Modern Manufacturing Moving Forward in Denver
You've heard me talk about the importance of manufacturing to Denver since before I took office. As our sixth largest sector, it is an important piece of our economy and a source of much-needed middle income jobs.
Since then my office has connected dozens of manufacturing businesses to city services, other peers, training providers and trade organizations. We also work to raise the profile of this sector through articles like the Denver Business Journal piece below. During this time Denver has also developed greater expertise and focus on business assistance and workforce development to manufacturers to support job retention and growth, and Mayor Hancock and Office of Economic Development Director Paul Washington continue to make advanced manufacturing a priority through their efforts like the recently released Jump Start 2013 Economic Development Plan. Jump Start 2013 goals include:
- Developing a Manufacturing Center and an International Economic Zone at DIA with shared research/design facilities, precision manufacturing parks and warehousing/distribution facilities located in foreign trade zones.
- Greater community outreach and manufacturing development at the ASARCO site.
- Closing the manufacturing workforce gap by hosting industry forums with business leaders in manufacturing to identify skills gaps and allocate resources, helping to ensure a qualified workforce.
Denver has already held several manufacturing workforce events to develop a strategic plan for better preparing and matching workers who need jobs with openings for skilled employees in advanced manufacturing, and that work will continue in 2013 under the leadership of the Office of Economic Development.
OED will also be promoting the Business Personal Property tax rebate incentive for major investments in new facilities or equipment that I helped to include in the 2A package that voters approved last November.
Please read about my ideas for next steps to retain and grow modern manufacturing in the Denver Business Journal and share your feedback. Lastly, a great event and an opportunity to join the discussion:
OED and Co-Biz Magazine Hosts Made-In-Colorado Manufacturing Forum
A Statewide media and event initiative to promote Colorado manufacturing.
When: April 16, 2013 from 1:30-5:30
Where: McNichols Civic Center Building
Cost: $69
OED is seeking industry, business, association, and education participants to join the City’s Advanced Manufacturing 2013 Advisory Council. Goals include:
- Develop immediate talent pipeline with a long term plan
- Branding and targeted outreach
- Resource for curriculum development
- Connecting to current state initiatives HB 13-1165 (Manufacturing Career Pathways) and HB 1101 (Advanced Industries) and other regional efforts
Contact Elizabeth Ojeda at Denver's Office of Economic Development for more information:.
Forward. Together.
Councilwoman Robin Kniech
Read my article in the Denver Business Journal:
Manufacturing is essential to Denver’s prosperity
By: Robin Kniech
Not everyone thought it was cool to focus on manufacturing as a core economic goal in 2010. My city council campaign consultants worried “people won’t really understand what you’re talking about.” A major industrial landholder in the city asked me if I’d “heard of globalization?"
Others pointed to the economic impact of a growing arts sector, and the attention focused on young startups and technology development, implying that manufacturing just might not be compatible with the future envisioned by Denver’s ever-growing creative class.
But even though I was raised by a factory-worker mother in the industrial Midwest, and I have first-hand experience with how a middle-income job with benefits makes for a good, if not easy, life for a family, my passion for manufacturing isn’t based on nostalgia. It’s based on the economic evidence of why this sector matters today, and the potential economic impact we in local government can have if we support and promote its future.
• Denver benefits from a more diverse economy. Though it may not be our largest sector, more than one-third of the manufacturing firms and jobs in the metro region still call Denver home. We have seen precipitous declines in manufacturing employment, due both to recession and less labor-intensive technology advances.
But when recessions do hit, an economy overly reliant on one sector — for example, construction — can be devastating. A small but vibrant manufacturing sector is key to our future economic diversity.
• Primary jobs such as manufacturing create more jobs. We all know that more than 70 percent of the economy is made up of consumer spending. Production jobs offer a higher median wage than service jobs, which means more money flowing to families and then back into our economy as they purchase more goods and services.
The disappearing middle class isn’t an ideological concern — it’s an economic threat. And cities whose income distribution looks more like bell curves, with lots of families in the middle with salaries to spend, will be stronger than those that look like barbells with concentrations of rich and poor.
• Not every product can or should be made overseas. Denver thrives in the food and beverage production sector, for example, because things that expire need to be close to their markets, and we’re well-suited for distribution through the West.
We don’t have to fancy ourselves the next auto-manufacturing center to strengthen our production economy.
We should be identifying products that need a quick time to market, or those that can be shipped by air from our world-class airport, those that we are consuming a lot of locally, or those we can grow because of our workforce characteristics or geography.
If the creative class is inventing these products in Denver, doesn’t it make sense to try to make some of them here too?
• Advanced manufacturing isn’t my mother’s factory. The next generation of manufacturing is greener and cleaner than its predecessor. We still have heavy industry in Denver that plays a role in our economy but can be hard on neighbors because of odors and potential environmental impacts.
We must work harder to mitigate these impacts, but also to understand that advanced manufacturing can be designed to create fewer impacts through superior technology methods.
Industrial activity isn’t the highest and best use for every parcel of increasingly expensive real estate in urban Denver, but we in local government must recognize its value and commit to making sure it has a place.
This includes preserving key industrial corridors with high-demand rail and transportation access as industrial. It means re-envisioning mixed-use areas and transition zones with more modern, low-impact manufacturing that’s compatible with new residential and services, and making sure our civic leaders and residents help create and understand that vision as well.
It might mean helping to form a network where one manufacturer’s waste can become another producer’s industrial input, reducing waste and cost while boosting profits for both companies.
Or better: leveraging federal manufacturing extension dollars through local partnerships to help boost efficiency, worker training and competitive advantage to keep companies in business in the face of competition.
What if every Denver resident could name five products “made in Denver,” and we promoted those products with pride?
“Thank you for doing business here” are the first words I say when I meet a Denver manufacturer. And we are headed in the right direction with a mayor, economic development director and JumpStart 2013 plan focused on saying that more often to more of the businesses in our city, including manufacturers.
Now it’s time to take that enthusiasm further, to demonstrate what we know: Manufacturing doesn’t have to be dumb, dirty, dangerous or disappearing. It can foster creativity, economic activity and high-quality products fully compatible with our future as a world-class city if we build it that way.
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Denver City Councilwoman Robin Kniech, At-Large
City & County Building, 1437 Bannock Street, Room 432 | Denver, CO 80202 | 720-337-7712
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@Robin Kniech, Denver City Council At-large
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