One of the reasons we all love Colorado is because we like to spend as much time as possible in the great outdoors — and we all know that Colorado has some of the best outdoor experiences in the world. You can find us riding our bikes, sitting on a patio, snowshoeing and skiing, walking a golf course, hiking a fourteener, paddling a river, hanging out in our parks or camping in the mountains. I recently heard someone say, “You can’t throw a rock in Colorado, because you would hit an amateur athlete.” You can see why Colorado boasts the most physically active adults in the country.
And, our outdoors are more than how we spend our leisure time; they’re big business for us, too. The outdoor recreation industry generates $28 billion in spending annually and employs 229,000 people earning $9.7 billion in wages and paying state and local taxes to the tune of $2 billion each year.
The value and priority we place on our outdoors is one of the reasons that Denver will be the home to the Outdoor Retailer shows for the next five years. But when you combine our value for our environment with our innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, it’s clear we are the perfect place to host these incredible shows. By the way, these tradeshows draw 85,000 people a year and create $110 million in economic impact — so, you can see why we’re so thrilled to have them choose Colorado.
As I mentioned, a great way to celebrate our outdoors is sitting on a patio, but that experience is best with a beverage in hand. And, what better beverage than one made by our own Molson Coors? Molson Coors has been in business for 144 years (those first six years of Chamber work had to be the toughest with no Coors beer) and they brewed a beer just for their Chamber this year.
In honor of our 150th anniversary, Molson Coors had a panel of “beverage experts” — the governor, Molson Coors President and CEO Mark Hunter, your board chair and chair-elect Todd Munson and Denise Burgess and me — pick the beer that we would celebrate this milestone with. We selected a dry-hopped lager. We’re calling it 150 Strong.
We hope you’ll come celebrate all the great accomplishments we’ve had as a business community, from our founding in 1867 to great news like we had last week with Outdoor Retailer, over a pint with us at our anniversary party on Nov. 13.
Kelly Brough is the president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber.
Photo courtesy of Visualanties