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Colorado - Mon. 12/30/24 |
A Free Business Publication from Alpine Bank
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NOTICE OF HOLIDAY CLOSURE FROM ALPINE BANK
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All Alpine Bank branches will be closed Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, for New Year’s Day. We invite you to use Alpine Online or the Alpine Mobile app for 24/7 banking access, even when we are closed. Learn more at the link below. Have a safe and happy New Year!
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FORMER PRESIDENT AND NOBEL PRIZE WINNER, JIMMY CARTER, DIES AT AGE 100
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Former President Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, and the longest-lived former president in history, died Sunday in Plains, Georgia at age 100. Carter served one term, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after he left office. He was the most active former president in modern U.S. history, gaining renown for work over four decades monitoring elections around the world, fighting neglected diseases, working to raise living standards for the poor, and advocating for human rights. He did much of this work through the Carter Center, the humanitarian nonprofit he founded with his wife, Rosalynn Carter, in 1982.
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RAIL SERVICE IS SET TO RETURN TO N.W. COLORADO AFTER 56-YEAR HIATUS
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The last time a passenger was able to ride a train from Denver to Steamboat Springs and Craig was 1968, on the Yampa Valley Mail train. The end of rail service was not based on passenger loads, but instead the decline in the use of coal. Now, following the extension of the lease for Union Pacific to use the rails which go through the Moffat Tunnel, with the proviso that Union Pacific provide access to its tracks for passenger trains, the Colorado Mountain Rail is looking realistically at carrying its first passenger from Denver to Craig in two years. The type of train hasn’t been chosen, ridership projections haven’t been publicized, fares haven’t been set and travel times haven’t been announced, but the use of the Union Pacific rails system was clearly the largest obstacle to making the 231-mile-long service a reality.
There is funding available as Colorado Mountain Rail will be able to tap a $200 million pot of money created by a pair of bills passed by the state legislature in 2024. Money would need to be spent on rebuilding at least a half-dozen stations at stops west of Granby, all of which have been disassembled or fallen into disrepair since the days of the Yampa Valley Mail. Improvements would also need to be made to tracks and equipment along the corridor.
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CALIFORNIA-BASED NEW HOMES CO. TO BUILD OVER 1,000 HOMES IN DENVER AREA
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California-based New Home Co. acquired Denver’s Epic Homes in 2021 and since then has been acquiring land in Aurora and other communities around Denver with plans now to construct as many as 1,087 homes. New Home Co. will construct residences in six communities, including three in Aurora. The other communities are in Golden, Thornton and Mead. Matthew R. Zaist, CEO of New Home Co., in announcing the building plans, says, “The Denver market is key to our expansion throughout the western United States. Our goal is to grow into a top five builder in the Denver MSA in the coming years.” The largest development is 361 homes in the Talon Pointe community of Thornton, along with 207 single-family detached residences in Mead, and the company is finalizing its acquisition of 227 homesites in the master-planned community of Harvest Crossing in Aurora.
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WATER QUALITY COMMISSION INCREASES PERMISSIBLE RELEASES FROM MINE
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The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission, a body of governor-appointed representatives that sets water quality standards for the state, this summer voted to double the limit applied to the amount of molybdenum that the Climax mine is allowed to release into local water sources. The new standards go into effect next week. The change adopted by the commission revised the molybdenum “table value standard” (the amount of molybdenum allowed in streams around the state) from 210 micrograms per liter to 530 micrograms per liter. The amount of molybdenum allowed in Blue River segment 14, also known as lower Tenmile Creek above the Dillon Reservoir, near Climax mine, was revised to match this new standard.
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PARKER SOLAR PROBE, WITH CU EXPERIMENT, MAKES CLOSEST-EVER SOLAR ORBIT
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On Friday, NASA said its Parker Solar Probe had completed more than 20 full orbits of the sun, with each circuit going gradually closer, until it passed 3.8 million miles from the sun, closer than any probe before it. It was of particular interest to researchers at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics as they designed and built a critical piece of one of the four experiments on board. The probe was oriented, among other things, to observe a large cloud of dust orbiting near the sun. This dust is mainly pieces of comets and asteroids that were unable to form planets or moons. The dust environment was underestimated by previous models. The CU elements of the experiment will help analyze the dust impacts as these particles were left floating in the solar system, and over millions of years began to form the dust cloud around the sun.
