UCCS students in investment competition

The stakes are a little higher this year for D.A. Davidson & Co.’s annual Student Investment Program — the competition includes a shot at a paid internship.
Two University of Colorado at Colorado Springs College of Business students already have been nominated and will compete with 40 other nominees from 20 colleges for the internships, said Mark Sikorski, vice president and manager of the local Davidson office.
Rachel Ellis, a senior majoring in finance at UCCS, is hoping the internship could give a kick start to plans for a career in investments or banking. The other nominee declined to be identified.
The pair are among 40 UCCS students who manage a $50,000 portfolio loaned by the company for the competition, won last year by a team from University of Oregon with a 29.4 percent return. The UCCS team finished sixth last year with a 19 percent return on its portfolio.
A panel of Davidson executives will interview three to five finalists for the internship in mid-January, and the two winners will be revealed Feb. 11. The company will pay both interns a $1,290 weekly salary for the 12-week program plus $2,500 in a Davidson investment account.
The Montana-based investment brokerage firm has sponsored the contest for 22 years, and UCCS is participating for the fourth consecutive year. Profits earned on the portfolio in excess of 5 percent are donated to the school, which netted UCCS about $4,000 for student programs.

Twiggy the squirrel

If you missed Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel, when he last visited Colorado Springs, you will have another chance to see him on Saturday Oct. 20.
Twiggy and the BMX Pro Stunt team, featuring three-time ESPN X-Games gold medal winner Trevor Meyer, will be featured at the grand opening celebration for Integrity Bank’s third branch at 13475 Voyager Parkway, southeast of Voyager Parkway and North Gate Boulevard.
The squirrel, which drew a crowd of more than 1,000 at another Integrity branch opening in 2005, is scheduled to perform at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and noon, while the BMX team performs at 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. The branch opened on Monday.

7-Eleven giving away caffeine

Colorado Springs 7-Eleven stores will give away free 12 oz. cups of its new Exclusive Bold coffee on Wednesday, Oct. 17, from 10 a.m. to midnight. 7-Eleven call it the strongest coffee ever sold in its stores. The chain has about 50 stores in the Colorado Springs area and says it sells 1 million cups of coffee each day in its North American stores.

Progressive to plant trees at Memorial Park

Progressive call center employees in Colorado Springs will team up with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 70 native trees in Memorial Park, 1605 E. Pikes Peak Ave. , on Wednesday, Oct. 17. The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies is the third largest car insurance group in the country and fifth largest in Colorado.

About 30 Progressive call center employees were selected to help plant the trees as a reward for their work. The Colorado Springs tree planting is part of Progressive’s “70 Years, 70 Trees” events in which the company is celebrating its 70th anniversary in its six call center communities. In the next three months, Progressive volunteers will plant 420 large trees in Cleveland, Tampa, Austin, Colorado Springs, Phoenix and Sacramento.

Springs a hotbed for security-cleared jobs

Colorado Springs ranks as the nation’s 14th best location for those with security clearance to find a job, according to a recent study by ClearanceJobs.com.
The Des Moines, Iowa-based company cited the large collection of military bases as well as defense and aerospace contractors operating in the Springs area and creating a “positive employment picture, particularly for security-cleared personnel.”
Springs-area defense workers regularly report wages well above the national average for security-cleared candidates, the site said. Those salaries averaged $69,834 in the site’s March survey.
McLean-Arlington, Va., captured the top ranking in the site’s study, joining nine other Virginia cities among the top 20 locations. Aurora> was the only other Colorado city listed, ranking 12th.
ClearanceJobs.com is owned by New York-based Dice Holdings Inc., which provides online recruiting, job fairs and career development services to professionals in technology, engineering, investment banking, accounting and finance.
For more information, go to http://www.clearancejobs.com/news.php?articleID=34

