Briefcase – March 2014
BRIEFS
Broomfield-based Aircell, the business aviation group of Gogo Inc. (Nasdaq: GOGO), received Supplemental Type Certificates from the European Aviation Safety Agency for installation of in-flight connectivity and entertainment systems aboard Bombardier Challenger 300 business jets. The certifications cover the AVIATOR 300 and UCS 5000 systems.
Six startup client companies joined Innosphere, a nonprofit technology incubator with locations in Fort Collins and Golden. They are: Vairex Air Systems, a designer, manufacturer and seller of air compressors for the global hydrogen fuel cell and diesel emissions controls markets; WeatherCloud, which utilizes automobiles as weather sensors to produce road weather forecasts; Prieto Battery, a Colorado State University spinoff aimed at commercializing a patented three-dimensional lithium-ion battery technology that uses non-toxic materials; Kindara, an app to help women and men navigate their fertility; 30dB, a free opinion search and opinion publishing platform; and (e)Gauge, a suite of web-based apps to help organizations align resources to grow.
CLOSINGS
Louisville-based health and wellness company Gaiam Inc. (Nasdaq: GAIA) closed its retail store, Gaiam Living, at 1215 Pearl St. on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder.
SPONSORED CONTENT
Castillon’s Mexican Restaurant, 4010 S. College Ave. in Fort Collins, will close as soon as owner Johnny Castillon completes its sale to the owners of Tres Margaritas. That chain will open a location in the former Castillon’s space to replace its location at 3400 S. College Ave., which was closed and razed last fall as part of the redevelopment of Foothills Mall.
Catacombs, a bar that resided for 45 years in the basement of Hotel Boulderado, 2115 13th St. in Boulder, closed in late March. The hotel’s management plans to remodel the space and reopen it as License No. 1.
KUDOS
Greeley-based Sears Real Estate, headed by chief executive Chalice Springfield, received a Member Achievement Award from Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, a global network of more than 500 top real estate firms. Sears Real Estate received the Highest Average Agent Production Award, for 500 sales sides or more, which recognizes outstanding real estate sales productivity based upon the highest network-wide per-agent average for sales volume or transactions. The award was presented at the network’s Annual Performance Awards Gala, held during the LeadingRE Conference Week, an event that drew a record audience of 2,500 real estate professionals from nearly 20 countries.
Eight business leaders were selected for induction into the Boulder County Business Hall of Fame during a luncheon April 23 at the Plaza Convention Center in Longmont. This year’s inductees are Mitchell Carson, chief executive and president of Longmont United Hospital; Terrance P. Gallagher Sr., president of Gasamat Oil Co. and CEO of Smoker Friendly International LLC in Boulder; Robert Gill, principal of the Topaz Group and a co-founder of the Boulder Innovation Center, now Innovation Center of the Rockies; William G. Hofgard, founder of Hofgard Insurance in Boulder; Lenny and Sara Martinelli, co-founders of Three Leaf Concepts, a restaurant management group working in Boulder and Louisville; and the late William Stewart and his wife, Lila Jean Stewart, who owned the former KLMO radio stations, which now are KRCN-AM 1060 and KKFN-FM 104.3 in Longmont. To become a sponsor of the Hall of Fame program and event, contact Chris Wood at 303-630-1942 or [email protected]. Tickets for the luncheon are $55 per person and may be purchased online at halloffamebiz.com or by calling event director De Dahlgren at 970-222-4791.
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, a new real estate brokerage network operated by HSF Affiliates LLC, was named Real Estate Agency Brand of the Year, in the 26th annual Harris Poll EuiTrend Study. It received the highest ranking based on consumers’ perception of its brand familiarity and quality. In January, five of the six offices of Prudential Rocky Mountain Realtors – including the brokerage in Boulder – joined the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network.
Emily Bauer, founder of Blue Skies Massage & Wellness in Longmont, was awarded third place in the Colorado statewide business-plan competition sponsored by the Colorado Small Business Development Center. Bauer wrote her business plan while participating in the Boulder SBDC’s Leading Edge Series offered in Longmont and supported by the Longmont Department of Economic Development. More than 200 entrepreneurs, who also participated in the program across the state, submitted their business plans in the competition. Bauer’s plan received the accolade because of its comprehensive nature of the plan, including financial projections and marketing initiatives.
Boulder-based Black Roofing won first place in Division 2 of the Colorado Roofing Association’s 2013 Job of the Year awards for replacing the roof on the pool at Eagle Rock School, a job complicated by skylight removal, a small workspace, protecting the pool and 17 inches of rain during the September floods.
