What a year it’s been. You’ve helped position Colorado and our region to be one of the strongest economies in the country.
If there’s a list or ranking, you’ll mostly likely find us there (like Forbes’ Best Place for Business and Careers and Best States for Business).
We won some critical ballot issues that we as a business community have been working on for some time. Our campaign, Let Colorado Vote, brought back the presidential primary and helped open all primaries in Colorado to unaffiliated voters, ensuring that over 1 million Coloradans get a voice in primary elections that they help pay for and reward elected officials for finding solutions by expanding participation. And, we finally made it harder to amend our Constitution, saving us a lot of money from defending our state against outside interests’ “great” ideas. We led the effort to soundly defeat one of those ideas with our No on 69 campaign—with almost 80 percent of Coloradans saying no to being the only state in the union with a state-run health care system.
We’re still growing (the University of Colorado Boulder is projecting we’ll add 63,400 jobs in 2017). It’s a pace slower than our average over the last few years, but still is a good sign.
All that positivity couldn’t be a better way to close 2016.
No matter how good things are, we always find ourselves focusing on what’s next. And, we know you do the same thing. So, please take a minute and share your business goals or resolutions for this coming year. We will ensure you can see what your fellow Chamber members are focusing on.
A very Happy New Year to you all.
Kelly Brough is the president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber.