Frank talk about Denver’s economy

There’s no substitute for the
straight talk you get from
short-timers.

When I moderated a panel
Wednesday night for the Internet Chamber of Commerce, I
didn’t even know that panelist Joe Snell had already quit his
post as executive director of the Metro Denver Network. A little
birdie told me the next morning.

By Rob Reuteman Rocky Mountain News

But I should have guessed from the frankness with which he sized things up
after I asked what worried him most about Denver’s economic future.

"I’m worried that we’ve dropped a few notches in the last four to five years. I
feel like we’re a little complacent. We’re the Denver Broncos coming off two
Super Bowl wins. It’s hard to get jacked up. I think we’ve got to take a hard
look at ourselves . . . because we’re not the same Denver and Front Range
as we were in 1994."

The Metro Denver Network is a consortium of the area’s economic
development organizations. Snell has been running it for the past three
years. Along the way, he helped coin the "Convergence Corridor" branding
campaign.

"I’m selling this place all the time, and there’s not the competitive advantage
there was. In 1994, for instance, we ranked below the national average in
housing costs. I could go out to Silicon Valley and Austin and say, ‘You need
to expand your business here because we’re a good place to do business.’
We’ve lost that. Housing costs are no bargain anymore.

"Traffic congestion — we’ve got to fix our transportation issue. Colorado’s
economy is built on its work force. We’ve had in-migration steadily since
World War II. The key is to make sure Colorado is still a good place to raise
kids, so people want to continue to move in here. That’s what will grow our
tech community over the next 20 years — attracting and retaining the
best-skilled work force.

"I think over the long haul, Denver is in a great position to be a new 21st
century city. But the thing I’m telling my board all the time to make sure we
haven’t lost our competitive advantage — not only to make sure we retain the
JD Edwards and Pete Coors of the world, but that we can attract new
investment: the Level 3s, the Sun Microsystems and First Datas of the world.

"We were a little slower in feeling effects of recession than the rest of the
nation. And our recovery may be just a tad slower than the rest of the nation. I
travel a lot and I get the feeling that the rest of the country is picking up speed.
But I don’t think we’ve bottomed out yet in some sectors."

The panel was titled "Taking the Pulse of Denver’s Tech Community." I don’t
need to tell you the patient is still far from the pink of health. Panelist Victor
Chayet, director of communications at JD Edwards, echoed some of Snell’s
sentiment.

"We are so desperate for signs of upticks that we latch on to any particular
metric and say, ‘Ah, the recession is finally over.’ But we have a long way to
go, I believe. This is going to be another rough year, with things flat at best.
We are far from the bottom. The turnaround is not four to six months away.
The biggest danger is thinking we are past the worst.

"On the people side of things, I worry that we don’t have the guts collectively to
see it through, that some people will take flight away from here. That would
be the real loss to our industry, that people don’t see the upside coming.
People who thought the Internet bubble could go on forever are just as
ignorant as those who think the downturn will go on forever. We live in a
cyclical world. To be able to ride out cycles is what creates success.

"It is darkest before the dawn, and frankly it’s pretty dark right now."

Rob Reuteman can be reached by phone at (303) 892-5177 or by e-mail at
[email protected].

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_82_1010449,00.html