In tonight's Business of Colorado special.

We're taking you inside one of our state's most dynamic innovation communities.

And we're also looking at how ideas, industries and communities are coming together to find new ways to shape the future of Colorado's economy.

We'll bring you all of this and more in tonight's Business of Colorado special.

From the Five Points Media Center in the heart of Denver, Colorado.

This is studio 12.

Hello and welcome to this special edition of The Business of Colorado.

I'm your host, Frannie Matthews.

Tonight, we're taking a closer look at one of Colorado's most dynamic centers for innovation.

I sat down with Kelly Braff, president and CEO of the Fitzsimons Innovation Community.

From commercializing the discovery to creating a collaborative environment for industry and academia.

Our conversation explores what it really takes to build an innovation ecosystem and why it matters to Colorado's future.

I'm here with Kelly Bruce, president and CEO of Fitzsimons Innovation Community.

Welcome, Kelly.

Thanks so much for having me.

So let's talk a little bit about Fitzsimons innovation community and how it got started and where it is and how it relates to the and shoots medical campus.

This is such a great story.

It starts 30 years ago.

This was an Army post and it was a medical hospital.

And 30 years ago the federal government said, we're going to close this down.

And at that time, see, you and the city of Aurora said, okay, let's form this authority who manages the transformation of this army post.

And we really want to make it a bio life science campus.

And 30 years ago, that was a pretty creative, innovative idea.

And it has, persisted strongly for those 30 years.

And in that time frame, three hospitals have located on that campus.

You have the University of Colorado hospital system, you have Children's Hospital, the VA, all nationally ranked hospitals.

And then you had see, you bring its Anschutz campus out there.

So it's medical schools, and then you have us in Fitzsimons, who we, really focus on building labs where early, early, early stage companies can do research, for life changing health care.

And we'll talk I know more about that, Frannie.

And so it's exciting to see such a long period of time that we've all been at it.

And this last year, we really shifted our understanding of what it takes to build a vibrant, dynamic, innovative campus, that we all envisioned.

And we started to, you know, approve increased densities.

So we'll have way more housing on the campus in the future.

More labs, more research happening.

And we're probably, I don't know, maybe halfway there in terms of development.

So we have over 60 acres of greenfield to go and lots of opportunity for our future.

Well, and what I, I love about this is that it's not the innovation hub.

It is a community.

So tell me a little bit about how you look at that from building an ecosystem that really thrives and helps innovation flourish.

Yeah, I love this because our secret sauce are really those hospitals and the, faculty at those medical schools and the work they're doing.

So not only will they be researchers and transferring their tech and their ideas to research on our campus, but they also can really support early stage companies, from clinical trials in the hospitals to docs and faculty serving as advisors to the, students going to school there, the graduate students, working in our labs, that it becomes this really integrated system of clinical practice on one end to brand spanking new ideas that have never been tested on the other.

And it is a wonderful combination.

A lot of times, you know, if you think of, like, Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins as kind of a vertical integration, this is not what you're talking about.

It's really building a community of disparate, groups all coming together.

There are shared needs that they all have from how do I access funding to support, my new company and the research we're trying to do.

How do I find the talent to support the work?

How do I find the advisors?

How do I create a pitch deck?

What does it look like to market and to meet people in the industry throughout the world, in the nation?

And those are the pieces that we really work hard to make sure we're bringing.

Right now we have about 80 companies doing that work in our buildings.

And we try to support them on those kind of across, you know, horizontal needs that they have that have nothing to do with a specific area of study.

What are some of the lessons that you have learned in the past that you're taking into this role to say, here are the components to make this really flourish?

Yeah, it's just like any brand new startup, you know, or small business, often you don't even know what you don't know.

And so what we really try to spend time doing is help them understand, you know, how important their IP, their intellectual property is, where they can get support to lock that IP down.

Introductions that can help them.

But it's almost helping them see the pieces in the gaps in kind of their thinking.

These are experts in selling gene therapies.

They're not experts in how do you build a business and bring these therapies to patients to save lives?

So that's the piece we really try to focus on.

But what's interesting to me, Frannie, is it's really not that different than the work I did in the past at the Chamber of Commerce or, really supporting those early stage companies.

You and I have talked a lot about how business has operated over the years.

What are you seeing that's.

Kind of different now than than how we've operated in the industrial age?

