A common theme that runs through most of our weekly business profiles is the challenge of workforce. Regardless of industry Colorado manufacturers can’t find enough qualified employees. It’s the Colorado jobs paradox: unemployment here remains relatively high, but a lack of qualified occupational workers is a drag on economic growth, or at least on the manufacturing sector.

The reality certainly isn’t lost on policy-makers. Earlier this year, the Colorado Legislature earmarked a million dollars or so in HB1165, career ‘pathway’ legislation that would effectively improve coordination between higher-ed and industry to better match graduates with jobs.

For its part industry is intent on ‘re-branding’ manufacturing, on changing the perception of the sector from the “dirty, dumb, dangerous, and dying” business of old to the modern, clean, ‘advanced’ state of much of the industrial base today. The idea is to fundamentally change the way young people and their families view manufacturing employment.

IndustryWeek columnist Patricia Panchak suggests that so far, the effort has failed, and that the latest iteration of this approach is likewise destined to miss the mark. The effort focuses on changing industry parlance to better reflect today’s workforce.

“The Association for Manufacturing Technology, noting that the term “workforce” doesn’t speak to the more intellectually demanding nature of factory work, has coined the term “smartforce.” Meanwhile…the Reshoring Initiative suggests that we begin referring to the “midskill” occupations as professions and the workers as professionals as is done in Germany and Switzerland. No mother wants her children to grow up to be workers, he says. She wants them to be professionals. Besides, he adds, “as manufacturing skilled workers take on more mental and less physical responsibilities, the terminology is increasingly appropriate.”

Panchak argues the effort doesn’t far enough, that language alone won’t change things. That until the true ‘value of labor’ again becomes the common language of business, re-instilled in today’s workforce, any effort to rebrand manufacturing will fall short.

It’s hard to argue the point, but as a practical matter, changing the perception of manufacturing here seems more straightforward.

Colorado (and the region) has become the poster-child for what’s cool about manufacturing. Young people come to Colorado to live and work, often in that order, and here more employment opportunities are developing around lifestyle manufacturing. We’re birthing a new generation of entrepreneurs and companies in industry sectors that are highly marketable to the workforce of the future, who view employment through the lens of lifestyle.

Our tactics should evolve to catch-up to with what business is already building here. We need to tell the stories of Colorado growth-companies making beer, electronics, energy-efficient anything, skis, clothes, organic food, and iPhone cases – things interesting and important to young people. Inspire a future workforce with stories of today’s entrepreneurs.

Of course that’s our mission here, but a sustained private/public collaboration would also help. The story of regional manufacturing needs more effective stewardship – not only from government but from its own. Colorado is home to global manufacturing brands. They need to be convinced that ‘here’ is worth investing in.

Investment. The most tangible, impactful development in occupational employment would be hyper-growth in new company launches. More successful launches mean more companies to publicize, which in turn creates higher interest in a modern manufacturing career. Want to change the perception of manufacturing? Make it easier for small makers and manufacturers to get financed.

More on that Mt. Elbert-sized challenge later.

Of the industry categories that comprise the region’s growing manufacturing base, apparel may intrigue me the most. It’s a personal fascination, in part. I’ve spent hours on my bike wondering why I’m forced to wear cycling clothes that often look like hell, all the while formulating plans for new line of loose-fitting performance apparel.

But it’s more than that. It’s the enormous challenge U.S. apparel makers face, and here, among regional makers, the sheer audacity I’ve encountered that compels entrepreneurs to launch headlong into wall of apparel-making bastions in Asia and elsewhere. This includes the upstart group of fashion designers we profile in the current issue of CompanyWeek.

It’s also an industry category in search of support, disadvantaged relative to other sectors where advocacy and publicity come easier. I suppose economic developers would classify apparel makers as Creative Industries, which of course they are, but business doesn’t stop at conception. Apparel firms understand fully that at the end of the day they’re manufacturers. Their primary barriers to success invariably involve materials and assembly, labor and quality control. They’re manufacturers.

But obstacles to success often inspire innovation and clarity of purpose, and in the case of Pagosa Springs-based Voormi, profiled here last week, the challenges facing American apparel manufacturers inform the company’s vision, its operating philosophy.

