ColoradoBiz articles from February 2008

ColoradoBiz archives from February 2008

10 under-the-radar private golf courses for your corporate tournament: members only? Not really. Clubs chase corporate-events business.(BETTER CORPORATE TOURNAMENTS)
February 1, 2008... One of the lesser-known facts in the event business is that traditional private country clubs can be rented out at reasonable rates for corporate tournaments and meetings on Mondays. Today, exclusive clubs are aggressively chasing corporate...

Playing into the wind: private clubs are making a comeback but must appeal to a rootless generation.
February 1, 2008... It used to be, if you wanted to play a great golf course with smooth, manicured greens and velvet fair-ways, you had to join a country club. The golf boom of the 1990s ended all that, as suburbs built golf courses that rivaled the best private...

Colorado charity golf events, confirmed for 2008.
February 1, 2008... April 18 P.H.E.F. Golf Tournament Hollydot Golf Course April 26 4-H Tournament Hollydot Golf Course May 2 Veronika String Quartet Tournament Hollydot Golf Course May 12 16th Annual Girls...

A bevy of newborn beauties: a summary of cobizmag.com reviews of the state's newest golf courses, from Ballyneal in Holyoke to upscale Ravenna and Trinidad's Cougar Canyon.(COURSE REVIEWS)
February 1, 2008... As we sit here in the forlorn, nearly empty, post-Christmas office at WiesnerMedia in the middle of a raging snowstorm, thoughts turn to the pleasant: the bevy of new golf courses that we were fortunate enough to review during the warm, sunny...

Investing in clean tech powers up former Oracle executive: VC partner to speak at Denver Sustainable-business Summit.(COTE'S colorado)
February 1, 2008... Getting involved in public policy is not something you normally associate with a venture capital firm. But when you're investing in alternative energy startups, it's hard to level the playing field: Your competition has a 100-year head start....

A management migraine: lessons in communication from mushrooms.(on MANAGEMENT)(best managemetn techniques for business)(Viewpoint essay)
February 1, 2008... As I write this, I'm on my way to a Central American country to help friends change out some management. And when I say change out I mean we are trying to fix a disaster and get restarted on a new course. The sad part is that I was one of the...

Is it inflation or just a price increase?(the ECONOMIST)(trends in consumer price indexes)
February 1, 2008... "You economists just don't understand what's important," said the photographer, settling down for a chat after an hour of PR shots. "It's not inflation that people are worried about. It's that prices are going up." That conversation...

Evidence-based entrepreneurship is driven by data--just like the Oakland A's.(GUEST column)
February 1, 2008... Jeremy Brown is fat. In 2002, Brown also walked more times than any other player in college baseball. The statisticians loved him. The scouts didn't. One of the scouts went so far as to say, "If he played in corduroy he'd start a fire." So...

Union Station project on track for groundbreaking in late 2008.(DEVELOPMENT)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Critics accuse government of grinding away at projects slowly and expensively, for example, Boston's notorious $14.8 billion Big Dig. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By Big Dig standards, the Denver region's Union Station redevelopment project...

Larry H. Harmsen.(ON THE RECORD)
February 1, 2008... "As matter of fact, warehousing is so dull and boring I wouldn't recommend anyone getting into it." --Larry H. Harmsen, managing director of ProLogis, the Denver-based industrial space giant. Harmsen made the quip in jest after a national...

51.(BY THE NUMBERS)(National Federation of Independent Business uses verification system to judge eligibility of applicant)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... 51 The percentage of Colorado small-business owners polled by the NFIB who are in favor of requiring employers to use a nationwide verification system to determine whether a job applicant is eligible to work in the U.S.

43,200.(BY THE NUMBERS)(job vancancies)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... 43,200 The estimated number of new jobs in Colorado in 2007, up about 1.8 percent, according to the Vectra Bank Small Business Index. Between 1993 and 2000, the state averaged 77,000 new jobs a year.

Revising the ranks of the green.(ENERGY)(commercial buildings used green design)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... It seems Denver is being topped with green a bit faster than we thought. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the November issue of ColoradoBiz, we featured photos of the Environmental Protection Agency's headquarters in Denver and UMB's...

Scott Binder: Comcast exec is 'world's fittest CEO'.(EXECUTIVE edge)(Scott Binder of Comcast Cable Communications Inc.)
February 1, 2008... It was only natural that Scott Binder, senior vice president of Comcast Colorado, would nab the title of 2007 Fittest CEO in the World by winning the CEO Ironman Challenge World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, last fall. Adventure runs in the...

Doyennes of the digital age: women have made vast strides in almost every profession. So why do they make up barely 4 percent of tech entrepreneurs?(Q1 TECH REPORT)(Cover story)
February 1, 2008... Sue Kunz is used to people being surprised to find out she and her business partner, Char Devich, are the founders of Solidware Technologies Inc., an award-winning Boulder company that has created a new kind of platform for evaluating the...

A simple plan for success: "Build, Buy or Sell" is the slogan of ACG Denver's 6th Annual Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference, and that about sums it up. In corporate life, what more is there?(Association for Corporate Growth)(Conference news)
February 1, 2008... A business either grows through reinvestment of its own surpluses or other types of internal infusions, or it buys another entity, or it sells part or all of itself. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] After that explanation it gets considerably...

Capital Connection[TM] 2008 offers networking for dealmakers.(conference on ever changing trends in financial markets)
February 1, 2008... With the continued uncertainty in the capital and debt markets, ink your attendance at the 6th Annual Capital Connection[TM] on March 13 (www.rmcgc.com). The biggest local event matching private equity, intermediaries and companies, this is a...

