Launch! Taking Colorado’s Space Economy to the Next Level

U.S. “advanced industries”—high-value engineering and R&D-intensive industrial concerns—make signal contributions to national and regional economic prosperity. Iconic American companies such as United Technologies, GE, Intel, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Ford, Caterpillar, and Medtronic comprise 10 percent of the overall economy but generate 45 percent of U.S. goods exports and support over 4 million high-skill jobs and several million more ancillary ones.

The space and aerospace industry is quintessentially emblematic of the advanced industry sector. And one of the deepest and broadest concentrations of space-related activity in the country lies in Colorado. There, the space cluster pervades the state’s industrial base; cuts across the public and private sectors; and enables a fast-growing telecommunications industry, dynamic GIS and earth observation enterprises, as well as more emergent energy, cybersecurity, and advanced materials segments of the economy.

On Tuesday, February 5, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings presented a dynamic public forum focused on the significance and future of the Colorado space economy as an exemplary advanced industry. Part of Brookings’s new Advanced Industries Series, and anchored by the release of a new Brookings strategy report by Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, the morning forum explored the best ways to advance the competitiveness of the Colorado space cluster at a time of uncertainty and disruptive change.

Hosted in collaboration with the Colorado Space Coalition and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, the event also featured comments from leading business, civic, and government leaders as well as a panel discussion and audience Q & A. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper concluded the event with keynote remarks.

Read the report, which was released at this event.
See also Mark Muro’s presentation » (PDF)

 
Panel Discussion (L to R): Tom Clark, Chief Executive Officer, Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation; Frederick Doyle, Vice President and Corporate Executive, Defense and Intelligence Community, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation; Walter Scott, Founder, Executive Vice President, and Chief Technical Officer, DigitalGlobe, Inc.; Stein Sture, Vice Chancellor for Research, Huber and Helen Croft Endowed Professor, College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado at Boulder; Dan Schmitt, Co-Founder, President, Chief Executive Officer, The Incubation Factory

 

Mark Muro, Senior Fellow and Policy Director, Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings

 

Governor John Hickenlooper, State of Colorado