Dan English, Voormi’s CEO, explains.

“We’ve got our eyes on a horizon”, he says, “where ‘Made in America’ and ‘Made in Colorado’ become a key driver of commerce within our state. Much as the movement for more sustainable, ethically produced goods finally moved from goal to expectation. A horizon where small batch, agile manufacturing allows for products that meet the needs of today, not needs that were relevant three years ago due to complex global supply chains..”

One hears this a lot, the notion that ‘local-for-local’ will increasingly drive commerce. But the barriers to growth seem more formidable than what ‘buying local’ might overcome. English admits that reaching the horizon, finishing the journey, won’t be easy.

“After the great Asian migration of the 90’s, the technical apparel/textile industry was left extremely fragmented. Those that survived, did so through ‘finding their niche’. Some bet on innovation and quick-turn manufacturing, others relied on the demand of large government contracts.

“Today, this fragmented manufacturing base, in combination with the resurgence of ‘local demand’ leaves brands like ours with a huge challenge: Capacity both in the short and long run. If large brands simply flood the very small amounts of remaining capacity in the U.S., one, there’s no way manufacturers will be able to handle the strain, and two, they’ll be highly exposed in the event those brands move on to their next ‘big initiative’ here.”

They’ll also be farther removed from the singular spark that often fires successful companies, though Voormi’s business seems to be in a good place. But is the industry, collectively, ready to manage ‘good’ problems like excess demand while charting a future?

“We don’t think the industry on whole has yet put together a truly viable plan for the resurgence of American manufacturing”, he adds. “Building a manufacturing base is much more than a story about keeping the lights on in the handful of factories left. We believe it’s about making a bigger and longer-term investment in Colorado. The solution HAS to start with real dollars, real training, and real investment in capital. It has to include a long term plan for re-building an ecosystem of manufacturing here in the U.S.”

English may be a realist, but that doesn’t diminish his enthusiasm in the least. On the contrary. “We’re excited about the energy surrounding a return to local manufacturing. After all, as a company, that’s what we set out to do.”

Yea, but can he make cool cycling clothes?

I’ve written previously about the regional push to invest in manufacturing. Colorado and its neighbors, many with similar sized manufacturing sectors, are host to business interests seeking funding, an improved workforce, tools and expertise to drive new manufacturing activity.

Support varies but in Colorado several communities are poised to benefit from active partnerships between industry, trade and government. We continue to report on a quality group of manufacturers in Colorado Springs, where trade and economic development officials increasingly see value in supporting the sector. On the Western Slope, the success and high visibility of established brands and a burgeoning lifestyle manufacturing sector is turning heads. It’s easy to envision a new private/public partnership that would promote the formidable group of lifestyle companies that call the Steamboat-to-Durango corridor home.

Colorado’s largest concentration of makers and manufacturers is of course in Denver, and officials here seem intent on building-out a world-class manufacturing economy. Denver’s Mayor, Michael Hancock, and Paul Washington, his top economic development lieutenant, speak often of the city’s manufacturing assets as they also move to address challenges to growth, like developing a more robust occupational workforce.

Denver’s also beginning work on a much needed to tool to measure and track the city’s progress. I met recently with Bridget Strand, Ph.D, economist and management analyst for the Denver Office of Economic Development (OED) about the project to develop a Denver manufacturing index that would quantify the current state of its manufacturing sector and provide a framework to measure progress. The index will become a regular content feature at CompanyWeek.

“What we’re trying to accomplish,” says Strand who has experience in the financial sector as well as international think tanks in index creation, “is to benchmark the current health of the sector and its underlying industries. We then are able to track the growth or contraction of those industries to determine which areas are driving the growth and health of the overall manufacturing sector in the metro area. For example, sequestration may be impacting the aerospace and defense manufacturing while the locovore movement is driving higher demand in the food and beverage manufacturing industries and is supporting new entrepreneurism in those areas.”

