nor are we challenging enough undergraduates to aspire to build businesses that build stuff.

However slowly we’ve come around to the notion, there’s nevertheless widening consensus that our economy needs more maker companies. That the benefits are often inherently local. That successful industry clusters like natural food in Boulder, bioscience in Denver and cycling in Odgen are models that can be emulated with great success.

More lifestyle industry seems the low hanging fruit. We advertise to put skis on the hill, boots and wheels on the trail and tourists in the wineries of Mesa County. Promoting the region as a home for the light industry who would make our lifestyle tools and toys seems an easy and effective extension of our brand efforts. As I’ve written, Ogden’s the latest example of leveraging a lifestyle brand with industry efforts.

The industry clusters that result arc across the economy. They involve a breadth of service businesses – architects and designers to contemplate new maker spaces, builders to build them, tech companies to enable them, financiers to capitalize and professional service firms to support them. An entire economy engaged.

Challenges like workforce can be overcome. What was needed first was awareness of the possibilities.

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 here were asked the same question Coors might be hard-pressed to crack the top 10 – in its own category. The company might fare better with the general business community. But Colorado’s craft brewing artisans and entrepreneurs are now the face of the region’s beer sector. Among them, the Ft. Collins craft giants New Belgium and O’Dell are arguably among the most important new U.S. brands in the past 25 years. Collectively the sector helped energize a national maker movement. They’re a global business phenomenon.

What then qualifies a brand to be highly influential, to best represent a state or region? The random criteria used to select Coors was “a brand that a) has ties to that state and b) is still in business (as of 2013).”

Craft brewers and other innovators like those in Colorado’s high flying natural food sector would likely agree that the attributes of a successful brand would be more exacting, like: a meaningful connection to ‘place’, where lifestyle or community provide inspiration and foundation for company culture (read today’s Madhava profile); a commitment to sourcing locally when possible – workforce, raw materials, IP; an embrace of technology and other disruptive processes that drive innovation; and openness to share, to support others even competitors where possible; and of course providing a customer experience that reinforces all of the above.

Does Coors meet the standards? Yes. The company is a major consumer of regional ag products – they source locally. Certainly there’s a profound connection to place; the Coors family legacy remains powerful here.

But from a corporate standpoint, it now co-exists beside John Molson’s even richer Canadian beer dynasty: the MolsonCoors site points to seven generations of Molson’s compared to Coors’ five. Coors maintains the largest single beer making operation in the U.S. in Golden, but its connection to the region now filters through Toronto, first, Chicago and Europe.

For consumers, the upstart crafters have fully wrested the mantle of innovation and inspiration not only from Coors but from other mega-producers in the sector. And while the craft sector still commands a small percent of the overall market, between 10 and 15 percent, it would be hard to find any informed observer to bet against a projection one craft executive made to me, that 20-25 percent of the market is now a reasonable forecast in the coming years.

Ten years ago Pete Coors graciously agreed to an interview after losing his Senate bid to Ken Salazar. It was a highlight for me. He was honest and introspective. I remember asking if he had any regrets. Only one, he said, that he wished he’d run his own race. I assume he meant that his campaign towed national GOP talking points and that leaning on his long-standing connection with the community and locally-inspired wisdom would have served him better.

It’s a lesson the Coors Brewing Company might do well to revisit. Is a divestiture with Molson and Miller possible? Nah, but it would be fascinating to watch Coors reinvent itself as a local company, inspired by place and built from the ground up with community and innovation at the heart of its brand effort.

Once, it did.

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 real and Rocky Mountain makers are benefitting. As Brian Burney, CEO of Oliver Manufacturing in told me, “it’s a good time to be a manufacturer.”

Colorado’s maker community is booming, in high-profile categories like technology, software and media, craft beer, distilling, natural foods, and aerospace. Metrics and anecdotes bear this out. Catalysts for offshoring — among them cheap labor and lower operating costs — are also giving way to equally compelling reasons to reshore jobs and build more stuff here here, in the U.S.

Economic interests supporting business also favor maker jobs. The build wealth, as the adage goes. They return dollars to the region from products sales around the world. There’s also a discernable, positive cultural impact. Communities home to companies that make stuff seem inherently more stable, more cycle-resistant. And they demonstrably enhance middle-class prosperity. They pay more.

But will all this translate into a so-called manufacturing renaissance?

Maybe.

By some measures manufacturing continues to lag relative to other sectors in the economy. There’s nothing meteoric about job growth in the sector. Macro-industrial output is sluggish. In relative terms, manufacturing is still in recovery mode.

Industry, conversely, points to an acute workforce need, and fully a third of the 100 growth companies we profiled struggle to find qualified workers, a finding underscored by state-gathered data that indicates over 15,000 manufacturing jobs went unfilled last year for want of qualified candidates. And in potential high-growth sectors like apparel and consumer-goods manufacturing, domestic labor remains overpriced relative to what’s available offshore.

Moreover, if manufacturers are to replace offshore suppliers or producers with local business partners, they need to locate them. It may not sound like much, but it’s a significant barrier to expansion of the sector. If manufacturers were effective self-promoters, they wouldn’t be manufacturers.

It’s unclear whether public-private partnerships designed to improve workforce readiness are getting traction. We’ll know a lot more soon. The coalition of industry, higher-education and government brought together last year by House Bill 1165, known as “career pathway legislation”, is beginning to report on outcomes from the five regional ‘summits’ convened to date. Jo O’Brien, an ‘industry pathway leader’ with the Colorado Community College System, briefed me recently on initial feedback from participants. (We’ll have much more on the outcomes of 1165-related processes in following weeks). The upshot is positive, in no small part because those who can make a difference are (finally) sitting around the same table.

When industry and higher-ed align, and a new generation of manufacturing employees begins to stream into the economy, can the manufacturing economy produce jobs at a higher rate?

In addition to workforce, growth may pivot on our ability to support entrepreneurs. Despite a generally positive spin here, in Colorado, about our collective exploits in birthing new companies, a recent study by the Brookings Institute suggests we’re struggling to keep them in business. From 1978 to 2011, the number of companies less than a year old in Colorado, as a percent of the total, dropped 51%, near the bottom of national rankings. Or as the Washington Post put it, “U.S. businesses are being destroyed faster than they’re being created”.

The findings track roughly with the steep drop in U.S. manufacturing jobs, and with financing woes related to the recession. Money’s needed to keep the small business in business.

What does all this mean for CompanyWeek? For one, storytelling has never been more important, if workforce and a more connected business community are keys to sustainability. Changing the perception of manufacturing is best done by reporting on those doing it; and media, at it’s best, connects people and companies to facilitate new business partnerships including those involving money.

Would this happen without a manufacturing-centric media voice?

In a hyper-local way, yes. But if broad outreach is what’s needed, and clearly the maker-economy will benefit from a thousand new business relationships, then CompanyWeek will play the important role of regional community-building. And compliment, not compete, with other storytellers.

We’ll revisit the proposition after the next 100. Stay tuned.