Springs falls in Best Peforming Cities rank

Colorado Springs fell to the middle of the pack in annual rankings by a California think tank of the ability of cities to create and sustain jobs.
The Springs ranked 96th in the rankings released last month, down from 71st in 2005, the last year the rankings had been produced by the Milken Institute, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based nonprofit economic think tank created by financier Michael Milken.
The city has ranked as high as 10th in 2000, but has declined every year but 2005 in rankings of the nation’s 200 largest metropolitan areas. That’s mostly because city’s weak job growth during the past five years, which included declines in 2002 and 2003. “This is not a surprise as the data looks back from one to six years and includes our recession years where our tech sector was hit hard,” said Mike Kazmierski, president of the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp., which helps attract industry to the city. Three Florida cities — Ocala, Orlando and Naples, ranked among the top six in the institute’s latest ranking, which was sponsored by Greenstreet Real Estate Partners. The rankings this year reflect the year the data is released; in past years they reflected the year the data was collected. Among other Colorado cities, Greeley ranked 29th, up from 31st in 2005; Fort Collins ranked 75th, down from 46th; Boulder ranked 93rd, down from 92nd; Denver ranked 106th, down from 105th. Among 179 smaller metro areas, Grand Junction ranked 18th, up from 37th, and Pueblo ranked 130th, unchanged. For more information, go to http://www.milkeninstitute.org/

Tourism conference - Thursday update

Lisa Amend, communications manager for Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak, e-mailed this update on developments today at the Governor's 2007 Colorado Tourism Conference in Grand Junction:

"We had a great general session this morning with updates from the CTO (Colorado Tourism Office) and MMG on their plans for leveraging our marketing dollars in 2008. The goals are to increase visitor spending by 9.5%, increase overall visitation by 4%, and attract 30 million visitors by the end of 2008. Strategies to achieve these goals include:

• Evolution of "Let's Talk Colorado" ad campaign
• Addition of all-season messaging
• Progression of segmented approach to focus on retention strategies
• Increased use of emerging technologies (mapping, social media)
• Advancement of partnership outreach
• Continuing to integrate online and offline campaigns with public relations efforts

The T-shirt program implemented by MMG (Colorado.com advertises free T-shirts for those who stop by Colorado Welcome Centers) has done exceptionally well. Over 15,000 people signed up for the T-shirts online and more than 12,500 have actually been picked up. People who visit the Welcome Centers stay in the region longer and they spend more money. A new Welcome Center will open in Alamosa in the summer of 2008.

International marketing efforts continue to focus on UK, Germany, France and Mexico, but the state is now also targeting Japan, Canada and Benelux.

The campaigns this year have performed very well. Colorado.com web sessions are up 148% and State Visitor Guide requests are up 216%.

Winners of the 2007 Governor's Tourism Industry Awards:

• Outstanding Tourism Volunteer Award: Les Turner (posthumous), Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau
• Outstanding Community Initiative Award: City of Manitou Springs Economic Development Council
• Chairman's Award: Senator Jim Isgar
• Outstanding Individual Contribution Award: Jeff Potter, CEO of Exclusive Resorts

Tourism conference - Wednesday update

Lisa Amend, communications manager for Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak Convention and Visitors Bureau, is attending this week's Governor's 2007 Colorado Tourism Conference, which started Wednesday. Here's what she had to say via an e-mail about Day One:

"Here we are at the 2007 Governor's Conference in Grand Junction. The Experience Colorado Springs team rose bright and early at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and were on the road by 5:45. It was a beautiful drive and fall colors are in full splendor out here!

The opening luncheon was well-attended by representatives from all over the state. There is even someone here from the Alligator Farm. He's carrying around a darling little baby tortise who has been a big hit with everyone so far.

Our speaker Wednesday was Dennis Snow, who used to work for the Walt Disney World Co. He was very dynamic and passed on lots of great tips about how to make a customer's experience unforgettable. He had some great methodology, like asking the crowd what they remember about the Disney World theme park. It was interesting to me that nobody who spoke up mentioned any of the rides. Instead, they said things like "The park was so clean!" or "Everyone is so friendly there!" Snow then mentioned that for the Tower of Terror ride alone, Disney spent over $100 million dollars... but it means nothing if the customer does not have a good experience in the park. He advised us all to take the time to experience a visit to our area through the lens of the customer (visitor) and to ensure that we were not doing things for our own convenience, but for theirs. He also condones empowering staff since "The best ideas can come from within. They can cost nothing and change everything!" He was a wonderful speaker.

The ECS team separated for the various breakout sessions Wednesday afternoon. I attended "The Trails of Colorado" since I've been working with Dan Cleveland from the Trails and Open Space Coalition to integrate trail maps into our new website when it launches next year. I'm also part of the Watershed Access Advisory Group (through Springs Utilities) to help drive the public process to form a policy that will accommodate recreational use of trails on the south slope of Pikes Peak while protecting the water supply. So Wednesday's trails session gave me some good background information on what types of visitors other trail systems are attracting and how to incorporate these visitors into our marketing plan."