Yeah, I love this question.

I think, particularly since the pandemic.

Right.

The world really changed.

Research still happens in person.

And, and so one of the differences I'm absolutely seeing on our campus is, you know, hospital care still happens in person.

The even the school, you know, really is still in person because so much of it is, you know, the learning by doing.

And so we're a, a campus where people are still there.

I think this is a huge competitive advantage for our industry and for our campus in particular, because I really recognize that being together is where the creative work comes, that people are bumping into each other who are doing completely different areas of study.

But that's where some of the craziest ideas are born.

Some of the light bulbs go off.

And I feel like we're trying to make sure we're creating a community that takes, you know, really has is able to take advantage of that.

So, for example, we have a local coffee shop we actually host once a month community gatherings there, and we buy all the coffee and pastries so that they can come together.

But that's where we see people saying, you're studying what?

Oh my gosh, that may be related.

Or the gene that you've discovered actually might help me with the work I'm doing.

And I think that's kind of the secret of figuring out how do you really thrive in today's market and kind of being on the cutting edge in the front edge?

Not in the background.

Well, you know, it's interesting because the industrial age, we came up with a great idea.

We figured out how to standardize it, and then we scaled it.

And inherently what that does is it creates these silos.

And what you just described is that human beings to human beings in these spontaneous collisions in a coffee shop, find the interconnections by themselves.

So you have to bring them together.

Yeah, you have to de silo.

Yeah.

There's no question about it.

And, and I think it's hard to figure out what does that look like and how do you do that effectively we continue to experiment with different ideas.

The other thing I think we're trying to figure out is how do we provide the programing that really helps you find out if your idea is going to work and that includes getting you to know as fast as we can or getting you to.

Yes.

And I, I think that's a, an elusive, challenge, but one we're up for.

And I think a big part of that is the creativity.

The path absolutely looks different.

Right?

You had talked about the industrial age.

And, you know, lots of folks on our campus are engaged in personalized medicine.

This is medicine that basically works for you, Franny, and nobody else.

And it's amazingly cool.

You know, it's things like reprograming your genes when you have cancer to put them back in your body to kill the cancer.

And it's way effective.

It's also super expensive.

And part of industrialization was to say, can you reduce cost by you know, having this simple same process?

We're challenged now to figure out we have these ideas that really work but are super expensive.

What does it look like?

Because you can't I can't industrialize your genes, but what does it look like to make it more affordable?

That's a really cool thing.

Well, it it makes me think immediately to emerging technologies like AI to be able to reduce the cost of that.

Yeah, not replacing humans.

It's just doing something new in enabling humans.

Yeah.

Like digital twins, where we could test the idea on your digital twin and be like, okay, that totally works.

Send it in.

The Gates Institute in biomanufacturing actually does with Car-T cells and puts them back in your body after it reprograms them.

They've, helped their 50th patient in 2025.

It really works.

It's amazing.

And it doesn't have all the side effects, particularly for our kiddos.

That chemotherapy has of killing the good cells.

We have a company, Ruma Jen, who, they believe at this point have identified the gene.

You know, the body sometimes attacks itself.

And when the immune system does that, they're trying to figure out, rheumatoid arthritis as an example, sickle cell.

They're trying to figure out, is there a gateway gene that they could click on and off that actually could stop the body from attacking itself when those things happen?

That is so amazing because it doesn't just address rheumatoid arthritis anymore.

Now, you could start to address, a range of diseases that people struggle with.

It's really cool.

What are the key players and the key aspects that you need to be looking at to have the ecosystem really function?

Yeah, I really this is a space I you know, I've only been there, 15 months.

And when I first got there, that is exactly the question I was asking myself.

But frankly, it's probably been a question most of us have been asking throughout our careers of how do you create an environment where creativity and innovation are rewarded?

You know, part of the culture.

And I read this book by Rick Rubin.

He's, you know, like a songwriter for Johnny Cash.

So I'm a huge Johnny Cash fan, but he wrote a book called The Creative Act.

And and it's titled, I think, a Way of Being.

I share this with you because I think at a young age, most of us were told, hey, listen, you're not a good artist.

You can't sing.

You really have.

You're not.

You have no right brain.

Kelly, so you should focus on math and science and and what he's arguing, and I think he's right, is we all have a huge creativity component to us, and it needs to be unleashed.