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REAL ESTATE IN EAGLE COUNTY, STAYS STRONG, BUCKS THE TREND
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Numbers for real estate sales in November from the Vail Board of Realtors show sales are up for the month, as well as year-to-date, and present an optimistic view leading into the new year. This clearly distinguishes Vail Valley and Eagle County real estate as doing much better than state and national real estate sales statistics. The numbers for November show real estate sales in Eagle County were up 56 percent over November 2023 and the total dollar value of sales was up 53 percent over November 2023. The year-to-date sales through November were up by 8.9 percent over 2023. Barring unforeseen circumstances on the national or international scenes, real estate industry members in the Vail Valley see the market strength to continue through 2025.
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IDITAROD CHAMPION LAUNCHES COLORADO DOG SLEDDING IN SUMMIT COUNTY
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Dallas Seavey is a third-generation dog musher and the only six-time Iditarod champion and now after years of operating dog sled tours on the Knik Glacier in Alaska, Seavey and his principal aide, Ben Vaughan saw the opportunity in offering sled rides in Summit County. They selected a 140-year-old homestead named Acorn Creek Ranch, ten miles north of Silverthorne as the place to start. They converted a hay field as the site of the sled dogs, converting some existing structures and building enclosures for 30 Alaskan Huskies. The sled course is a 5-mile route with wide, open expanses and trees with breathtaking views of the Gore Range and surrounding mountains. The two started sled rides this winter, with each tour lasting an hour and 15 minutes, with the mushing portion lasting about 45 minutes. For more information, go to coloradoDogSledding.com.
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SOME OF THOSE WE LOST IN 2024
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Selected list of some of the famous people who died in 2024, in no particular order:
- Daniel Kahneman
- Alice Munro
- Quincy Jones
- Alexei Navalny
- Dame Maggie Smith
- Willie Mays
- Ruth Westheimer
- Bob Newhart
- Joe Lieberman
- Donald Sutherland
- Sheila Jackson Lee
- James Earl Jones
- Alberto Fujimori
- Ethel Kennedy
- Kris Kristofferson
- Lilly Ledbetter
- O.J. Simpson
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SURVEY RANKS COLORADO 5TH MOST POPULAR IN U.S. FOR MOUNTAIN BIKING
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My Baggage, a luggage shipping company that specializes in shipping bikes, conducted a study of mountain biking for Trailforks, which reports trail conditions and has mountain bike user information. The study surveyed 117,000 U.S. bike trails, covering every state. The number of users were totaled to determine the most popular states for mountain biking. Most popular:
- Utah: 22,451 user ratings
- California: 20,777
- Washington: 15,409
- Arizona: 13,369
- Colorado: 11,458
- Oregon: 7,055
- Pennsylvania: 4,710
- North Carolina: 4,429
- Idaho: 4,409
- Massachusetts: 4,384
- No. 1 trail in Colorado: Horsethief Bench in the Kokopelli trail system
- No. 1 trail in Utah: Porcupine Rim, Moab
- Top trails in Arizona; Hiline and Slim Shady (north) Sedona
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“MADE IN COLORADO” PRODUCTS SHOW BREADTH AND SCOPE OF MANUFACTURING
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ColoradoBiz featured a number of the best “Made in Colorado” and highlighted ten in its year-end December issue as representing "the ingenuity and bold entrepreneurialism that abounds in Colorado."
- Campworks, Dacono: Campworks has been making the NS-1, an all-electric camping trailer since its founding in 2019. Now, the basic NS-1 is built at C.F. Maier Composites’ facility in Lamar. The high-end model includes an induction stove, on-demand water heater and solar panels. campworksco.com
- Munro Pump, Grand Junction: Fred Munro opened Munro Mercantile in Rifle in 1900 and continued the family business on the Western Slope. In 1965, Fred’s grandson and great-grandson, Jack and Allen Munro, respectively, launched Munro Supply, a pump distributor in Grand Junction. About 20 years later, the Munros started manufacturing their own line of pumps. Munro Pump now makes pumps, controls, valves, and other products for the irrigation market, focusing on the turf and landscape segment, with new products hitting the market in 2025. munropump.com
- AlloSource, Centennial: AlloSource was formed by the merger of Mile High Tissue Bank with tissue banks in St. Louis and Chicago in 1994. The nonprofit organization is a major processor of allograft tissue used in transplants and other medical procedures. Allograft tissue is used in a variety of treatments from severe burn injuries to breast cancer treatments to repairing ligaments following sports injuries. The 500-employee organization’s headquarters in Centennial features 37 ISO-rated cleanrooms. allosource.org
- Spectrum AMT, Colorado Springs: Spectrum AMT (the AMT is Advanced Manufacturing Technologies), started manufacturing a proprietary medical device, but soon converted to building electronic circuit boards and has had circuit cards on NASA missions, along with the Mark 48 torpedo. Spectrum AMT also built components for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which blasted off on a 2.2-billion-mile journey in 2023 to study asteroid cores. spectrumamt.com
- Canopy Aerospace, Littleton: Canopy Aerospace, founded in Chicago in 2021, is working to commercialize high-temperature materials developed by a team at NASA Ames Research Center in California, to extend their use by the private, commercial space industry. Canopy moved to Colorado in 2023 and currently operates out of a 20,000-square-foot facility in Littleton and with a Space Act Agreement with NASA, they are incorporating the use of 3D-printing to manufacture products with the thermal advanced ceramics for use in electric vehicles, semiconductor tooling, and other non-aerospace applications. canopyaerospace.com
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“MADE IN COLORADO” PRODUCTS II
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ColoradoBiz featured a number of the best “Made in Colorado” and highlighted ten in its year-end December issue as representing "the ingenuity and bold entrepreneurialism that abounds in Colorado."
