North Forty News has a rare Colorado economic story that does not begin with a task force, a climate pledge, or somebody in Denver announcing a new taxpayer-funded acronym. Berthoud-based aerospace manufacturer Ursa Major has opened a new Longmont manufacturing facility as part of an expansion the company says could create as many as 1,850 new Colorado jobs. The important words there are could create. Those jobs are projected, not already sitting around collecting paychecks.
Still, this is what actual economic development looks like when it works. Ursa Major currently employs more than 360 people, about 300 of them in Colorado, and its new Longmont operation has capacity for more than 125 employees. The company is expanding production of avionics, propulsion systems, liquid engines, missile systems, and solid rocket motors. In other words, people are making things that exist outside a PowerPoint presentation.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Ursa Major is expanding for a wonderfully old-fashioned reason: demand. CEO Chris Spagnoletti says the Longmont facility is opening because demand is here now. No focus group required. Customers want the product, so the company needs more capacity. Capitalism remains undefeated when politicians leave enough of it alive to function.
- Longmont gets real manufacturing capacity, not beanbag chairs and a branding consultant. The new facility includes welding and manufacturing labs, clean rooms, and environmental testing capability, with production focused on avionics and in-space propulsion systems. That is economic activity you can actually point at without using the phrase “stakeholder engagement.”
- The expansion also frees up room in Berthoud. Moving avionics and space-propulsion work south allows Ursa Major to use more of its Berthoud headquarters for liquid engines, vehicle integration, missile assembly, and solid rocket motors. Northern Colorado is not merely designing aerospace hardware. It is increasingly building the stuff.
- The 1,850-job number is a possibility, not a victory lap. Colorado economic-development officials say the broader expansion is poised to create up to 1,850 jobs. Great. Now create them. A projected paycheck cannot buy groceries, and an economic forecast does not make a mortgage payment. The opportunity is real, but so is the distinction between an announcement and results.
- Yes, government incentives are involved. Colorado approved up to $35.26 million in performance-based Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits over eight years, with the incentives contingent on actual job creation and salary requirements. At least somebody remembered the words “performance-based.” If taxpayers are going to be dragged onto the dance floor, results should be the price of admission.
My Bottom Line
This is the kind of Colorado economic story worth rooting for. A company headquartered in Berthoud is expanding manufacturing, opening another Northern Colorado facility, producing aerospace and defense hardware, and potentially hiring a lot more people. Not every one of those projected 1,850 jobs exists yet, and nobody should start engraving the trophy until they do. But the direction is exactly right.
Colorado’s political class should study this carefully, preferably before scheduling a symposium to study it. Prosperity does not come from politicians issuing press releases about prosperity. It comes from businesses finding customers, making products, adding capacity, investing money, and hiring people who go home with actual paychecks.
There is also something deeply satisfying about seeing Northern Colorado become a place where sophisticated aerospace systems are not just conceived but manufactured. We have spent years hearing that America’s future is somehow going to be built by consultants, administrators, influencers, and government program managers. Turns out we still need welders, engineers, machinists, technicians, manufacturing floors, and companies willing to build complicated things in the real world.
If Ursa Major delivers on this expansion, Colorado politicians will undoubtedly rush toward the cameras to explain how they made it happen. Fine. Smile for the picture. Then get out of the way. The lesson here is not that government created prosperity. The lesson is that productive people and productive companies still can, when given enough room to build something besides another pile of subsidized bullshit.
Source: North Forty News
Now It's Your Turn...