This index will also help support the OED’s business retention, recruitment and small business advocacy goals as it can identify underrepresented areas of high performance and the success and demand for various industry outputs in the region. “The output of small, big, old and new manufacturing companies illustrates a perfect example of what the high tech, highly creative and passionate people in Colorado can create,” says Strand.

Denver’s effort could also become a template for the state and regional Colorado economic development entities, as there’s currently no uniform means to track growth across industry sectors nor agreement even on how to view manufacturing as a whole. I’ve argued that Colorado’s booming ‘lifestyle manufacturing’ sector, for example, deserves more attention in the broad scheme of things, given the alignment of these companies with everything Colorado should be promoting about its business community. Strand, and Denver, seem tuned-in to that imperative.

What’s clear through the weekly profiles in CompanyWeek is that manufacturers from across a dozen or so industry sectors share common challenges and needs, such as a more capable and qualified workforce. What should also be apparent is that collectively, they’re an engine of sustainable economic growth throughout the region. Providing the entire sector the tools to benchmark their current status and track progress is an important development.

Among the reasons I launched CompanyWeek was to showcase Colorado companies making and manufacturing products aligned with sports, recreation, and the lifestyle ethos unique to this region. All three companies profiled this week qualify; each are at a different place along the growth continuum.

The Fat Bike Company has received a lot of press lately because of explosive growth, but also because we’re on our way to becoming an epicenter for cycling-related manufacturing. The Fat-sters in Colorado Springs are only the latest example.

Zum XR’s still under the radar, but Bob Niichel’s technology-drink (my term) is already getting rave reviews. That Whole Foods, among others, sells the product speaks volumes.

Newton Running may be the poster-child, though, for the need to evaluate anew how Colorado organizes its economic development effort to support and leverage the innovation and making that’s underway here in the lifestyle space. Read the profile here, but suffice to say that Jerry Lee and the other founders of Newton have developed a global brand in Boulder, well known in their sector if not their home state.

They don’t manufacturer here, but very few in his space do, including iconic brands like Nike. Lee’s commitment to on-shore shoe making is sincere though; he’d hoped to launch Newton as an American-made product. Colorado still may not be his next manufacturing destination, such is the depth of the challenge to manufacture any apparel in the U.S. (also read our Janska and Loki profiles.) Somewhere in North America, out-of-Asia, would be progress, according to Lee.

But his brand, and success, and the growing ‘lifestyle manufacturing’ sector here beg the question: why not here? Or, why not begin to aggressively promote the state for its burgeoning ‘Lifestyle Manufacturing’ sector regardless of where some its products must be made – even as they’re designed or assembled or conceived here?

OEDIT, Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade, identifies 14 Key Industry sectors. It’s unclear to me where businesses like Newton or Fat Bike, Janska or Moots, KOTA or Big Agnes, reside in Colorado’s current nomenclature. In Advanced Manufacturing? Sure, some more than others, though this category is intended to highlight the state’s high-tech industrial assets. (Of which there are many). In Tourism and Outdoor Recreation? Not really: it’s a service sector, primarily, and consumers don’t come to Colorado to buy Newton running shoes.

Are innovators and entrepreneurs in lifestyle manufacturing part of Creative Industries? Of course. It’s an amazing sector that supports “nonprofit cultural organizations and government agencies”, primarily, “that produce and present arts and cultural activities”. But it’s not intended to be a catch-all that includes manufacturers.

Where then? The stakes are huge. Imagine a concerted effort including industry, economic development, higher-ed, and business like the sporting brands that make a killing off Colorado’s assets, in a push to position Colorado as the West’s — the nation’s — premier lifestyle manufacturing business destination.

Something Independent (S|I) has been storytelling in support of lifestyle companies here for years. They’ll again convene business to recognize the latest of a growing crop of Colorado companies next week at the third-annual Wright Awards. I asked Chuck Sullivan, one of S|I’s founders, whether the state could become an apparel manufacturing ‘hub’.

“At S|I we talk a lot about the intersection of lifestyle and commerce”, he says. “Colorado sits squarely at the hub of this convergence. It’s an attractive place to be. Whether it’s an apparel company, a ski or snowboard maker, a craft brewer or distiller, it’s first a state of mind. Pursuing the business that you love in the place you want to be.”

