Category: Advanced Technology

CPIA Announces Photonics Company of the Year – Ball Aerospace

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At their annual meeting on October 15, the Colorado Photonics Industry Association (CPIA) named Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation as the 2013 Colorado Photonics Company of the Year. The company was selected from more than 200 companies in the aerospace, renewable energy, defense, life sciences, telecommunications, and electronics industries involved in photonics, or light-based, technologies. Ball is the only company to repeat as winner of this prestigious award, having previously won in 2002.

Ball is one of many companies that make outstanding contributions to the Colorado photonics cluster. These companies bring international attention to Colorado as a place to conduct business.

Reasons for recognizing Ball span several years and include the following:

  • The Deep Impact project: Ball designed and manufactured the optical spectrometer that observed the collision between the comet Temple I and the man-made interceptor.
  • Kepler: Ball designed the telescope that has detected several hundred earth-like planets from other solar systems.
  • Ball designed every currently operational instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope.
  • Ball completed delivery of the next generation Operational Land Imager (9 band earth observing spectrometer).
  • Ball designed the optical System for the DoD Space Based Surveillance System that went operational in 2012.
  • Ball designed the Ozone Mapping Profiler Instrument that went operational in 2011 on the Suomi Weather Satellite.
  • Ball designed and built the camera system on the latest Mars Rover.
  • Ball is near completion of the 10-segment Primary Mirror Assembly for the James Webb Space Telescope, a telescope that will allow researchers to literally see back to the beginning of time (although not until the year 2018).

Ball Aerospace was started in Boulder County in 1956, about a year before the start of the great space race.

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

Decline in Employment of Information Sector Accompanied by Decline in Concentration of Workers

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One of Colorado’s more intriguing components of the state economy is the Information sector.  It includes telecommunication, printed media, broadcasting, Internet service providers, and software publishers.  As such many companies in this sector are part of Colorado’s advanced technology cluster.

Over the past decade technological advances and the Internet caused a decline in jobs in the media, particularly the printed media. As well consolidation occurred in telecommunications, the most recent being the acquisition of Qwest by Centurylink.

After peaking at 108,400 workers in 2000, the sector has declined steadily. In 2012, it had fallen to 69,700, about the same level as in the mid-1990s.

Over this period, technological advances and consolidation caused the sector to decline across the U.S. Unfortunately, the location quotient, or the concentration of local Information workers relative to the U.S. has dropped off at a faster rate in Colorado than the U.S.

In August 2000, Colorado’s location quotient for Information peaked at 1.84. By the end of 2012 it had fallen to 1.48.

The good news is the state still has a high location quotient of workers and the sector remains a major contributor to the Colorado Gross Domestic Product.

For additional information about the performanc of the Colorado economy refer to “Colorado Employment Review – 2012 “.

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

CPIA Names Real D Company of the Year

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At its most recent quarterly meeting, the Colorado Photonics Industry Association, CPIA, announced Real D as the 2012 Colorado Photonics Company of the Year. The company received its award for contributions to the Colorado photonics industry over the past year. (For those not familiar with photonics, the National Academy Press, presents a great overview in  A Day In Life with Photonics.

Other companies receiving this prestigious award are:
• 2011  ATFilms
• 2010  Research Electro Optics
• 2009  Digital Globe
• 2008  ASD, Inc.
• 2007  Picolight, Inc.
• 2006  PMS
• 2004/2005 Coherent Technologies
• 2003  Spectranetics
• 2002  Ball Aerospace
• 2001  Network Photonics

RealD, is a visual technology developer, manufacturer and licenser enabling premium 3D viewing experiences in the theater, the home and beyond. Because photonics is an enabling technology the competition for the recognition is stiff. RealD was selected from more than 200 companies in the aerospace, renewable energy, defense, life sciences, telecommunications, and electronics industries, which are involved in photonics, or light-based, technologies.

Although 3D has been around since 1915, the company’s technology has revolutionized the film industry by making it easier to create 3D movies. Some in the industry say their impact on the motion pictures has been as significant as when movies went from black and white to color.

The company has an effective business model for capturing and maintaining market share – they lease equipment rather than sell it. This makes it possible for theaters to constatly have the latest technology avialable for their customers. Real D is constantly finding ways to improve their services and products as they are applying their research, technology, and innovation skills to the development of eyewear, video games, and displays.

A sampling of current Real D releases include: Hotel Transylvania, The Hobbit, Oz – The Great and Powerful, the Droods, and Frankenweenie.

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

Colorado High Tech Job Growth Flat for Past Year

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Colorado’s high-tech cluster played an essential part in the growth of the state economy for the past 20 years, particularly between 1994 and 2001. At its peak in 2001, it employed more than 216,000 workers, or 9.67% of total employment.

Today that number is roughly 175,000, the same that it was when the recession officially ended in mid-2009.  High-tech employment accounts for 7.67% of total workers.

