Entries by Bart Taylor

CMA 2023 Preview: Craft Food & Beverage

When we sit around a dinner table — or a campfire — with family and friends, food and drink made by local businesses enhance our lives. Tasty beer and wine. The fixings for flavorful meals — as well as the healthy snacks we reach for in between them. The Colorado brands within the Craft Food […]

Why manufacturers should reconsider Department of Defense business, Part II in a series

Manufacturing’s enduring relationship with America’s defense establishment has again reached a pivotal moment. Against the backdrop of recovering supply chains, cyber threats, and a ground war in Europe, today a crisis in attracting qualified, capable suppliers into the defense ecosystem threatens to substantially degrade America’s ability to arm and sustain its service branches and allies. […]

Welcome to the IL Manufacturing Report!

Today I’m pleased to welcome Illinois manufactures to the inaugural edition of the IL Manufacturing Report. This digital publication is about you: the companies and people reimagining one America’s most important industrial outposts. For us, Illinois is now part of a regional network of Manufacturing Reports that includes Arizona, California, Colorado, Texas, and Utah. Which […]

2023 Colorado Manufacturing Awards finalists: Consumer Product and Craft Food & Beverage

After previewing the finalists for Technology Manufacturing and Industrial & Equipment Manufacturing at the upcoming 2023 Colorado Manufacturing Awards, the spotlight is on the contenders for trophies in the Consumer Product Manufacturing and Craft Food & Beverage Manufacturing categories. Consumer Product Manufacturer of the Year Buena Vista’s Fading West is modeling growth by meeting the […]

2023 Colorado Manufacturing Awards finalists: Technology and Industrial & Equipment Manufacturing

One measure of manufacturing’s improbable decade-long comeback is the list of Colorado Manufacturing Awards (CMA) past finalists and winners, from the inaugural event in 2016 to last year. Today it’s a roster of recognizable companies and brands that collectively, has become a national model for manufacturing’s new industrial mix. Colorado companies and people continue to […]

Why manufacturers should reconsider Department of Defense business

America’s defense supply chain is at a crossroads. On one hand, business is booming for defense contractors. On the other, U.S. manufacturing is straining to meet current demands in a trillion-dollar industry that’s certain to ask more and more from domestic suppliers. We’re on the cusp of a new golden age of advanced manufacturing — […]

2023 Manufacturing Forecast – 5 sure bets

By most any measure, 2022 was a transformational year for manufacturing. Here’s an early look at storylines shaping the coming year. 1. 2023 is the year of the semiconductor supply chain — who builds a roadmap that wins? Arizona and Texas were among big winners in the semiconductor factory sweepstakes. But manufacturing communities across the […]

Free trade is dead. For manufacturing, good riddance

I’ve argued, along with Harry Moser and others, for a new industrial policy that picks U.S. manufacturing “to win.” As contrarian a view this was a decade ago, there’s consensus today that we should do just that. The list of desired outcomes reads like an economic manifesto: Protecting key domestic manufacturing industries and nurturing new […]