He gets warmed-up. “Then it grows to point where it’s the place you HAVE to be. And I think you are seeing that here in Colorado. There are quite a few apparel companies in Colorado — SmartWool in Steamboat Springs, Spyder in Boulder, and smaller ones like Shredly in Aspen and Jiberish in Denver. Flylow. Loki. And Pearl Izumi and Pactimo in cycling circles. It’s a good place to be”.

Ah, craft brewers. You’ll find the industry represented in Food & Agriculture, under the cow, which for the nation’s leading craft-brew exporter, may be under-selling Colorado beer. Not to mention our killer beef and ag manufacturing assets.

Beer’s a critical lifestyle component for me. A new industry alignment may do us both some good.

Late last month the Obama administration and U.S. Department of Commerce were busy awarding economic development grants throughout the nation including Colorado. The Office of Economic Development and International Trade was the recipient of a $200,000 grant to “…develop an implementation plan needed to establish an Advanced Industries Manufacturing Institute that will support business development and foster economic growth in the state.”

According to the official release, OEDIT “…has targeted seven key industries for this effort: advanced manufacturing, aerospace, bioscience, electronics, energy, infrastructure engineering and technology. The implementation plan will ultimately help establish an Advanced Industries Manufacturing Institute to drive growth in these sectors.” It’s been reported this new entity will focus on job training and workforce issues.

We’ll hear from OEDIT next week, but it’s very interesting to learn how other states view their manufacturing-sector challenges through the programs that also received grants and investments last month. The Colorado announcement was followed by news of a first round of awards from the Obama administration’s “Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership” program.

Among the $7 million dollars in grants and investments to entities in our region:

· $200,000 to Wichita State University to develop a comprehensive economic development strategy to identify, verify, refine, and prioritize key tactical manufacturing ecosystem investments and strategically align resources to support the region’s advanced manufacturing sector.

· $200,000 to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah to build a cluster-based development strategy to bring innovation, growth, and sustainability to the state’s advanced composites industry cluster through increased access to capital, research, global markets, and an enhanced innovation ecosystem.

· $200,000 to the Butte Local Development Corporation of Butte, Montana to establish the Montana Center of Manufacturing Technology at the Mike Mansfield Advanced Technology Center. The Center will leverage existing assets and facilitate collaboration between private and public entities to provide long-term economic and job growth solutions.


· $200,000 to the Campus Research Corporation of Tucson, Arizona to support the Border Technology Manufacturing Initiative, a regional planning group consisting of industry, workforce development, local government, and academia that will identify existing strengths and gaps in a 13-county region that spans the US/Mexico border from Yuma, Arizona to Las Cruces, New Mexico. 


· $200,000 to the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership of Palm Springs, California to develop an implementation-ready strategy to enhance the region’s capacity to attract and expand private investment in the manufacturing sector and increase international trade and exports.

· $140,000 to Yuma County, Arizona to develop a manufacturing strategy for Yuma County to help increase higher-skilled, higher-wage jobs by capitalizing on the county’s location along the U.S. – Mexico border.

· $171,864 to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council of Phoenix, Arizona to develop strategies to implement the Innovation and Commercialization Center for Advanced Manufacturing (ICCAM), a non-profit public-private partnership that will focus on helping the region grow its advanced manufacturing sector while preparing workers for related jobs.

· $178,750 to California State University at Fresno in Fresno, California to support the San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Manufacturing Investment Strategy and Sustainability Plan, which will move the region further toward value-added agriculture and help create and grow food manufacturing companies in the region.

· $135,000 to the Mid-Columbia Economic Development District of The Dalles, Oregon, to develop a strategic implementation plan in support of manufacturing businesses in the five-county bi-state Mid-Columbia region of Oregon and Washington.

· $100,000 to China Lake Technologies, LLC of Ridgecrest, California to develop a strategy to create new jobs in the region in the emerging bio-products industry. The strategy will work to build upon the region’s strong aviation, space and military presence, as well as their strength in agriculture.

Manufacturing’s clearly not an afterthought in the regional economic competition.