The cluster, as defined by Colorado’s Labor Market Information agency, actually continued to decline after the recession. It bottomed out in March of 2010 at 169,300 workers. Over the next 15 months more than 6,000 jobs were added and 176,000 high-tech workers were employed in July 2012. Cluster employment has been relatively flat since then.

Colorado’s telecommunications sector continues to experience declines resulting from consolidations. As well, it has recently been announced that Abound Solar is going into bankruptcy, the addition of a proposed General Electric facility will be delayed and another GE facility will reduce its workforce. In addition the Aerospace and Clean Energy Park in Northern Colorado was scrapped. Unfortunately, the volatility associated with the fledgling renewable energy cluster comes as no surprise. Proposed defense cuts could play havoc with the state aerospace industry.

Current projections for Real GDP growth are less than 2.0% for the next year. Continued lackluster job growth in the high-tech sector is likely.

 

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services – Key to Colorado Recovery

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The Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (PST) sector is critical to the state. Companies in the sector provide engineering and architecture services, conduct scientific research, and manage computer systems. Of particular note, the sector is composed of companies from the various high-tech clusters (photonics, biosciences, nanotechnology, homeland security, IT, etc.).

PST accounted for about 10.6% of state private sector Real GDP in 2010. Between 1997 and 2010 it expanded at an annualized rate of 4.4% versus 3.4% for the Colorado private sector.

Average annual private sector PST Colorado wages for 2010 (most current year available) were $79,623, compared to $47,916 for the overall state average. In 2010, the Colorado PST sector accounted for 9.1% of total private sector employment. Between 1997 and 2010, the sector added employment at an annualized rate of 2.1% compared to 0.7% for the state.

The Healthcare, Higher Education, Tourism, and Extractive industries are leading the recovery. PST is next. It has added about 9,100 jobs since the low point in 2010.The sector has recovered about 78% of the jobs lost since peaking in 2008. If the positive employment trends continue, that level will be reached later this year.

It’s a long slow road to recovery.

For a more complete update on the recovery of the Colorado economy, go to https://cber.co/.

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

Colorado Economic Forecast Challenges (Education, Industries, Clusters)

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Another year, another economic forecast.

Looking ahead to 2012, the state will again experience improved, but below average employment growth. Cber.co is projecting that U.S. real GDP growth will be 2.1% to 2.5% in 2012, with employment growth of 27,500 to 37,500 in Colorado. For more details about the Cber.co 2012 Economic Forecast, click here.

There are a myriad of challenges facing the Colorado and U.S. economies in 2012. Some of the key questions relating to these challenges are categorized into the following four areas:
• Demand for goods and services;
• Debt, the financial system, and politics;
• Education and workforce; and
• Industry and cluster issues.

This post raises questions about the topics of education and workforce; and industry and cluster issues. The topics of demand for goods and services; and debt, the financial system, and politics were discussed in a post entitled “Colorado Economic Forecast – Challenges (Demand and Debt).”

Education and the Workforce
• When will the higher education bubble burst?
• How will higher education improve their performance in the classroom?
• How will the state fund PK-12 education, particularly given the outcome of the Lobato education adequacy lawsuit?
• Are high school and college students learning skills that can be transferred between professions?
• What is being done to address the mismatch between the skills that companies need and the skills of job applicants?
• What is the role of the older worker in the workforce? How are companies addressing their impending retirement?
• Has Colorado lost its pool of trained workers as a result of the Lost Decade?

Industry Issues
• How has Colorado’s high tech cluster weathered the Lost Decade?
• Has Colorado lost its critical mass of manufacturers?
• Has Colorado lost the supply chain associated with the decline in its manufacturers?
• Is Colorado saturated with retail stores?
• How will second and third generation businesses transition into the future?
• How much longer can the Health Care sector continue to add jobs?

Cluster Issues
• Is homeland security a cluster that is still important to the state?
• What happened to Colorado’s nanotechnology cluster? Five years ago it was top 10 in the country. Today it is seldom mentioned?
• Several studies have pointed to the rise of Colorado’s biosciences cluster? How will this translate into growth at Fitzsimons?
• How is the software industry going to survive and thrive given the mismatch of skills in the labor pool and the needs of the companies?
• Will 2012 be the year that photonics is recognized for its contribution to the state economy?
• Are state and local leaders poised for the volatility of the renewable energy cluster?
• How will budget reductions affect Colorado’s defense and aerospace clusters?

Clearly, it is easier to point out the difficult challenges than it is to answer questions relating to them. As well, additional obstacles will be added to the list throughout the year. While there is a lot that could go wrong, it is important to keep in mind the state has an equally impressive list of assets that can be used to address the challenges of the future. Game on!

 

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

Murnane Picked to Chair Committee on the National Medal of Science

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On December 31st the Boulder Daily Camera announced that President Obama had named Margaret Murnane to fill the position of chairwoman of the National Medal of Science. Murnane is the Chair of the Board of KM Labs, a Boulder laser company she and her husband, Henry Kapteyn, started in 1994. In addition she is a JILA Fellow and a Professor of Physics and ECE at the University of Colorado.

