| GEOTECHNOLOGIES
Undisputed Capital
Colorado Front Range embraces and nurtures GeoTechnologies
By Kevin P. Corbley Country music has Nashville. The automobile industry has Detroit. Showbiz has Hollywood. And the GeoTechnology industry has Denver.
That's right. The Denver, Colorado, area has emerged as the unofficial, yet undisputed, capital of the GeoTechnologies. In fact, the 130 mile Rocky Mountain Front Range corridor between Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, which includes Denver and Boulder, is home to more than 10% of all remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and mapping companies in the United States.
Taking into account federal GIS and remote sensing work performed by the U.S. Geological Survey and Bureau of Land Management in Denver, the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, and Department of Defense in Colorado Springs, the total percentage of GeoTechnology activity is actually much higher.
"A snowball effect is occurring here," said Jack Keever, president of Adams County Economic Development. "Because so many GeoTechnology organizations are already located in the Denver area, more want to move here all the time."
And local city and county governments are loving it because GeoTechnology companies are bringing with them high paying jobs and are snapping up graduates from Colorado colleges and universities at a record pace.
The positive impact the GeoTechnologies are having on the local economy has become so significant that Adams County, in the Denver metropolitan area, has launched a targeted campaign to recruit remote sensing, GIS, and GPS firms to move within its borders.
Adams County officials have carefully examined the concentration of businesses in the Front Range community and believe the area can attract companies in virtually every segment of the GeoTechnology industry because such a diverse cross-section is represented now (see sidebar).
"The entire GeoTechnology industry in all of its component parts is here-data providers, software developers, hardware manufacturers, value-added and data conversion firms, consulting companies, professional associations, and even publishing companies," said Keever.
This geographic clustering of organizations from a common industry is incredibly appealing to start-up and transplant companies because of the partnering and subcontracting opportunities it offers. Moreover, few GeoTechnical firms view Denver as an overcrowded marketplace or a competitive liability because most are selling their products and services worldwide. Front Range Offers Many Advantages
Quality of life, outstanding educational programs, a strong federal presence, and a concentration of other high-tech industries have helped make the Front Range the GeoTechnology capital and continue to fuel its growth.
"It's very easy to attract people to the Denver area from outside the state because of the quality of life and recreational activities," said Glenn Montgomery, president of the Convergent Group in the Denver Tech Center.
The Rocky Mountains boast some of the best skiing, mountain biking, hiking, and white water rafting in the country, all within driving distance of Denver. The city itself has a higher percentage of sunny days than San Diego or Honolulu, and offers residents four professional sports teams and the largest performing arts complex in the country. While mountains and spectator sports may attract people, it takes more than ski resorts to lure an entire company to a new area.
"Companies have confidence they can recruit into the Front Range and quality of life is a big part of that," said Dolores Wilson, director of economic development for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. "But the primary thing attracting companies to the area is our skilled work force."
Denver has the second highest percentage of degreed residents in the nation. Numerous graduate and undergraduate programs with courses in GIS and remote sensing provide a large talent pool for GeoTechnology businesses. The University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, and the University of Denver all offer courses in GeoTechnical disciplines.
"One of the reasons we moved here was because CSU is here and we could hire right out of school with minimal training," said Russ Cowart, president of information integration & imaging (i3) in Fort Collins.
Another factor contributing to industry growth has been a long-standing involvement in remote sensing, GIS, and GPS at local federal government facilities. In Fort Collins, for example, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service employees involved in developing the world's first GIS more than 20 years ago went on to establish major firms in the industry, including GIS World Inc. and Genasys.
Many in the surveying and mapping community view Colorado Springs as the birthplace of GPS because that's where the Defense Department operates its constellation of positioning satellites, which spawned an entire industry. Still others see the Denver Federal Center as the first real hub of GeoTechnology activity in the state.
"The USGS is why so many GIS vendors moved here," said Laura Mizula of PlanGraphics in Golden. "They came to get contracts."
The largest employer in the area, the Federal Center is a sprawling campus just west of downtown Denver where the USGS, BLM, and Bureau of Reclamation rely heavily on remote sensing imagery and GIS technology for research projects and map production.
The federal government, however, is not the only source of contracts in the Front Range. Lucrative relationships have been forged between GeoTechnical service companies and other local industries. The best examples are telecommunications, mining, and environmental consulting; all growing users of imagery, GIS and mapping services, and thriving in the Front Range of the Rockies. Incentives Can Close a Deal
Despite the advantages Colorado offers GeoTechnology companies, moving or establishing a business in a different state is still an expensive proposition. This is why Adams County has assumed a pro-active role in marketing itself specifically to GeoTechnology companies with offers of significant financial incentive packages.
"The GeoTechnologies demonstrated they want to be in the Front Range, and that convinced us to recruit them to our county," said John Cody, manager of development for the Adams County Economic Development office. "We feel Adams County can compete with any county in the area to attract these businesses."
The location and development status of the county help make it competitive. It includes many of the north and northeastern Denver suburbs that have direct access to downtown. Adams County has hundreds of acres of land in well established business parks ready for development. In addition, the county surrounds the new Denver International Airport, which many predict will become a high-tech corridor similar to that of Dulles Airport in Virginia.
"We moved to Westminster [in Adams County] because it put us between Boulder and Denver without the traffic congestion of either," said Russell Chandler, president of GeoData Solutions Inc., a spatial integration company.
Another factor that makes Adams County appealing to the GeoTechnologies is that it has done its homework on the industry. When Space Imaging decided to move to Denver in 1995, the county's economic development office learned of the plans and aggressively courted the company.
The office worked with the county government and school district to offer a rebate on property taxes while the City of Thornton rebated a portion of its use tax for the satellite operator. With an incentives package worth $3 million, the county scored a major coup when Space Imaging chose Thornton as the site for its headquarters.
"As a commercial startup, minimizing operating expenses was very important to us," said John Copple, Space Imaging's CEO. "There was no other serious incentives package offered by the other two alternative sites."
According to Copple, the relocation assistance offered by Adams County went beyond mere financial incentives. After establishing its headquarters in the county, Space Imaging began searching for a ground station site that had some special requirements, one of which was an unobstructed view of the horizon so its large antenna could receive image data from the orbiting satellites.
"We made it a point to learn as much as we could about site and location requirements unique to the Earth observation business," said Cody.
The Thornton mayor and city council acted quickly to approve an ordinance protecting the field of view in and around the proposed antenna site. This restricts the height of future buildings adjacent to the ground station site to avoid interference with antenna reception.
As a result, the satellite operator has invested more than $100 million in its new headquarters and ground station in the county. High-Tech Synergy in the Rockies
Adams County's plan to market itself to the GeoTechnologies has met with approval from local chambers of commerce because it dovetails with an area-wide strategy to lure high-tech businesses to Colorado. Although the state has one of the lowest unemployment percentages and fastest economic growth rates in the nation now, only a decade ago the economy was brought to its knees by the freefall in oil prices.
Since then, the Front Range has concentrated on attracting a diversity of businesses to the region. The program has been tremendously successful. Aside from GeoTechnologies, the Denver area is called home by numerous major aerospace, telecommunications, and computer software companies.
"It's no coincidence that each of these three industries overlaps into the GeoTechnologies," said Cody. "We are achieving a high-tech synergy in Colorado that is being recognized around the world, and that will help all of our businesses prosper in the global market for a long time to come." About the Author:
Kevin P. Corbley is a consultant and freelance writer specializing in remote sensing, GIS and GPS. He is located in Denver, Colorado, and may be reached at 303-722-0312 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Back |
