A water war is brewing in El Paso County’s eastern plains, and the business owners in the middle agree on one thing: The battle could last a long time. Declining water levels in the Upper Black Squirrel Basin, an alluvial aquifer that sits atop the Denver Basin, indicate that ground water depletion is exceeding the [...]

The adage, “if you wait long enough, something great will happen,” applies to Dean Gorell, owner of JD Steward Mechanical Inc. Gorell weathered a few changes at JD Steward and waited out a few years of corporate control before becoming, in May 2001, the sole owner of the Colorado Springs long-standing heating, air-conditioning, plumbing and [...]

High-tech products dominate Colorado’s export business. Foreign sales of semiconductors – Colorado’s No. 1 export product – experienced a 59 percent increase from 2002 to 2003, from $654 million to $1.03 billion. The total amount of Colorado exports was $6.1 billion in 2003, an increase of 10.6 percent from 2002, according to the Colorado Office [...]

The Wal-Marts, the Home Depots and the Barnes and Nobles have one advantage over the small retailer in addition to discounts, plentiful parking and extended hours. Location. Commuters welcome the ease of stopping at the nearest shopping center to pick up a box of laundry detergent or the latest bestseller. Small retailers, nestled in urban [...]

Chief executive officers are upbeat about the economy and many plan to expand their payrolls and investment spending this year, according to The Executive Committee International’s first quarter Confidence Index which was released this month. The survey asked nearly 1,100 middle-market chief executives about economic trends and issues. Despite The Confidence Index slipping by 1.5 [...]

When the new managing editor of The Colorado Spring Business Journal told his oldest sister he wanted to major in political science in college, she tossed the employment ads at him and said, “Where do you see the jobs in political science?” Observing her younger brother as a news junkie and an able writer, she [...]