It seems Jay Timmons was born to lead NAM, the National Association of Manufacturers. He’s from America’s rust belt, Chillicothe, Ohio, with generations of manufacturing in his blood and a determined, buttoned down all-American comportment that feels a natural fit atop NAM’s 14,000-strong membership. Conjure an image for a spokesperson for U.S. industry, for its proud manufacturing base. You’ll get Jay Timmons.

What you also get today from Timmons’ is a manufacturing policy message in transition, that like industry, is taking stock of recent success but searching, at times awkwardly, for footing in a new and complex manufacturing economy. For Timmons and NAM, this translates into a modern love/hate relationship with President Obama and his administration’s policies.

Timmons was in Colorado last week on a 12-city national State of Manufacturing tour, speaking at Ball Corporation’s Broomfield facility. CACI, the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, a manufacturing advocate and state affiliate for NAM, organized the gathering.

What’s changing about his message is the support NAM summons for policies that strike a somewhat unprecedented ideological balance for this venerable organization. It made for an entertaining presentation that swung from open hostility to begrudging support for the president, even as its historic and resolute opposition to the traditionally Democratic staples of more regulation and higher taxes remains the foundation of its pro-business rubric.

For Timmons, “manufacturing faces a disproportionate share of the burden of government regulation,” and he was openly contemptuous of the EPA and administration’s support of more stringent air quality standards.

“The administration’s regulatory agenda and regulation of greenhouses gasses would limit fuel choices, increase energy prices and make power less reliable,” he argued. “The development of next-generation power-plant technologies is a prime example. Today coal generates about 40 percent of the nation’s electricity and we have decades worth of coal reserves. The rules would eliminate this abundant resource from our energy mix.”

But in the next breath, Timmons’ confirmed that “America has an unprecedented and incredible global advantage in reliable and affordable energy — who would ever thought this ten years ago? — and that’s what’s driving manufacturing’s resurgence.” Further, he acknowledged that “manufacturing’s carbon emissions are down 13 percent percent since 2005, while manufacturer’s value-add to the economy has grown 19 percent over that same time period, because we’re building more efficient power plants,” adding that the “U.S. has made significant progress we need in an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy.”

On tax strategy, he decried America’s “highest corporate tax rate in the world — a problem we need to fix,” advocating, of course, tax reform. With no movement from Congress yet on this issue or legislation reaching the President’s desk, Timmons held his fire. Not so on immigration reform, where he offered a full-throated defense of Obama’s push for comprehensive immigration reform and clear path to citizenship for immigrants working here illegally.

On net neutrality, Timmons was equally unequivocal. “The Internet of Things has the potential to reshape our industry or nation and our world, all of the is progress begs the question: Why should we be turning back the clock back 80 years? That’s exactly what President Obama wants to do by regulating the internet with a 80-year old law that was enacted during the era of rotary telephones. It will curtail investment in our broadband infrasture, hinder the creation of game changing technologies on our shop floors and yield little benefit for consumers.”

The statement is as uncertain as it is bold, though, and his embrace for the administration’s cybersecurity initiative softened the blow. “I have to say the president is taking the right steps in calling for more real time cyber-threat information sharing in the private and public sector and targeting liability protection. This is a promising start for sure.”

Timmons also voiced his support for Obama on free trade. “We need to be where overseas consumers are buying: International trade supports more than 700,000 jobs in Colorado; its companies trade with customer in over 200 countries. A smart trade policy is the difference between growing business and shutting their doors. Free and fair trade including trade promotion for the President of the United States will give us greater access to the foreign markets we need.” It’s not a unanimous sentiment in the manufacturing community.

Taken as a whole, this well-intentioned if somewhat confusing policy evolution reflects an industry in transition. Manufacturing is changing. It’s tech-driven – digital; it’s agile, small business; it’s young and lifestyle-driven to suit trends and changing consumer preferences; it’s beer and organic food at the same time it’s steel and paper, fabricating and welding.

It’s changing and NAM and Timmons are trying hard to adapt — however confusing and disruptive the journey may be.

Last fall, Colorado economic development officials celebrated a significant win. The Department of Defense had awarded the Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) nearly $6.6 million to “provide immediate and sustained assistance to Colorado firms and employees impacted by reduced Department of Defense procurement . . . and to coordinate assistance to the Colorado jurisdictions where these firms and individuals are located.”

The grant — the “Colorado defense industry adjustment program” — provides help for manufacturers, primarily in Colorado Springs and Denver, hurt by reduced defense spending.

