Observations

Big ideas.

Let’s see. We’ve got ConocoPhillips, now in its third year of planning, wanting more time before building its global training center in Louisville with the promise of 7,000 jobs over a 20-year span.

Let’s see. We’ve got a group looking for a place to create the Aerospace and Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Park somewhere between Fort Collins and Boulder with the promise of 10,000 jobs over five years.

Wow – 17,000 jobs right there. Big number.

Big ideas like these are necessary. Make one happen, and it can move the unemployment needle. Yet, they take time, effort and money, and I say the odds of these big ideas becoming a reality any time soon are really long.

Crack my knuckles with a ruler, but when it comes to the lofty job numbers thrown around by the organizers of the big ideas, I am a Doubting Thomas. Ten thousand jobs? Hmm, that’s about 10 Seagates in Longmont.

More realistically, job growth, I think, comes in small doses — like a small software company adding a couple of code writers here, or a pharmaceutical company adding a couple of bioscience engineers there. Small seems more doable.

What if the 2,000 companies in the Boulder Valley all added just two jobs each in the coming year? Let’s see. That’s about 4,000 jobs. That’s a big number, too.

Somewhere in between the big and small ideas live the area’s economic-development organizations. They constantly are beating the bushes to find companies that may move into the area and bring jobs that need to be filled by the local work force.

For example, there’s the Longmont Area Economic Council’s Prospect No. 2002 – a waste-to-energy company looking for an existing 70,000-square-foot building with at least 18-foot-high ceilings, and it could mean 800 jobs. Companies that tap into the resources of the economic-development organizations tend not to exaggerate job numbers. Note: Prospects are never identified. Where is WikiLeaks when you need it? 

But organizers of big ideas know that jobs are the hot-button topic, and I fear they are attaching unrealistic job numbers to projects to generate excitement and goodwill. So do politicians: They play the jobs card to gain favor among voters.

Listen to new Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. During his first day in office he began beating the jobs drum. I’m eager to hear how he plans to do this without throwing taxpayer money at it.

Governor, please convince the Legislature to back off on costly rules and red tape that hamstring small businesses, preventing them from adding a job or two.

In the past, unions have played havoc with job rosters, stunting a company’s ability to grow a work force because of their extreme demands. So I was pleasantly surprised when the Colorado AFL-CIO held a Jobs Rally earlier this month and unveiled a new agenda called Reinvest in Colorado. Instead of promoting union jobs as they have in the past, unions said their focus now is on jobs for everyone that pay good wages and provide benefits. We’ll see if this warm and fuzzy approach gains any traction.

The unemployed need jobs. Workers need raises. Economic developers need to keep a positive attitude. We do need some optimism. Keep the big ideas coming, just curb the jobs enthusiasm. Let us just see what jobs may come.

Doug Storum can be reached at 303-630-1959 or via e-mail at dstorum@bcbr.com.

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