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.

Golf: Is It Necessary?

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

Don’t most business people like to golf? Is it vital to one’s success? I am not a golfer, nor do I entirely understand the appeal of chasing a very small ball around a very large grassy slope. Wouldn’t my time be better spent hiking or biking? However, business is my beat, and the Grand Valley business community loves to golf — so I set out to discover what I’m missing.

Diane Schwenke of the Grand Junction Area Chamber is an avid golfer and says it can’t be beat for building business relationships. Diane enjoys spending two hours (nine holes) or even four or five hours (for 18 holes) getting to know someone on the golf course. It’s not all business all the time. (She also said something about beer and popcorn.) Diane strongly believes in the value of golf relationships. Is it mere coincidence that the GJAC puts on an annual golf tournament in September to promote this networking tool? This year will be the 17th of these events.

Norm Franke of Alpine Bank plays golf almost exclusively for personal enjoyment. He comments that golf can be competitive or not, and if you are someone who likes to improve, it can be good for you. I laughed when he commented that if you are easily distracted, you might find it frustrating. Norm enjoys many outdoor sports, including skiing, and says that, as with many sports, golf is what you make of it. Golf can be fun or competitive. Golf can be pricy and take you to resorts all over the world — or not.

Ann Driggers of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership does not golf; she uses all her outdoor time for training. She gets a special pass because few can keep up with her on backcountry skis, mountain biking, or trail running. Although Ann does not spend her Friday afternoons wandering in the sunshine with bank presidents, she does use her recreational interests to promote the outdoor lifestyle that attracts so many companies to our community. See her Outdoor Junkie blog for the Daily Sentinel (See Ann Driggers’ blog at www.gjsentinel.com/blogs/outdoor_junkie/). It’s probably a good thing that Ann doesn’t play golf. Who knows what heights of athletic performance she might bring to the sport?

Nina Anderson of Express Employment says golf is great because you get to spend two hours outside participating in an activity that is not too strenuous and that can be enjoyed, if you so choose, while drinking a beer. (Do you see a motif emerging here?) She mentions that games like a scramble, where the team of players use the best ball of the group at each stroke, is a relaxing way for people of varying skills to enjoy the game together.

Greg Schaefer of Bray Real Estate Commercial told me a few months ago that he needed to get his hip replaced because it was affecting his golf swing. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. Greg has been playing since he was 12 years old and finds the game a continuous and constant challenge. He is drawn to golf because he is forever trying to improve what he did before. He notes that if a golfer is not trying to improve, that person is moving backward. Greg reads golf magazines and feels he might know the magic secret to shooting par but needs to play every day to get to that level. Luckily for Greg, several years ago the folks at Hilltop got his wife Sally hooked on the game. Sally uses golf as a business tool, seeing it as a different way to interact with staff and customers and good for team building. For Greg, it is an opportunity to relax and get away from work. The better you play, he notes, the more you like it.

After all this research, I conclude that I might give it a try. Discussing a business plan in the sunshine on a golf course doesn’t sound bad at all.

The business of Mountain Biking

The Bureau of Land Management has recently presented new data on the impact of mountain-biking tourism.  I am glad to see data to support that Mountain Biking brings in an estimated $24 million each year to the local economy.  Estimates indicate that since 2000 the number of riders in the valley has grown from 50,000 to 160,000.  This is serious business.


Forbes.com on Grand Valley Mountain Biking

Connecting....well at least virtually

I'm taking a quick poll.  How do you like to stay connected?
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The Entrepreneurs: Grand Valley Life

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

Communities that attract entrepreneurs and build strong, growing businesses tend to have a major research university, lots of PhDs, and a pack of venture capitalists throwing money at new inventions. The Grand Valley lacks all of these and yet is a thriving entrepreneurial community. So why exactly do people start their own companies here?
            I think it starts with an independent Western mind-set and an interest in solving problems ourselves. Add to that the fact that the Grand Valley has only a handful of large corporations, and 82 percent of the firms in our community have fewer than ten employees. Mix in the fact that it is very easy to start a business in Colorado (www.colorado.gov/cbe/ (Thank you to Bernie Buescher)), and our local governments are enthusiastic about new business development (for example, see Mesa County’s “Open for Business” initiative: www.mesacounty.us/openforbusiness/). And then top it off with demand for a wide variety of specialized services in sectors such as construction, natural extraction, health care, and recreation. This is not the kind of recipe or blend of factors that makes communities like Boston or San Francisco entrepreneurial, but it is what drives our local economy.
            Sometimes the choices we make about our professional careers have, at the core, more to do with our personal priorities than anything else. In digging deeper into what drives people to “put up a shingle” and go into businesses of their own, it really comes down to lifestyle. We see it every day at the Incubator Center: People choose to have their own business in order to take advantage of the flexibility this type of career gives them to accommodate other priorities.
            At the Incubator Center, you can see Kelly DeVries of Mollycoddle Soap (www.mollycoddlesoap.com), who cares for her kids during the day and works late into the night running her business. Fred Fowler of Delta Epsilon (www.deltaepsilon.com) often takes a road-bike ride at lunch, while Bruce Strong of Apex CAD Products (www.apexcadproducts.com) prefers taking a break in mid-afternoon to go mountain biking. Matt Mayer of Mayer Medical Technologies (www.mayermedical.com) is active in the Grand Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited and coaches his daughter’s soccer team, but he’s in his office both early and late to balance out his family and work obligations. In downtown Grand Junction, Matthew Breman of Cranium 360 (www.cranium360.com) travels from Alaska to Florida growing his thriving marketing firm and still serves the community as president of the United Way of Mesa County. In Fruita, Jen Zeuner and Anne Keller are hard at work renovating a building to become the new Hot Tomato Café (www.hottomatocafe.com)  — a business that blends their passions for mountain biking, pizza, and good times. And in Palisade, Naomi Shepard-Smith shares her passion for art with wine at Grand Valley Vineyards (www.grandvalleywine.com) . There are thousands of other examples, but in each case, people are finding ways to have a successful professional life in balance with all the rest: with family, with recreation, and with passions that fulfill the spirit.
            The same things that make the Valley so attractive (a family-friendly community, abundant outdoor activities, and proximity to the mountains, the desert, rivers, and canyons) also make this a wonderful place to start a business. Business owners do get to decide how much to take on and when to do it, and along with that freedom comes a lot of work and a huge challenge. Still, it’s a workable and popular method to get more out of our Grand Valley lifestyle. Is it the road map for you? That’s something to think about.