This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
This was an annual Longmont EDP event intended to show appreciation for current Longmont EDP investors and educate and inform potential investors about the value of investing in the economic vitality of their community through contributing to the work of the Longmont EDP, a public/private non-profit economic development organization serving Longmont.
This year’s event, featured a keynote address by J.J. Ament, CEO of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.
Ament spoke at length about many different facts about Colorado economic data including:
- DIA airport generates $28 billion dollars a year in economic activity.
- All of the US is a 4-hour flight so most people can get anywhere and back in one day.
- 2nd most highly educated workforce in the US (behind Massachusetts).
- We have 30 federal research labs which are public-private partnerships contributing over $2B a year.
- 11 public universities, 4 private, 250K students.
- 300 days of sun a year.
- 47 state and national parks.
- 350 breweries in Colorado.
- More live music venues than in Nashville or Austin.
He went on to talk about the history of Colorado's growth from a 9.1% unemployment rate and being the nation's leader in business failures in the late 80's to our current 2.3% unemployment rate and our massive growth of influx of new people and business.
His general trend was the need for all of us to think of us as a region, not just small pockets of economic activity.
Ament also talked about how our different areas now work together vs. against each other, putting aside the political and overly local focuses pitting communities against each other.
Ament has a board of governors of 220 businesses. His executive committee is 110 businesses. He stressed how they operate under a code of ethics to have all the different areas to work together and not against each other. If we're going to fight let's fight with other states and regions outside of Colorado to win businesses away from them. Usually, it's the other way around and companies report back that is much better working with Colorado than other cities and states.
Aerospace, aviation, beverage and food production, as well as agriculture, are big businesses for Colorado. Agriculture and food science are an area that we'll be focusing more on in the future. Of the ten most productive counties in the US for food production, 9 are in California. The 10th is here in Colorado: Weld County.
Other areas are Bioscience, telecom, energy and financial services. We have 30,000 employee's in financial services.
Ament talked at length about Amazon and it's potential selection of Colorado as it's 2nd headquarters with it's $5 billion dollar capital investment and 50,000 employees (over 10-15 years).
"We submitted a single group response without picking a specific area, leaving that to Amazon to decide."
Ament talked about New Jersey offering $7 Billion in tax incentives. "That kind of thing is illegal in Colorado and we didn't offer any of that to Amazon.
"The things we showed Amazon are no different than what we offer to any other company interested in Colorado, or already in Colorado and wishing to grow.
"We don't 'buy' relocations or expansions in Colorado."
There are 80 other companies, besides Amazon, that are looking at locating in Colorado.
Ament talked about the political discourse and how the current environment has extremes (left or right) that layout utopia or the end of the world and that is not how life works.
"Business", Ament said, "operates in the space between."
"There are some issues that we need to deal with, however. Our unemployment rate is 2.3% but 1 in 4 Colorado citizens qualify for Medicaid. Those two things should not be simultaneously true.
"Another issue is transportation. The state of Colorado's general fund invests zero dollars in the states transportation infrastructure.
"Public pensions are an unfunded liability of $34 Billion dollars. The entire state of Colorado's budget is $30 Billion dollars. Twenty-four percent of payrolls go toward paying the debt on this liability."
Energy and water are also issues. They host the Colorado Energy Coalition where the Oil and Gas people site down with Renewable energy people and figure out how to work together.
Ament then took a few questions.
Jessica Erickson, Executive Director of the Longmont Economic Development Partnership then gave a talk about the specific accomplishments of LEDP over the last year and gave her thanks to the organizations and people that had helped and contributed to Longmont's business successes. The Longmont Observer will address her talk in a separate article and interview with Ms. Erickson, although her talk is included in this video and starts at about 44m 30s into the video.
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