And unlocked.

And you have to be pretty intentional, I think, about doing that in the workplace.

So I really looked at, you know, what are his stages of creativity and how do I create a community that really unlocks those.

And so in his book, he talks about things like the seeds is the beginning.

This is how you create the ideas, the collisions, the what are all the things I need to do.

But I think there's a safety component to seeds as well.

And that is there's not a punishment when your seed was a bad one.

Right.

And it didn't grow.

And it you know, and I think you got to figure out what that looks like.

And I think it's harder than we probably acknowledge in the workplace.

Then he talks about you experiment with those.

This is our sweet spot on the campus.

We've created actual space where that experiment is supposed to occur.

And by experimenting you start to get a sense of, is my idea going to go somewhere and not go somewhere?

And with the right support, you can get to that answer way faster.

To me, that's part of what our community tries to do really well.

And then you hone that idea.

You really I think he calls it crafting it.

And it's really starting to figure out, oh, turn here.

Do this.

Not that the adjustments to your experimenting.

So you start to figure out what might really work, and then you conclude it and you start the process all over again.

And for me, I've thought about each of those stages of what do I do on that campus and with our community that allows each of those stages to occur really naturally and to be rewarded and celebrated.

And and some of it is lifting people up to show what they're doing, make sure the world knows.

And I think when you share ideas, people are like, oh, that's inspiring.

Even if we fail on it or or we can only help, you know, a small percentage of the population, there's still something worth celebrating about that work historically, you know, always a bio life science center is what we've been going for.

But I feel like the shift in the last year has been a recognition that if you want to create a vibrant, creative, innovative, active place, you got to have a lot of people in it.

And today, somewhere around 35,000 people come on to our campus every day, to work, to learn, to live.

Currently we have just over, I think, 700 approved housing units.

Our new plan allows over 7000.

Now, why is that important?

Well, because that residential population starts to create the energy and activation that makes you feel like you're in a vibrant place.

It allows people who are working there to live close by and have these great experiences.

And same with our labs.

We're really increasing the density.

We have two light rail stops.

Bus rapid transit to interstates like it is a good place for the city of Aurora to have more density, and we're the first urban activation.

They have approved this in 2025.

It's really exciting to think about what are all the components that lead to innovation and creativity, and a big part is having people there.

Thank you for all the work that you're doing.

I want you to come back.

We want to get an update and I really appreciate your time.

Thank you for any.

As Colorado continues to grow as the center for Bioscience and Innovation, it's clear that the real story isn't just about breakthroughs.

It's about building the kind of community where ideas can be nurtured, they can grow, and companies can flourish.

The impact of this can reach far beyond our state.

In view of Vista, solving the housing challenge is about more than building homes.

It's about rethinking process, workforce and scale.

Modular home builder.

Fading West is doing just that.

They have created a factory in Chaffee County, where they are training workers on site and building homes in a controlled and efficient environment.

I sat down with Eric Schaefer to learn how this locally rooted approach is expanding to communities across Colorado and beyond.

I am here with Eric Schaffer of Fading West.

Eric, thank you for joining us today.

Tell us what Fading West is.

Yeah.

So fading west, started, with Charlie Chup, our CEO, and he, lives in Buena Vista and started building the farm, which is 22 acres right next to the high school.

And really, the goal was there was nowhere to live, right, for, affordable housing, for teachers, for social workers, for police and fire.

And so his goal initially was to provide housing for, you know, Vista.

And so we were able to get ten homes per acre.

The the land was zoned differently.

We were able to get a PUD to change the density.

And a very long story short, we realized that with lack of subs and GSEs in the area, that building out that many houses would take a very long time and be very expensive.

So we quickly pivoted to, modular.

And what modular means to me is fully volumetric.

So 90% of the house is built in a factory to the codes of the regular houses that you and I live in and then initially shipped in from places like Nebraska.

So we, decided to build our own factory or a modular factory in, university.

It's right behind the little airport.

And, really was the goal is to help be part of the, solution to the affordable housing crisis here in the state.

It's crisis here in the state of Colorado.

So we can now, it is set up like a car assembly line.

It is 18 different stations.

The boxes move every four hours.

The homes from station to station.

It takes about 8 or 9 days to build a house, start to finish.

And, the houses are very high quality and anywhere from 800, let's say, to 20, 200ft.

