Colorado Business On Right Track, Says Development Group

    Colorado is at the top of the class where business development is concerned. That’s according to CFED, formerly the national Corporation for Enterprise Development, and its 2007-2008 assets and opportunity scorecard of 50 states.

    CFED, a research think tank funded by businesses and foundations, gave Colorado an overall B rating on the scorecard, which was helped in part by an A grade given for business development. However, the same cannot be said for many of the state’s neighbors.Regarding development, Utah was portrayed with the worst outlook and garnered an F, followed by Kansas and Nebraska, which both received Ds. Oklahoma and New Mexico scored average with Cs, while Wyoming was the highest with a B.

    During the summer, state Rep. Ted Harvey (R-Highlands Ranch ) voiced concern over Colorado’s business development being inhibited because the state is not “right to work,” where union agreements with employers cannot mandate required dues or fees. A initiative making Colorado “right to work” has been proposed, and may be on the 2008 ballot.

    But according to CFED, there does not seem to be a development problem in the state, echoing the position that the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce has taken on the matter. At the same time, Colorado’s border states, which are all “right to work” except for New Mexico, do not appear to be doing as well on the development front.

    Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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