Entries by Bart Taylor

As manufacturing boosts commercial real estate, Placemakers are taking note

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 […]

What’s your Colorado manufacturing IQ? Take this quiz and find out.

Last week, with a push from the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, Governor John Hickenlooper proclaimed this workweek ‘Manufacturing Week’ in Colorado, adding a regional flavor to Friday’s national Manufacturing Day. It’s music to our ears, so we thought we’d join the festivities with a pop quiz celebrating Colorado’s broad, dynamic manufacturing community. Go […]

Questions from Walmart’s strange Denver manufacturing summit

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 […]

Change at Colorado’s OEDIT an opportunity to upgrade Hick’s Blueprint

The worst kept secret in Colorado economic circles is the impending leadership shake-up at the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade, or OEDIT. Ken Lund, Executive Director of OEDIT and Karla Tartz, Deputy Director, Strategy & Operations, are leaving as early as September. The change shouldn’t come as a surprise. Lund’s made it […]

Next steps: Two inaugural events seek to connect manufacturers and business

If you’ve wondered about the mission of CompanyWeek, two events we’re supporting align perfectly with one aspiration, to connect companies in a community that wants to know each other. But largely doesn’t. In most every goods-producing sector the plan is to make more stuff here, in the U.S. And this time, manufacturing growth means more […]

Celebrate America this week – and the possibility of an apparel maker revival

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 […]