Lovebyrd flies to Disaboom

Disaboom, the new online community for people with disabilities, announced today it had acquired Lovebyrd.com, an online dating and social networking service for disabled singles. It will rebrand Lovebyrd.com under the Disaboom umbrella and offer it as a free service within Disaboom.com. The deal involved part cash, part stock in Disaboom; the price was not disclosed. Disaboom was founded by two Colorado Springs men, J.W. Roth and Dr. Glen House.

Veteran commercial brokers switch addresses

Michael Palmer and Peter Scoville, two longtime commercial brokers at NAI Highland Commercial Group LLC in Colorado Springs, have jumped to an expanded local office of Cushman & Wakefield of Colorado Inc. Palmer (top right), who had been with NAI Highland since March 1996, has closed more than $1 billion in real estate transactions including leasing assignments, land sales, office and research and development sales, according to a Cushman & Wakefield statement. He's past president of the Colorado chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors and is a graduate of the University of Arizona. Scoville (bottom right), who had joined NAI Highland in spring 2000, has represented some of the region’s top landlords and tenants and has advised major corporate clients. Scoville currently serves as president of the Board of Realtors Commercial Industrial Society and is a graduate of The Colorado College. Cushman & Wakefield opened its Colorado Springs office in 1997 and focused primarily on property management. The office began offering brokerage services last year and currently has three senior brokerage professionals and plans to increase that number.

Chuck Asay unplugged at the HBA

Former Gazette political cartoonist Chuck Asay will discuss the building industry and politics during a luncheon to benefit the political action committee of the Housing & Building Association of Colorado Springs. Asay will speak at noon, Thursday, Nov. 1 at Cheyenne Mountain Resort, 3225 Broadmoor Valley Road, on Colorado Springs' southwest side. Attendees should RSVP to 592-1800, ext., 21. The cost is $50 per person. More information: 592-1800 or www.cshba.com.

Heart friendly parking

Take a few extra steps, help your heart. The Outlets of Colorado inaugurated “heart friendly parking” today at its three sites, Outlets at Castle Rock, Outlets at Loveland and Outlets at Silverthorne. Fifty-three parking spots at each outlet have been designated as heart friendly spaces. They encourage customers to park farther away and thus walk farther to the stores. Walking just 30 minutes a day has heart-health benefits, the American Heart Association says.

Tourism conference this week

The Governor’s 2007 Colorado Tourism Conference opens Wednesday in Grand Junction. Among those attending: a group of seven from Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak Convention and Visitors Bureau, headed by president and CEO Terry Sullivan. The annual event will showcase a diverse mix of travel industry experts. The Colorado Tourism Office will also unveil its 2008 marketing and advertising strategy. And at the annual Governor's Awards luncheon, recognition will be given to people and groups throughout the state that help grow and strengthen the Colorado brand. The event will close with a presentation on “Survival - The Personality of Leadership,” featuring Aron Ralston, the climber who spent five days pinned beneath a boulder in a Utah canyon before performing a lifesaving self-amputation. For more details, go to www.colorado.com/govconf.

Rich Hand used to being ignored

Rich Hand is used to being ignored — the Colorado Springs resident ran for Congress last year and finished third — with 41 votes, or 0.04 percent of the vote.
Hand, executive director of membership for HDI, a Springs-based trade group for more than 7,000 information technology support professionals, writes about that experience and others in his autobiography, “My Life: Ignored! Life is Too Short to Ignore Yours.”
An anonymous response to his newsletter prompted Hand to write the 200-page book, published by HDI last month, who asked him why he published the 250-subscriber newsletter, put out three CDs with his band and authors a blog when “everyone ignores you.”
He wrote the book because “we have to do the things that are important to us even if they are ignored. The people important to us are still watching,” Hand said. “All of us are celebrities to our own core group of people. I want to motivate others into action in their own lives.”
Hand said “there was some real major ignoring going on in the Congressional race, but I believe I still made a difference with the people I engaged.” He said he plans to run again next year as an unaffiliated candidate and petition onto the ballot.
For more on Hand and his book, go to http://www.whoisrichhand.com/