Your lumber is not laying out in the snow and sun, and, you know, all the, the conditions of being outside.

So everything is in a controlled area.

Instead of 30% waste, worried about 3% waste.

We are training people and cross-training people so that all our employees are able to work at different stations.

So the quality is is spectacular.

It is very high quality.

And, by doing it all inside also that it's in a controlled area.

So, we're able to build these very quickly.

So speed to market, brings down the cost.

I was I also, you know, in, in a traditional way, you've got subs that are in critical subcontractors that are in critical path.

You've got that all scheduled.

So you really don't have production stopped because you've got an issue with one of the subs being on schedule.

Right.

So one of the things that is innovative about our business is we see ourselves as manufacturers, not a bunch of construction workers under a roof.

Everything is precut and you're assembling components to the house.

And then by doing so, then it it it speeds things up.

How do you provide some variation and design for your community?

Yeah.

Great question.

One of the things when we got into this is we wanted to make sure that they were architecturally interesting houses that, that to your point, that especially in a larger community that we're building for, that everything doesn't look the same.

The wonderful thing is the exteriors.

You can do anything you want with.

So the siding can be different.

The roof lines can be completely different.

The painting, you know, all the different things.

And then you can add porches first and second, story porches and, and bump outs and those sort of things where the manufacturing piece comes in is the kitchens are all the same, so that we can pre cut and pre buy quartz countertops for the exact kind of kitchen cabinets.

So there are some things that are non-negotiable and have to look the same.

But the good news is the exteriors.

And we understand that can be built in.

Think of Lego logs.

So even boxes can be offset or stacked or duplex or triplex.

So there's lots of variations, hundreds of variations that you can do with these boxes.

Why is Chaffee County been a great place to, to, build your manufacturing plant?

Well.

There's a couple of answers to that.

One is, if you look at the the state of Colorado, it's right in the center of the state.

So we can go in every direction from Telluride to Kit Carson to City of Craig and and not be that far away.

And those are all places that we have already built in.

Secondly was since Charlie, our founder and CEO, lives here and loves Chaffee County, and this is where he raised his kids and this is home.

No better place to to build the factory.

Let's talk a little bit about workforce, because I think every industry is struggling with workforce.

How are you, integrating in local workforce and also whether it's an apprenticeship, a formal apprenticeship or just a informal apprenticeship.

How are you, giving up on the job training?

Yes.

So we have in the factory anywhere from, we'll say, 90 to 120 workers at any given time.

So when we started, we recruited very heavily from slide of all the way to Leadville to Fairplay and, and certainly in, in Beaver as well.

And we've had some success with that.

But for the number of people that we need and, we saw it was a real challenge, just just filling and staffing.

And we would do open houses and we would give bonuses and competitive, pay and all that sort of thing.

And we really, after a couple of years, realized that we didn't have enough staff in the area.

They just were there.

Not not enough people, in the trades and, and in the construction world to staff our factory.

So we have had to bring folks in from other places from West Texas, from New Mexico, housed them, you know, get have Spanish speaking, interpreters on the floor and, make sure that immigration is all up to speed, all those kind of things that come in when you bring in, workers.

And so now, a majority of the folks working in the factory on the floor, do come from folks that we've had to bring in, and quite honestly, was a challenge.

And without bringing folks in, it would have been really difficult for us to continue churning out the number of houses that we build.

You know, we could do as many as 40, units per month.

So it is a fast moving, engine and without this workforce, it's really hard to keep it going.

So if I were to say I'm a genie and I can give you one wish, what would it be?

That would reduce friction for your business?

So for us, a consistent pipeline is the biggest worry.

So even sometimes we'll have all kinds of projects lined up throughout the state.

But if one slips a little bit or something happens with, permitting or, or their finances don't quite line up right on time, we don't have the ability just to stop and not work for two weeks.

We have so many people employed.

So really the biggest challenge with, volumetric building, manufacturing of houses is keeping that consistent pipeline.

So the wish would be just a steady flow of houses that, that then allow us to build faster and more efficiently.

So when we started, really the goal was to help solve the affordable housing crisis in our state.

So we worked very closely with Governor Polis and his office, Department of Housing.

Chief where added all the, all the funding mechanisms to get affordable housing, especially in mountain towns and rural towns.

That's that was our focus.

That was great for a while.