The National Medal of Science is a program administered by the National Science Foundation. It is awarded annually to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to science and engineering. In late October Murnane was also awarded the Royal Dublin Society’s Irish Times Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence for her work in the field of laser physics. Murnane was the first woman to receive this prestigious award.

Murnane is the second woman scientist from Colorado’s photonics cluster to be recognized by the Obama administration within the past three years. The first was Kristina Johnson, who served as the undersecretary for Energy at the DOE for about 18 months. Johnson grew up in Denver and was director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Optoelectronics Computing Systems Center at CU. Johnson has over 40 patents and helped form multiple startups in Colorado. During her tenure at CU, she and her staff worked with the Business Advancement Center and the private sector to form the Colorado Photonics Industry Association (CPIA). For the past 13 years the group has promoted the cluster of companies which produce precision optics, lasers, optical instruments, and modeling and simulation software.

The achievements of both women have raised Colorado’s standing as a global leader in science and engineering.

 

 

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

ATFilms – CPIA Company of the Year

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The Colorado Photonics Industry Association (CPIA) hosted its 14th annual membership meeting on October 25 to showcase photonics research being conducted at Colorado’s universities. As well, CPIA also recognized Advanced Thin Films as its Company of the Year.

ATFilms specializes in advanced coating technology available, ion beam sputtering (IBS), and mastering the deposition of precise, dense, and durable films. As well they manufacture a full line of superpolished optical substrates with less than one angstrom RMS micro-roughness.

In addition to hearing presentations by each of the state’s research universities, there was a poster session that featured 26 research projects being conducted by students. Last year, CSU swept the top spots in the poster session; this year the top finishers were from CU and CSU. This year’s winning posters were:

First   “Photolithography Process using Extreme Ultraviolet Lasers”/Wei Li
Second   “Surface Acoustic Wave Metrology using EUV Light” /Kathleen Hoogeboom-Pot
Third   “The Development of Multiparametric Microfluidic Flow Cytometry for Directed Evolution of Red-Fluroescent Proteins”  Kevin M. Dean.

For the uninitiated, photonics is an enabling technology that is a driver of the state and national economy.  The technology is the foundation of the aerospace, biomedical, homeland security, and medical device industries.

Photonics-based technologies impact our daily lives, although we may seldom recognize it. Something as simple as a mirror is a photonics device. Twenty years ago devices such as infrared remote controls, light-emitting diodes, sensors, and laser printers were novelties. Today they are common place. To learn more about the prevalence of photonics in our daily lives click here.

 

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

Sectors Losing Jobs Have Higher Wages

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Through the first 8 months of the year there are 7 sectors of the economy that have lost a net total of 25,100 jobs, compared to the same period last year.

Construction                                     -8,800
Financial Activities                            -4,200
Federal Government                         -3,400
Information                                       -3,400
B-to-B (Not Employment Services)  -2,600
Local Government (Not K-12)         -1,600
K-12 Education                               -1,100

These sectors account for 33.3% of total employment. Average wages for this mix of workers is about $56,600 compared to average annual wages for all employees of about $47,900 (calculations based on 2010 QCEW data). In other words, the average wages for the sectors that are losing jobs is significantly greater than the overall state average, based on 2010 data.

The 2011 prognosis is that each of these sectors will show job losses for the year (2011) and that average annual wages for the group will remain well above the overall state average.

For a comprehensive review of the Colorado economy visit the CBER website.

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.

10 Years After 9/11 – High Tech Employment Falls Off

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For the past 20+ years, Colorado’s high tech cluster has been a driver of the state economy, creating high-paying primary jobs that spawn growth in other sectors of the economy. During much of that time Colorado has been recognized as one of the top states in the country for its number of high tech workers, on a per capita basis.

There is no NAICS code that reports advanced technology employment. Rather than being called an industry, it is technically a cluster because it’s companies crosses a number of sectors. They vary from goods producers and extractive industries to service providers, such as engineers and architects. The high tech cluster has varied in size from 120,000 to 220,000 workers over the past two decades. Currently it employs about 172,000 people.

Because it is a cluster, special calculations are necessary to determine employment levels. Rather than perform these calculations, a good proxy of the presence of high tech or advanced technology, from both an employment and output perspective, is the performance of the Manufacturing; Information; and Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (MIPTS) sectors.

The two recessions during the past ten years provided advanced technology companies with motivation to increase productivity through outsourcing and investments in capital. As a result employment declined precipitously, while output showed impressive gains.

In 2000, MIPTS employment was 451,100 workers. About 87,400 jobs were lost by 2010, or an annualized decline of  -2.1%. At that point, the MIPTS sectors accounted for 363,800 workers or 16.4% of total employment.

It remains to be seen what impact the sharp decline in employment will have on Colorado’s MIPTS and the high tech cluster. There are concerns that its dropoff will adversely impact the supply chain within the state as well as the base of trained workers. Can Colorado maintain its innovative edge? Time will tell.

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.