Larry H. Miller Toyota in Boulder received the President’s Award from Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. The award, one of the highest honors a dealership can receive from Toyota, is awarded to dealerships that have demonstrated a commitment to maintaining Toyota’s standards for operational excellence and customer care. Two Larry H. Miller Toyota dealerships in Albuquerque, N.M., and one in Peoria, Ariz., also received the award from Toyota.
Bob Bolak, owner and president of a Sandler Training Center in Boulder, was named the company’s Global Rookie of the Year for 2013 at the company’s recent annual conference in Orlando. Fla. Sandler Training provides sales and management training through more than 250 licensed trainers in 30 countries.
The editors of R&D Magazine named the U.S Department of Energy’s Energy Systems Integration Facility as the 2014 Laboratory of the Year. The lab is located on the campus of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden. Research at ESIF transforms how the nation generates, delivers and uses energy by modernizing the interplay between energy sources, infrastructure, and data. ESIF received the international award for being a first-of-its-kind research user facility that merges three components: an ultra-energy efficient workplace that consumes 74 percent less energy than the national average for office buildings, one of the world’s most energy efficient high performance computing data centers, and high-bay laboratory spaces with outdoor test areas. All of the labs in the 182,500-square-foot building are connected by a research electrical distribution bus, which functions as a power integration circuit capable of connecting multiple sources of energy with experiments. The $135 million lab was designed and built by SmithGroupJJR and JE Dunn Construction.
Andre Mazur of Re/Max Alliance in Longmont qualified for the company’s Platinum Club Award, which was given to less than 6 percent of real estate brokers in the Re/Max network in 2013.
OPENINGS
Morgan Dalton and Jennifer Walter opened Aime’s Love, a gluten-free bakery and café, at 331 Main St. in Longmont.
Cheyenne, Wyo.-based microbrewery Freedom’s Edge Brewing Co. opened March 27 at 224 Linden St. in Old Town Fort Collins, the former home of Red Table Café. Owners are Tim and Dawn Moore.
Broomfield-based TekDry LLC opened a kiosk in FlatIron Crossing mall in Broomfield. TekDry restores water-damaged cellphones and other electronic devices. Cost to restore a water-damaged cellphone is $99 with limited-time discounts available at tekdry.com. Customers pay only if the device is restored to working order. Time to restore is approximately 30 minutes.
Rise! A Breakfast Place will open in about a month at 2601 S. Lemay Ave. in Fort Collins. The space in the Scotch Pines Shopping Center formerly housed a Runza fast-food restaurant. Rise! owners David and Gay Daggett also own Tastebuds Epicurean Café & Catering and operate the kitchen at Compass Cider.
PRODUCT UPDATE
Longmont-based Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: HILL), a provider of SAN storage solutions, has developed a reference platform, in conjunction with Intel and Mellanox, to support geologists and geophysicists with exploration and production applications. Combining Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4524 and 4534 storage systems with Intel Enterprise Edition for Lustre software and Mellanox InfiniBand switches and adapters, the platform addresses the demands of seismic analysis by providing a scale-out, high performance, single namespace file serving solution, scalable to multiple petabytes of data storage.
The Boulder-based Outdoor Industry Association Market and Consumer Insights Department launched a suite of new products – a blog, a biweekly Social Buzz email, social media listening reports and an Insights newsletter – to help members understand trends and emerging dynamics affecting the outdoor industry.
Broomfield-based AirCell, Gogo Inc.’s business aviation division, unveiled the ST 4300, an in-flight communications system for business aircraft. It combines voice, narrowband data and cockpit data link services in a single unit. Aircraft operators can configure cabin and flight-deck communications based on their needs.
Longmont-based document capture company Parascript LLC released new versions of its FormXtra and FormXtra Capture software for Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese languages as part of the company’s expansion in Latin America.
Louisville-based RedShift Co. unveiled its voice-recognition mobile app service at the 2014 International Pizza Expo, held March 24-27 in Las Vegas. The app allows customers to naturally speak their food orders, which are accurately captured and sent to the restaurant for either delivery or pickup. Orders are completed without the need for placing a phone call to the restaurant. The app service works with any smartphone.
Louisville-based Boulder Wind Power, a developer of advanced permanent magnet generators and full-power converter technology for utility-scale wind turbines, expanded its product portfolio for onshore and offshore applications. Originally focused on developing and testing the core technology in direct drive applications, the company now offers solutions for geared turbines while expanding its offering for direct-drive wind turbines. Among the new offerings, and a first for the wind industry, according to the company, is the “Ultra Low Speed” generator category designed for onshore, low-wind speed sites where noise constraints limit aerodynamic rotor tip speed and, ultimately, the aerodynamic rotor diameter.