It also breathed life into a concept stalled in OEDIT. SMART, or Strengthening Manufacturing by Accelerating Research and Technology, envisioned resources and a network of facilities to support advanced manufacturing but enjoyed lukewarm support. With the DoD grant, SMART was reimagined. OEDIT selected CAMA, the Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance, to implement the grant and today CAMA manages and sustains ‘SMART Colorado,’ the official name for the ‘defense industry adjustment program.’

The Statement of Work issued to CAMA outlines nine “Projects” in SMART, each with specific dollar amounts earmarked from the $6.6M total, and deadlines for completion: (here’s the full SOW)

1. Colorado Advanced Industries Supply Chain Initiative (Budget: $900,000). Outcome: ‘Contractor will create (digital and online) tools that map Colorado defense industry supply chain assets and show and build market diversity for defense suppliers within Colorado.’ Deadline: 9/30/2015.
2. SMART Colorado Executive Team & Strategic Operational Plan (Budget: $45,000). Outcome: ‘The Contractor will use this strategy as a mechanism through which the Contractor will make recommendations for diversification of defense-dependent sectors of Colorado industries.’ Deadline: 12/31/14.
3. Colorado Digital Manufacturing Commons Planning (Budget: $27,000). Description: ‘This will require seminars and programs to educate manufacturers on the opportunities as well as promote the software and system development to lead to effective implementation. Digital manufacturing provides an opportunity for firms in the defense aerospace sector to diversify their market offerings as well as a way to reduce R&D costs.’ Deadline: 12/31/2014.
4. Regional SMART Center Team Development (Budget: $27,000): Outcome: ‘Host a two-day session of industry leaders, academic leaders, and government leaders and generate a report on the state of advanced manufacturing and future strategies for success.’ Deadline: 6/30/2015.
5. Regional Defense Diversification and SMART Center Planning (Budget: $180,000). Description: ‘The Contractor will plan and facilitate the engagement of city and county partners for each of the four regional SMART Centers and their anticipated contracting with consultant(s) to conduct a defense diversification study that builds upon the aerospace sector.’ Deadline: 9/30/2015.
6. Supply Chain Direct Assistance Proposal (Budget: $270,000). Description: ‘As companies are identified in the supply chain mapping efforts, CAMA will provide direct assistance to up to 30 firms (up to 10 for each region), which work under this Contract has identified as having been negatively affected by or currently being particularly susceptible to changes in defense procurement.’ Deadline: 3/31/2016.
7. Startup Work and Development of a Southern and a Central Colorado SMART Center (Budget: $3,835,000). Outcomes: ‘No later than 60 days before the end date of the Contract, two physical locations will be in operation and servicing the needs of the regional industry community based on the feedback of the regional subcommittees.’ Deadline: 7/31/2016.
8. Innovation Assistance Proposal (Budget: $180,00). Outcomes: ‘As part of the long-term sustainability of the SMART Centers, each center will develop a fee for service component of funding.’ Deadline: 7/31/2016.
9. Southern Colorado SMART Center Workforce Development Services (Budget: $1,080,000). Outcomes: ‘The Contractor will develop and deliver to OEDIT a strategic plan for integrating advanced manufacturing into Colorado’s workforce development and educational system. The plan will incorporate input from relevant institutions such workforce investments boards, community colleges and industry.’ Deadline: 12/31/2015.

On paper, the grant reads like money well spent: Find those companies impacted by reduced DoD spending, provide tools including new facilities to reposition them for success, and leave behind assets and awareness to support more advanced manufacturing in Colorado. Simple, and very positive.

The timeline is short, though, and may already be proving a challenge. Two deadlines have passed, and it’s unclear whether a SMART Colorado executive team or a Digital Manufacturing Commons Plan has been finalized. (CAMA leadership was unavailable to be interviewed for this article, though a website is planned.) And two SMART Center locations, one each in Colorado Springs and Denver, are to be opened soon — in late summer of 2016.

The outline also prescribes work and money in areas that may duplicate or compete with current efforts. For example, Manufacturer’s Edge leads a loose consortium of partners already developing Manufacturer’s Connect, a digital supply-chain ‘map’ and recent beneficiary of a $250,000 federal grant. (The SMART statement of work budgets $900,000 to map the supply chain.) It’s also not clear how SMART-funded resources can, or should, be applied to other Colorado manufacturing industries.

As more information is released, we’ll track progress and dig deeper into how SMART Colorado — the ‘defense industry adjustment program’ — can be a win for the state.

Stay tuned.