But what we realized is that we needed to expand and grow so that that pipeline could continually be fed.

So we have built houses that may not make sense, but it is pretty remarkable.

We want a big FEMA project and send over 100 houses to Maui for the line of fire victims.

We are currently building for the fire, victims in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena and California.

We have an affordable housing project in Montana and Wyoming as well as these just kind of fill in then those spots throughout the year.

Still, the lion's share of what comes out of feeding West is, affordable housing projects for, Telluride and for Fairplay and for Longmont and for Vail Valley.

And working with nonprofits like habitat for humanity, working with state agencies needing, we've done projects for CDot or for the Department of Corrections who are just needing houses for their employees.

So sometimes the houses we build don't even go on the market.

They are just for civil employees.

Thank you so much for your time today.

Building a home in 8 to 9 days.

That's amazing.

I cannot wait to see what advancements are yet to come.

Colorado's entrepreneurial energy was on full display at Colorado Startup Week.

One of the leaders helping shape that community is Anita Kelsey, co-founder of Access Mode.

After a career in corporate tech, Zanetti turned her focus to supporting founders who have been historically overlooked in the startup ecosystem.

I caught up with her to learn more about the mission and the community of building around it.

Can you tell our viewers what Access Mode is and what your your vision for the operation?

Yeah, absolutely.

So access Mode is an entrepreneurial support organization.

We support entrepreneurs, primarily tech entrepreneurs, that are those who've been historically excluded from the opportunity to build and scale tech based businesses.

And this idea came about during the pandemic that we just talked about.

You know, I had left my corporate role and was thinking to launch out or had launched out on my own to do some consulting and got involved with Energis Colorado, that was set up under Governor Polis direction, to help funds that were coming in from the federal government help small businesses.

And there were kind of different focus areas, women owned businesses, veteran rural front range.

And as I kind of moved into helping out with the Bipoc, which that term stands for, black indigenous people of color, moved into helping with that group of that segment of businesses quickly began to understand how much more the impact was being felt on that particular segment of businesses.

They were dropping out of the pipeline, and closing doors and not able to get the funds that they needed.

That's where I met my co-founder, Kevin, who's actually originally from the DC area, like I am, which is we grew up probably about 20 minutes from each other, but we didn't meet until here.

And he kind of told me his story of moving to Colorado from the DC area, moving he and his family to start his third venture, and he had already sold a tech based business.

He went to Wharton, had worked on Wall Street.

Has this really storied, professional career, and came to Colorado for an opportunity to start his next business because he learned about our vibrant ecosystem.

But when he got here, he did not get the help he needed.

And I started thinking, my gosh, if this guy with all of these credentials came to Colorado as a black man and is not able to move a tech based business forward, Colorado, we have a problem.

And he and I talked about it and decided that, you know, instead of just talking about it, not complaining about it, we were going to do something about it.

Because, as you know, I like to do things about things.

Right.

Nobody is going to save me.

You're going to save yourself.

That's absolutely right.

And so we kind of began interviewing other founders in the state, founders, from black and Latino, Asian-American, indigenous communities, asking them about their desire to build base, to build tech based businesses and how they were going about their journey.

And they just were kind of stuck.

And so we took that idea to, Brad Feld was the executive director of, over at the board at energize, and Wendy Lee was the CEO.

And they were incredibly supportive.

And that is the kind of gold the gold mine in Colorado is this kind of give first, this opportunity for when you have an idea, when you recognize a problem and you bring it to people who are typically used to helping to solve problems, they also get stuff done.

And so, you know, Brad was a major supporter of ours to get us going.

And we looked at different models we could do where are we going to do an accelerator, a boot camp, an incubator, just kind of some classes.

And and talking to the folks at Techstars, we figured Techstars is actually such a great model.

The way they set up their content, the way that they connect people, that give first mentality.

And we said, you know, why don't we create something to help those who are people in this community who have great ideas, who want to spark ideas and innovation, who want to build MVP's, which are minimal viable products, their first kind of product in the market.

From a tech perspective, why don't we help them in this way?

So we went through the Techstars program.

We got set up as a 501 C3 nonprofit and got launched.

And so the reason we chose 501 C3 is because this is a social impact issue.

It's not just it's it's also an economic issue, right?

Economic mobility issue.

But you can't take this underserved population who's been historically underserved with the massive amount of, gaps and opportunity and say, hey, let's just do it the same way we've done this thing over here.

