Rocky Flats group boosts efforts to grow jobs

[jane520lin]

The cleanup of Rocky Flats and surrounding areas could create more than 2,000 new jobs during the next five years, according to a group that's guiding the former nuclear weapon plant's transition to an environmental technology site.wow power leveling, The group, known as the Rocky Flats Local Impacts Initiative, recently has stepped up its efforts to create new manufacturing and environmental technology jobs in an effort to replace the jobs lost when Rocky Flats went out of the business of building triggers for nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War. Efforts to recycle jobs into the civilian sector will be touted by Energy Secretary Federico Pena at the Jefferson County Commissioners Forum, Aug. 7, at the Sheraton Denver West Hotel.wow gold, From 1994 until 1996, the initiative spent $4 million on training programs aimed at recycling the skills of laid-off weapons plant workers. The Department of Energy recently awarded a second $4 million grant to the initiative to continue the training program and other job creation efforts throughout 1997 and 1998. The new money will fund the Entrepreneur Resource Program and the Entrepreneur Technical Assistance Program, two efforts designed to give former Rocky Flats workers the opportunity to wow gold, start their own businesses. Here's a closer look at the two programs and other economic efforts in the Rocky Flats corridor: Grants and advice to budding business owners The Entrepreneur Resource Program provides management assistance such as legal, marketing, accounting and product development services to small businesses. The program gives out $5,000 grants to individual companies to "help businesses grow and create jobs," said project manager Rhonda Zeschin. "We have six targeted industries we are trying to develop. wow gold, These are the kinds of industries Rocky Flats workers could transfer into," she said. Environmental technologies, biomedical equipment, computer hardware, advanced manufacturing technology, advanced structural materials and telecommunications are the six industries that would work best to integrate former Rocky Flats employees into the work force. To qualify for a grant, a company must have "25 employees or less, be in one of the six industries and have potential for job growth," Zeschin said. The money can be used to develop a business plan or marketing materials for a new product. It also can be used to lease spacewow gold, at a technology incubator. Rocky Flats workers who would like to start their own businesses are also eligible for the grant program. In this case, it does not matter what kind of business they would like to start. The program has helped start everything from bakeries to biomedical companies. Begun in April 1995, the program already has helped more than 250 companies and those entities are projected to create more than 1,700 jobs in the next three years, Zeschin said. The program supports companies in a 10-county area, from Weld and Larimer to Douglas. With a budget of $650,545 in 1997, the program is slated to generate the most jobs of any of the initiative's economic development programs. The program also provides research through the University of Colorado Business wow gold, Advancement Center. "We give them $150 worth of online research above and beyond the $5,000. If they need more than that it comes out of the $5,000," she said. The program is budgeted for an additional $500,000 in 1998. Helping scientists commercialize their ideas Administered by the Colorado School of Mines' Colorado Advanced Materials Institute, the Entrepreneur Technical Assistance Program partners technology-based companies with Colorado universities "to help them commercialize their products and create permanent high wage jobs," Zeschin said. Small companies are paired with universities "to provide research and development assistance to small businesses that otherwise couldn't afford it," WOW power leveling, said Sue Purcell, manager of corporate outreach programs at the Colorado School of Mines. Purcell sits on the program's review and selection board, which is made up of community members, universities, government and research institutes. The technical assistance program, which is funded by the Department of Energy, is in its third year of operation. The program solicits proposals from companies or individuals involved in manufacturing or technology-based businesses for grants of $75,000 each. The DOE budgeted $347,945 in 1997 and another $300,000 in 1998 to the program. The program will fund eight projects over the next two years. "It's a great program. I love reading the proposals," Purcell said. "There are very good ideas out there and reasons to be optimistic." The technical assistance program also gives priority to Rocky wow gold, Flats workers and companies promoting technology developed and licensed at Rocky Flats. The best part about the program is that the review board acts more as a mentoring body than a judgmental body, Purcell said. Each member of the board brings to the table a wealth of experience either in business, wotlk gold, entrepreneurship or finance, and shares advice and business contacts with every company that comes before them, regardless if they are the ones receiving the grants. The program funded 14 businesses last year. Onsite development begins to get rolling The Rocky Flats Local Impacts Initiative is also one step closer to converting industrial buildings at the site into leasable space. Two industrial buildings at Rocky Flats have been cleaned up and are in the process of being leased to a manufacturing company in the area. Manufacturing Sciences Corp.wow gold, the company that cleaned up and refurbished the two buildings, was awarded the bid to lease the properties and turn them into a radioactive metals recycling business. The deal is expected to be completed Aug. 1, according to Tim Heaton, the company's corporate director for strategic planning and community affairs. The Colorado-based corporation has a similar plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that has been very successful. Its plan is to recycle radioactive and other scrap metals at Rocky Flats and other DOE facilities into hazardous waste containers. "Our job is to help get rid of waste, not create more waste," Heaton said. That is why the company proposed recycling the buildings at Rocky Flats rather than building new ones on "a green field that will then become contaminated," he said. The four buildings the company is interested in are manufacturing buildings, with melting furnaces, rolling mills and presses that can be used to fabricate the contaminated materials into items such as metal drums. Manufacturing Sciences also has been approached by other companies that would like to use the rolling mill and forming presses for their own businesses, but the company can't negotiate a deal with these other businesses until the DOE signs their lease. The company has 44 employees at Rocky Flats and once its lease is in place, hopes to boost that number to 100 or more. The lease to Manufacturing Sciences is part of the National Conversion Pilot Project. Eight buildings at Rocky Flats have been identified as potential reuse buildings, but nothing will be done with them until the success of Manufacturing Sciences' operation is evaluated.
Rocky Flats group boosts efforts to grow jobs