EDC Marketing Update: For the past several years, Colorado Springs has been a very attractive location for customer service centers. Companies place high value on the skilled workforce, positive business climate and central location. Due to sustained success in attracting call centers, some of whom rank among Colorado Springs premier employers, concern has been expressed about Colorado Springs being over saturated with jobs from the call center sector.

Due to this concern about over saturation, EDC is not actively targeting call centers, but still receives many leads and interest. Recently there has been an increase in the number of leads pertaining to high end customer service centers where the average employee makes on average $45,000 to $60,000 per year. These centers are highly technical by nature and involve customer relations between the client and other businesses. They require educated people often with sales experience. People who have experience in the call center sector can now qualify for higher paying jobs. Company owned customer service centers can lead to bigger and better things. Once a company lands a call center in our community, they gain a sense of appreciation for the community and make more investment here.

Primary employers are gathering to provide valuable business climate input: EDC’s Local Industry Program has been holding a series of events specifically for the 550 primary employers in El Paso County. To date, three forums have been held and over fifty companies have attended. Additional forums are planned for April and May. The purpose of these forums is to 1) understand the issues that impact businesses, both specifically and on a broader business climate level, 2) determine if these companies are planning to expand, and 3) connect companies with community leaders, such as City Council, the Board of El Paso County Commissioners, utilities, workforce and educational representatives. The Local Industry program will continue to conduct Business Retention and Expansion Visitation (BREV) visits in conjunction with these forums in order to maximize opportunities for feedback and issue resolution.

Public health, safety needs and other serious challenges facing the Pikes Peak region were discussed at a public forum sponsored by The Citizens for Effective Government (CEG) on March 18. Speakers included the CEG Chairman, Mike Kazmierski, El Paso County Sheriff, Terry Maketa; El Paso County Health Department Director, Rosemary Bakes Martin; Vice Mayor, Larry Small and El Paso County Commissioner, Sallie Clark. The forum was held to give citizens a chance to speak out about the public health and safety challenges that threaten Colorado Springs residents' quality of life, as well as, to consider solutions to this growing problem. The slides presented at the forum can been seen at http://www.coloradosprings.org/Doc/downloads/CEG%20Power%20Point.ppt. For more information contact Sara Muirheid at smuirheid@msn.com or Mike Kazmierski at mjkazmierski@csedc.org

Colorado Springs Utilities has introduced a new economic vitality web site that is designed to allow CSU to better partner with the business community. CSU is continually working with customers and partners to find ways to improve the CSU economic vitality programs. Learn more about the CSU's programs and services, rate options, financial services, reliability and capacity information at www.csu.org/business/economic/index.html.