It takes a different type of model, it takes a different type of support.

So, for example, we have, women who have come through our accelerator program who have children, and they have different needs of being in a full time entrepreneurial program than a typical, you know, folks, a guy who's maybe been working in tech for a while and is able to, you know, make different types of decisions about his time.

And so we want to make sure that we are creating kind of an all, a comprehensive plan in a way to support so that we don't kind of get founders started and then watch them drop off.

We want to make sure we say we cultivate the entrepreneurial journey of tech founders and in the communities that we serve.

And you're not ignoring obstacles.

That's right.

Yeah, we are trying to break down as many barriers as possible.

Barriers to capital, barriers to network, barriers to financing, barriers to subject matter experts.

Barriers to education, whatever it is that these founders need from our community, we want to bring that to the forefront and address it in very unique ways.

Well, you've, talked about the give for, first ethos and, I feel it every day.

We really do have a growth mindset.

If you win, we can both win.

It's not a win lose kind of proposition.

So I love that about our state.

Can you tell me as we kind of close up, what community members can do to, to be effective and helpful to you and the entrepreneurs?

There's there's many ways for that to happen.

We're at access Mohawk.

And on that, on our website, we have a, opportunity for someone to sign up for being a mentor, being an investor, an investor, and, not just access mode, but in.

And that's more of a donor, but into the companies that we're bringing forward.

We have, VCs, venture capitalists that are here in Colorado that, you know, are supportive of, of making connections for our founders.

We want them to do more about investing in them.

And so, you know, we are, we take donations tax free and, just come around and give support, from a mentorship perspective, from a hierarchy going perspective.

But, you know, financially for sure, as government grants have, you know, been pulled back for the types of type of work we do now, I took the main stage on Monday here.

And one of the things that people there was a line of people that came up to me afterwards, I was shocked and one of the things that kept resonating with them, I said, you know, the term dei, I'm not afraid to say it.

It it may be dead right.

Like, and that's okay.

I don't mind this arm being dead, but I'm still here.

The community that I serve, we're still very much alive and still very much needing to bridge a gap in our community.

And I want to see Colorado continue to help bolster up this community, because, like you said, when we when everybody wins.

So now it's always uplifting to spend time with you.

Thank you so much for your time today.

You can watch all of our interviews from Colorado Startup Week on our YouTube channel, or listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple or Amazon.

We're now heading to Salida, Colorado, where a small manufacturing company is showing what's possible when craftsmanship, values and friendship come together.

Buying a goods produces high quality bags and totes right here in Colorado.

I had a great conversation with Suzy Moultrie, co-owner of Buena Goods.

We chatted about how she and her business partner have turned shared passion into a thriving company.

Here's more.

The origin story basically is that Katie and my Katie's my partner.

She and her partner went to spend a lot of time in Mexico surfing and just, living a great life there.

Yeah.

And she I actually read a sample of it.

She brought back one of these, you know, which is a very common you would find in Mexico, but it wasn't very durable.

Right.

You know, so then being in Salina and being exposed to river mesh, you know, which is very durable and long lasting, and then modifying the design so that the straps go all the way around the bag.

Yeah.

Then you create a very durable mesh.

We were living in California and use that for groceries.

You use it for travel and the beach.

We went to the beach a lot, right?

We could and, you know, you put your wetsuit in San Jose all wet and gross, but then it would just dry and shake out.

It was just the perfect beach bag.

And then we moved back to Salina and Katie.

We have been friends for a very long time.

And Katie, I kind of was like, okay, this bag is really special and I think we should do something.

And we had our first market here in slide at the it was called the Sherman Market and were invited to go and, you know, set up a booth and we sold out.

You know we we had just made just like I don't know how many, but we thought it was kind of expensive.

Well, people really want this, you know.

And people came out and supported us.

And I mean, we I don't think we would be still going if it wasn't for the local community that supports us and just as our cheerleaders.

But the ascent program was in 2023 and we are not business people.

Katie and I are designers.

We have design backgrounds.

I did user interface design, Katie's graphic designer.

So that's just not something that we knew what we were doing.

Exactly.

And this gave us mentors, educators, entrepreneurs.

They also made us like, get out of the weeds and think about our business, what our growth strategy is, what is our brand identity, who are we?