- Art Castings of Colorado, Loveland: Founded in 1972 by Bob Zimmerman, Art Castings began in a small shop casting parts for tools. Zimmerman was approached by an artist who wanted a bronze casting. From that, now the company with its 25,000-square-feet foundry casts bronze and stainless-steel sculptures for prominent artists all over the world. The largest the company has cast is The Irish Memorial by Glenda Goodacre, which weighed close to 14,000 pounds. Although the owner and general manager are sworn to secrecy, they say they also produce some famous football trophies handed out once a year in New York, "but we can’t tell anybody we cast them,” they say. artcastings.com
- Barz Decorative Hardware, Silverton: Pete Barszcz grew up in metro Denver, studied art and design at Fort Lewis College in Durango, then moved to Silverton in 1995 to work on his art. He eventually began making decorative hardware, first for a retailer in North Carolina, then opening Barz Decorative Hardware in Silverton in 2005. His hardware is now sold coast to coast in about 125 outlets. barzdecorativehardware.com
- Hooch Booch, Denver: Anna Zesbaugh was furloughed from her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and launched a hard kombucha brand, Hooch Booch. Hooch Booch is brewed at a contract operation in Gypsum on Colorado’s Western Slope. The year-round catalog includes six varieties inspired by classic cocktails, like the lemony Bee’s Knees and the subtly tart Old Fashioned. The brand is now sold at about 600 locations in four states, including Target, Total Wine and Whole Foods stores. drinkhoochbooch.com
- Wendi’s Good Things Market, Del Norte: Like Anna Zesbaugh, it was COVID-19 shuttering Locavores, the farm-to-table restaurant in Alamosa of Wendi Seger that caused her to launch a business making pickles, salsa and other items, eventually ending her restaurant business completely in favor of Wendi's Good Things Market which she moved to a new facility at her family’s Bloomstead Farms near Del Norte in late 2024. Her catalog now includes a wide range of foods, including pickled okra and jams, as well as candles and other lifestyle products. wendismarket.com
- Vartega, Denver: Andrew Maxey, Co-founder and CEO of Vartega worked in bike shops during the transition and boom of producing bikes with composites using carbon fiber….and was well aware of the waste associated with the process. Maxey started tinkering and invented a viable recycling method for carbon fiber and was able to demonstrate that carbon fiber could be recycled with his chemical process. He was able to move Vartega into a 50,000-square-foot facility with a reactor more than ten times larger and was able to produce 2,000 tons of his recycled product, EasyFeed Bundles, a year. The EasyFeed Bundles can be used in thermoplastics for automotive, sporting goods and other applications. vartega.com
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MARKET UPDATE - 12/27/2024 Close
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(Courtesy of Alpine Bank Wealth Management*)
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Canadian dollar (per U.S. dollar)
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Mexican peso (per U.S. dollar)
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30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac 12/26/2024)
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*Not FDIC insured. May lose value. Not guaranteed by the bank.
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Alpine Bank is an independent, employee-owned organization with headquarters in Glenwood Springs and banking offices across Colorado's Western Slope, mountains and Front Range. Alpine Bank serves customers with retail, business, wealth management*, mortgage and electronic banking services. Learn more at alpinebank.com.
*Alpine Bank Wealth Management services are not FDIC insured, may lose value and are not guaranteed by the bank.
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