Writers and analysts like Forbes‘ Tim Worstall view manufacturing as a sector neither in decline nor resurgent, but one simply changing with the times. For Worstall and others, manufacturing’s time has has come — and gone — and speculation about the health of the sector misses the broader point that U.S. manufacturing is alive and well but resigned to second-tier status in today’s technology-and-healthcare-centric service economy.

His argument is not without merit: as manufacturing GDP and employment have declined to historic lows, U.S. productivity has continued to rise, driven by technology and the evolution to machine-made goods.

Worstall cites the Federal Reserve’s Index of Industrial Productivity as proof that the decline of American manufacturing is a misnomer. Indeed, as manufacturing GDP has fallen to around 13 percent of the economy, U.S. industrial output is today at an alltime high, recently surpassing the 2007 peak that preceded the Great Recession:

It’s a popular view, that structural changes will permanently diminish manufacturing’s importance even as the nation continues to produce more.

There are signs that it may not play out that way. For one, that implications of offshoring a manufacturing generation is even today slowing industry’s ability to keep up with demand, to find talent.

But whatever the jobs and economic equilibrium, it’s easy to take a more bullish view. Manufacturing’s has long been the engine of American R&D, and given improving economics of ‘Made in the USA’, the prospects for sustained national investment in research – in manufacturing – are good.

Moreover, many high-flying U.S. multinationals are manufacturers – they just don’t make a lot of stuff here. For now. Apple’s a tech company, Nike a giant in consumer goods. We celebrate design and engineering, management and retail innovation. At the end of day, they’re manufacturers. If making here is more economical, and increasingly it is, more will do so. That’s not a decline.

Manufacturing’s halcyon days, of 24% GDP, may be gone. But the U.S. economy will continue to be shaped by makers, maybe even more so in the future. Trends point in that direction.

Employment and GDP growth may folliow. Call it what you will.

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.

CompanyWeek is pushing across the West at a time regional manufacturing is on the ascent. In Colorado manufacturing employment is up 2.7% through September this year, and the past four months has outpaced overall employment growth in the state.

How significant are the numbers?

Better than to be caught in the vortex of duplicate tough news Manufacturers’ News, Inc. (MNI) is offering up elsewhere the past week.

“High business costs and global competition have made it difficult for Pennsylvania manufacturers to climb back from the recession,” said Tom Dubin, president of Manufacturers’ News. “However, its educated workforce and investment in worker-training programs continue to be a draw for new businesses, particularly those focused on technology and innovation.”

“High business costs and global competition have made it difficult for New York manufacturers to climb back from the recession,” says Tom Dubin, President of the Evanston, Il-based publishing company, which has been surveying industry since 1912. “However the state remains a major manufacturing hub, boasting an educated workforce, diverse economy and access to capital.”

“High business costs and global competition have made it difficult for Pennsylvania manufacturers to climb back from the recession,” said Tom Dubin, president of Manufacturers’ News. “However, its educated workforce and investment in worker-training programs continue to be a draw for new businesses, particularly those focused on technology and innovation.”

“High business costs and the decline of the coal industry have affected West Virginia industrial employment,” Dubin said in a statement. “However, its growing oil and gas sector and investment in worker training programs continue to be a draw for new businesses.”

To be fair, the declines were small. Dubin’s ‘statements’ are a template-response to any decline. And, not all’s rosy in Colorado’s broad-based sector. As Brian Lewandowski from CU’s Leeds School of Business notes in his column last week:

• Manufacturing is still not all the way back, and “continues to operate under peak levels: from 2000 to 2013, GDP increased 51%, whereas employment decreased 29%.”

• And through 2013, manufacturing employment underperformed compared to overall employment growth, increasing 1.6% in 2011, 2.4% in 2012, and 2.9% in 2013; and employment growth has averaged 2.7% in 2014.

But clearly, the market we’ve been reporting on the past year is a bright spot. Moreover, the increasingly diverse industry make-up of Colorado’s sector is providing lift. Colorado’s bright food and beverage prospects, growing aerospace and aviation segment and generally diversified industrial base seem well-positioned to build on success in recent years, post-Recession.

According to Lewandowski, this past September manufacturing employment growth was 4.5% higher year-over-year, ranking the state 4th for the pace of manufacturing employment growth in the month of September year-over-year.

Where do we go from here? It’s the $64,000 question. As U.S. investment in manufacturing becomes fashionable again, expectations should also grow. Reaching pre-Recession jobs and GDP levels shouldn’t be good enough. Ensuring the manufacturing surge continues should be a national – and regional – priority.