What do we want to be?

You know, and we just are.

So because you're as a small business owner and you're just in every day doing everything.

So it's hard to take those moments.

And the ascent program forced us to do that and it was very valuable.

Like it definitely, you know, gave us a springboard to to feel confident about the next stages of growth.

So.

I mean, this mesh is actually we call it electric beige.

It's a mesh that we designed but it is kind of neutral.

But if you look really close there's some really bright threads in there.

Right.

But we so we do have some neutrals.

But I would say that, color is a big part of our brand.

I would say that Katie is really good at product development like she is.

She is very good at that piece of it.

And together we were able to develop.

This is the mother tote in the the we call it.

It's perfectly pocketed, with the zipper pocket and the flat pocket in the front and the two in our internal pockets.

We just recently introduced, like, a base that's an add on.

So for people who want a little more structure on the bottom, we just have been slow to grow and and not pushing for it.

We we want that connection to our product.

We have moved, we have grown.

We have a bigger shed that we now call a studio, and we have a store that works for us.

We also have relationships with some sewing operations on the Front Range, so we're not making everything here and slide it.

It's still a Colorado story.

But that said, like we still have a relationship with those sowers we see, we pick up the prep, we drop off materials, and we pick up the bags.

We have that connection to the product.

We try to be really intentional and have integrity behind every decision we make in our business.

And so I can't tell you what's going to happen.

We might grow to the point where we need bigger manufacturing, but I can't I can't say that right now.

It's working for us.

You know, all those those bags that you get for free and they end up in landfills.

Yeah.

Like this is the bag that you don't have to replace.

And that's part of this.

Is it's a multi-generational bag.

I will give this to my children.

Yeah.

We both have a a passion for good design.

I think that we respect each other and we trust each other.

And we're not scared to push back on each other either, which I think is key to a good partnership.

And then if we have issues, we work it out, you know, like if we we have already we've been in business long enough now that we've had moments of having to go back and forth and find figure out how to make a decision, even though we both feel differently about what we should do.

I wouldn't want to do this without her.

You know, her voice and her perspective is so important to the business.

What piece of advice would you have for somebody starting out?

Besides, have fun.

Be open to learning and growing and changing as you changing your course.

Like be flexible with what's coming at you because, you know, you have to be able to pivot and and and move, you know, move your business into a direction that makes sense, you know, for you, for your family, for, you know, the consumers of your product, whatever it may be.

You know, you have to be able to pay attention and take input and then make decisions.

Based on that.

I love that I am a big fan of your product.

I really, really appreciate your time today and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Yeah.

Me too.

We'll see what happens next.

As we see more variability in weather and growing demands on energy and resources, focus on sustainability is becoming more practical and more immediate.

At Colorado Climate Week, I sat down with Andrew Mayock, vice chancellor of sustainability at CU Boulder.

We talked about leadership and where real progress is being made.

Andrew, thank you so much for sitting down with us today at Climate Week in Boulder, Colorado.

You have a new role.

Well, about a year old, but it's a new role for you, the vice chancellor of sustainability for CU Boulder.

Can you tell us a little bit about what that role is and why it was the right thing for you?

First of all, thanks for the opportunity today.

Thanks for your interest in Colorado Climate Week.

It's an issue that affects every coloradan.

And we it's, you know, made even more profound right by this strange winter and unique winter, so-called winter that we've had.

And the real impacts it have, it has on Coloradans lives.

So unfortunately, in this period of climate change, we have examples like that almost every day and every week.

But it's really profoundly showing up right in Coloradans lives, uniquely this year.

And so I'm grateful to be here, grateful to be doing this work and a little bit about the job and the role.

You know, when the Chancellor came in to this, to this, to his office as as chancellor three years ago, Justin Schwartz, he made climate and sustainability one of his top three priorities.

And when he did that and he brought his experience as a PhD in nuclear engineering, as a mechanical engineering professor, he had a deep appreciation for the power that the whole university could bring to the issue of climate and sustainability, and he wanted to make sure that that power of the university had the right positioning and leadership, and created this inaugural role of vice chancellor for sustainability, so that, yes, we're really focused on walking the walk when it comes to the climate and sustainability impacts of our operations and extremely importantly, we are all in as a university when it comes to our extremely powerful research arm, our education, and developing the leaders of tomorrow, our community outreach to beyond Boulder and Boulder County, to Coloradans and the globe is the real power that we bring to this moment.

