Looking at an Economic Recovery...of a New Sort

Published in Grand Valley Magazine (www.grandvalleymagazine.com) - May 2010

Signs of an economy recovery are sprouting up throughout the Grand Valley: The Mesa County Manufacturers’ Council meetings are full of activity, and new businesses are popping up in downtown Grand Junction and Fruita. Cabela’s is coming, the Dream Café is thriving (and delicious), Brown’s Cycles has expanded, The Hot Tomato Café re-opens this month, the gas rigs are plowing along slow and steady, and Mesa State is still building and expanding. Maybe the sky is not falling anymore.

The thing is, we are not going back to the way things were. This rapid uptick and then equally rapid downturn has made us all a little wiser and a little better at doing our jobs. When business was booming, workers were extremely hard to come by. Companies invested in efficiency to reduce their dependence on workers. Action Publishing implemented a program called “Lean Manufacturing” to make their operation more efficient. Grady Busse explains, “Lean allows us to produce more product and better product with fewer people.” This is good for business and good for the workers because “The jobs that remain are far better and far more enjoyable,” he continues. It is tough for the community because, although there are good jobs, there are just fewer of them.

The job climate for manufacturers remains uncertain. Sven Wedekin, president of GPD-Global, explains that GPD is now challenged to manage strong growth. “Basically, we saw a tremendous increase in demand beginning November of 2009 that continues into this year,” he says. “Prior to that time, as a capital equipment manufacturer, we were significantly impacted by the recession. We had reduced our staffing level as much as we could to survive the downturn. When business turned around, we hired a number of people through a temp agency, and we continue to maintain our temporary staff because, given current market conditions, we can only forecast out two or three months at a time. Gradually, we will bring qualified, talented people on to our core staff.”

Thinking that things will return to the way they were is not logical. All this change has caused our business community to doubt their forecast’s stability and to think creatively about ways to grow their business in a dynamic environment. Wedekin comments that the past year has not been a time to sit idle and wait for the recovery. “During the downturn,” he says, “GPD developed a couple of new products, which we hope will add to our revenue stream this year.” Busse’s business focuses at its core on teaching students life-enhancement skills, and he sees that the best vehicle to deliver that service in the future may not be their current offering of paper agendas. To this end they are investing in iPhone and iPad products that he believes may be the future of his business. “We are in a slow transition,” he explains, “and as we move to electronic products, things may change again. Looking down the pipe, we could move away from a room full of printing staff to a room full of programmers.”

Ultimately it is innovation that will allow our local economy to grow and create new jobs as the old ones become obsolete and fade away. The real challenge will be for all the talented, creative people in the Grand Valley who have been laid off and cannot expect that a recovery will translate into getting their jobs back. Your old job may not exist anymore. This is a good time to re-evaluate your career choices. Are your skills declining in demand? Or are you part of the growing needs in our community?

As we think about the next steps and how to adapt to a new economy, I would suggest thinking about how to use your skills to solve problems. What are the new “pain points” in our community? It is true that completely new and paradigm-changing, disruptive technologies are wonderful, but they are complex and not all innovation has to be complicated. Being innovative just means that you are looking to solve a problem that no one else is solving right now. One of my favorite recent business starts came from Shawn Montgomery. Shawn was looking for a chimney sweep and discovered that there were only two businesses doing this in town. He felt that the demand was greater than those two could serve. The next day Chim Chim Chimney Sweep was born to help address an underserved market. Need identified, solution created. It can be that simple.

Be scrappy. Be creative. Look for opportunities now, because change always creates opportunity.