ACG Member of the Year: Christopher Pelley.(A passion for social change)(Association for Corporate Growth)
February 1, 2008... Chris Pelley walks his talk. He showed up at ACG five years ago and has consistently, and patiently, raised more sponsorship money than any of ACG's 11,000-plus members worldwide. For his efforts he was recently named ACG Member of the Year....

Denver group named Chapter of the Year.(A passion for social change)(Association for Corporate Growth award ceremony for coroprate growth)(Conference news)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... The Association for Corporate Growth-Denver was named ACG Chapter of the Year out of 53 chapters worldwide at the ACG InterGrowth conference in Phoenix in early May. The Denver association of corporate executives and professionals is...

6th Annual Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference.(Conference news)
February 1, 2008... BUILD, BUY, OR SELL Driving Corporate Growth Presented by JPMorganChase March 12-13, 2008 The Inverness Hotel and Conference Center Englewood, CO www.rmcgc.com [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Fanning the flames of a brushfire business: the chief executives of this year's Association for Corporate Growth-Denver's Outstanding Corporate Growth Award winners have a lot in common, considering that one runs a systems integration consulting company and one runs a restaurant chain.
February 1, 2008... The two have never met, yet Mac Slingerlend, president and CEO of CIBER Inc., and Kevin Reddy, president and CEO of Noodles & Co., share many of the same traits: fierce pride in their companies and employees; a strong business model; emphasis...

The pursuit of greatness: luncheon speaker Joe Calloway focuses on how companies can become extraordinary.
February 1, 2008... Joe Calloway is one of three high-powered speakers at the 6th Annual Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference luncheon on Thursday, March 13, and he is tickled that the speaker at the ACG breakfast that morning is to be Howard Putnam. ...

Business executives will be WOW'd by telecom executive Colleen Abdoulah.
February 1, 2008... "The 'WOW Way' is a rather unique way. We are a group of people who 'lead with courage. Serve with heart. Celebrate with grace.' This means everyone works hard to display the courage to do the right thing, serve each other and our customers...

Message to women seeking the executive suite: Don't sell yourself short; Cable executive Colleen Abdoulah says women should play up their strengths and support each other.(Interview)
February 1, 2008... The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Colleen Abdoulah, CEO of WOW! Internet-Cable-Phone by ColoradoBiz Editor Mike Cote. Visit the video archives at co-bizmag.com to watch the interview, which was posted Dec. 18. ...

After the storm: conference aims to help companies ramp up growth strategies.(Conference news)
February 1, 2008... There's nothing like a little turbulence to fire up the marketplace--all the more reason to reconnect with colleagues in the industry. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "The Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference offers all the players in...

If the foam shoe fits: could 50 million Crocs fans be wrong? As the company diversifies its product line and ramps ups to meet demand, it faces legal battles with investors and competitors.(Company overview)
February 1, 2008... It's the beach clog that has taken over the world. From tots walking with their mothers in the mall to the president of the United States captured on camera wearing a pair of black Crocs with black socks, the rubbery boat shoe with the ankle...

Beyond nuts & bolts: Dave Hight and his son Barry have kept Boulder's McGuckin Hardware an independent enterprise.(Statistical table)(Company overview)
February 1, 2008... It's the classic tale from the cutthroat retail world. A big box comes to town and crushes the local independent store through the sheer power of its sales volume and the ability to dictate low prices from its vendors. Barry Hight could...

Flag company takes country's patriotic pulse.(SMALL biz)
February 1, 2008... Patriotism might be hard to define, but for Jeff Tomczak it's not hard to measure. "After all these years, it's either a gut feeling or an educated guess or a combination," he says. Tomczak, 42, is president and CEO of Show Your Colors...

Company SunFlower Corp.(small biz TECH STARTUP)
February 1, 2008... INITIAL LIGHT BULB: During a Department of Energy seminar geared toward reducing energy use in the region's schools in 2004, SunFlower co-founder and vice president of product development Larry Kinney gave a lecture on daylighting, the practice...

ImagiPLAY toys.(COLORADO COOL STUFF small biz)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... After a career that included stints as a recording engineer, personal trainer and Japanese translator, Barbera Aimes was ready for something different. So she purchased the rights to a line of cardboard building blocks and launched a toy...

Sambah Naturals.(COLORADO COOL STUFF small biz)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... In 2005, Andre Houssney was working for a Boulder-based ministry that was engaged in philanthropy in Zambia. As a token of his appreciation, a local tribal leader gave Houssney's church a sizable plot of land. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

XingTea.(COLORADO COOL STUFF small biz)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Brothers Scott and Tom LeBon, president and vice president/CEO respectively of Denver-based distributor New Age Beverage, have been in the Colorado beverage business for more than 20 years. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Since the turn of the...

Cruisin' the fossil freeway book and map.(COLORADO COOL STUFF small biz)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 1, 2008... "As a 5-year-old, I found a fossil in Wyoming," said Kirk Johnson of his personal "paleonerd" origin. "I kind of lost it, and never regained it." Johnson, now vice president and chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science,...

Live from Vegas: the future of sports entertainment.(SPORTS biz)
February 1, 2008... I have seen the future of televised sports, and it's going to look amazing on your wall. The only thing is, you're going to need a bigger house. How else to accommodate the mother of all TV sets, a 150-inch, flat-panel, high-definition...

Nano-pricing.(RUNDLES wrap-up)(Editorial)
February 1, 2008... The first time I ever encountered a computer, they wheeled in a behemoth that looked like a vending machine and told us it was connected to the real computer, which was the size of a building. I have more computing power now on my Blackberry....