EDC celebrates more than technology

If you attend both the Celebrate Technology and the Excellence in Local Industry awards receptions, you will have one fewer event to attend this year.
That’s because both sets of awards will be presented at a single event this year, now set for Nov. 14 at The Broadmoor hotel. Both awards programs were put on by the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp., which revived the technology awards in 2004.
“We saw lots of synergies between the two events, enough to combine the two,” said Kara Roberts, EDC’s vice president of local industry. “Any time you put on a first-class event like these, there is a considerable amount of work involved. This streamlines those efforts.”
The combined awards will be streamlined, eliminating Celebrate Technology awards for venture capital funds and narrowing the criteria to local entrants.
The technology awards will honor innovation and entrepreneurs, while the local industry awards honor companies who have stayed and become good corporate citizens in the Springs and those who have helped to improve the local business climate.
The combined awards ceremony also will allow all funds raised by sponsorships for Celebrate Technology to go for and expand $1,500 scholarships to students attending the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs College of Engineering and Applied Science, Roberts said.
For more information, go to http://www.celebratetechnology.org/

Group releases nonprofit compensation survey for Colorado

Young Life's president and chief executive is one of the highest paid nonprofit directors in Colorado, according to a new state survey by www.salariesreview.com.

Based on data from 990 tax forms, Young Life's CEO is compensated $258,638.

Other CEOs in the top five: National Endowment for Financial Education, $1.1 million; National Employment Law Institute, $452,114; Allosource, $353,038; and Philanthropy for Active Engagement, $245,975.

Architects to gather for design awards Nov. 30

A design awards gala for the American Institute of Architects' southern Colorado chapter will take place Nov. 30 at Colorado College's Bemis Hall, 920 N. Cascade Ave., in Colorado Springs. The event will include presentation of the AIA Colorado South 2007 design award winners by Patrick Gallagher of Washington D.C.-based Gallagher & Associates. Springs architect Morey Bean, 2007 president of AIA Colorado South, will emcee the evening, which will include dinner and live entertainment. More information: www.aiacolorado.org/events_programs/AIAColoradoSouthGala.cfm or Robin Hickey at 303.446.2266, ext. 21.

PENRAD Imaging gets new high-tech equipment

A faster CT scanner with two X-ray sources and two detectors has arrived at PENRAD Imaging.

It's the first CT 128 in Colorado, according to PENRAD officials, and it can scan patients in a few seconds, accommodat patients up to 485 pounds, delivers 50 percent less radiation and has twice the speed and resolution of a single-source scanner.

The equipment can be used for scanning the heart for cardiac disease and can be used on nearly any patient, including those with shortness of breath and irregular heart beat. It also requires no pre-medication.

It also is useful for neuro studies, pediatric patients, small bowel fluoroscopy and other applications.

American Family offers free safety program for teen drivers

American Family Insurance's Teen Safe Driver Program is now available in eight states, including Colorado.

Produced in conjunction with DriveCam Inc., the year-long program helps young drivers learn the ropes and is free to American Family auto insurance customers who have a teen driver. Register at www.teensafedriver.com.

Results from a pilot program in Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin show the program reduces risky driving behavior by 70 percent or more, said Jack Salzwedel, American Family's president and chief operating officer.

An in-vehicle video and audio camera captures risky driving behavior, such as swerving, hard braking, sudden acceleration and collisions. The unit wirelessly sends the images and sounds to an analysis center, where analysts review the problem, add coaching comments and assign a risk score. Parents and teens receive weekly status reports via e-mail and can view the video clips.

Colorado Housing and Finance Authority offers homebuyer education

Homebuyers, take note. The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) now offers the option of receiving education online at http://chfauniversity-homefinance.knowledgefactor.com. The online homebuyer education program is in addition to an online money management program (http://chfauniversity-homefinance.knowledgefactor.com) for existing homeowners. In addition to the online program, the authority will continue to offer face-to-face homebuyer education classes throughout Colorado via its non-profit partners. For more than 30 years, CHFA has provided financing to qualified homebuyers statewide. Most CHFA customers are first-time buyers of low- to moderate incomes, and many are inexperienced in the home-buying process. “We believe that homebuyer education helps people make good decisions about buying a home,” said CHFA’s Home Finance Director Karen Harkin. “A well-informed consumer asks good questions and makes good decisions. Understanding the process empowers people to make smart financial decisions about what kind of loan makes sense for them and helps prevent some of the problems that we believe has exacerbated the current foreclosure situation. Sometimes they even make the decision that they are not ready yet for home ownership." The homebuyer education curriculum includes topics such as finding a real estate agent and reputable lender, how to live on a budget and home maintenance. CHFA offers homebuyer education classes in English and Spanish and will make arrangements for classes in other languages. Homebuyer education and money management classes are free of charge and are available even for buyers who don't obtain a CHFA loan. More information: http://www.colohfa.org/, (303) 297-7376 or (800) 877-CHFA, ext. 376.