And this role could help elevate and fully achieve that, that vision.

So that's really the role and and short that I'm excited to go into different aspects of that.

And then why why Colorado?

Why now?

For me, in my own climate and sustainability journey, I had the great opportunity to work on the Biden transition team in 2020 and work prior to the Biden presidency with a group of former Obama climate colleagues from the Obama White House to develop a transition plan to see how we could accelerate action.

Should President Biden or one of the other, candidates gain office and doing that work in the transition, both in the Biden transition team and with this project, climate 21?

Really solidified my interest in, being part of the administration and part of the white House to go do that work.

And so I was happy, really extremely happy and privileged to join, the Biden White House on day one, to be the US government's chief sustainability officer and work for the full four years on, decarbonizing the federal footprint.

A couple days after I, started the job, I was introduced to, an alumnus who was very interested in giving back to the university, by the name of Spike Buckley, who wanted to respond to the students demand for more sustainability curriculum and the education and how we grow and create more climate leaders for tomorrow.

And so I sat down with with spike and worked together to design what was would be where that has become the Spike Center for Sustainability Education.

Which we were announced that gift in August of 2025 and launched the Spike Center in September of 2025.

And now we have tens.

If we're not into the hundreds of engaged faculty students, researchers are working from the hub at the hub of the university and the vice Chancellor's Office for sustainability, working out to all the schools and colleges to do exactly that, to deepen the learning for our students, the research for our professors and our researchers, to really harness the university as a whole.

So that's one example that was, just an immediate opportunity to help, elevate and accelerate the work that we're doing.

Another example came up in the form of the Carnegie Elective for sustainability, and that the Carnegie Foundation was looking for a university to host, what is basically an accreditation and education badge, to be awarded to those universities that are showing that they are doing the hard work of sustainability when it comes to education, operations and research.

And so they provided us that opportunity in May of 2025.

We launched it and announced it at Climate Week in New York City in September of 2025.

And Chancellor Schwartz and myself were in Chicago, just a few weeks ago to open the application process for the Carnegie elective.

And so we're looking forward.

We already have tens of universities, raising their hand, picking up the phone, sending us an email to say, how do I become part of the Carnegie elective?

How do you look at the university role in a really broad sense?

For, leading the charge in many of these areas, it's sustainability.

One of the really exciting things about, CU Boulder and Boulder and the Colorado community as a whole is what an active, sustainability and climate tech ecosystem there is here.

It's a big theme of, Colorado Climate Week.

And you can see it, on display in the panels in the plenaries that we're, we have, we've been having for the last three days.

But most importantly, you can see it in the businesses that are out there in the in the Boulder community, in the Colorado community as a whole.

We're creating real products to help solve today's challenges.

Like Prometheus, for example, is a company that was moved from lab to market with NCAR Boulder to help get us to zero and, carbon free concrete where the most polluting and most common substances in the world.

So we've got that kind of ecosystem that is birthing companies that are bringing real products, to the, to the world that are, helping to solve, the climate crisis.

And you know, one of the things that we hear a lot is when we talk about sustainability, there's there seems to be this preconceived notion that it's always a trade off, that it's not good for business.

I what are the biggest misconceptions in that area that you see?

Oh, I think and we're feeling this more today and, as the United States is, is involved with the war and, and the prices of oil are now above $100 a barrel.

Is that but even before then, the price of the alternatives when it comes to energy, just over the past five years, and particularly below the 20 years, the slope of the reduction in the costs for solar wind and their competitiveness with fossil fuels has brought it to parity.

And when you're, a business owner or when you're like myself in government, I spent a number of years in the Office of Management budget in the white House.

And, the whole job there is to invest wisely for the American people and also save for the American people.

And we could do that when it comes to a fleet, for example, of 650,000 vehicles that I just mentioned, was part of the work of the last job.

When you look at the total cost of ownership over what it takes to drive a postal truck around for 20 years versus internal combustion engine, that meant real dollars savings for the American taxpayer.

It meant postal rates would not go up because of the savings that an electric vehicle fleet could provide versus, internal combustion fleet.

So I think the, the the savings are there.

And the ability now, particularly as these technologies of wind and solar and long duration storage, short duration storage, the battery revolution that's going on right now, is also an extraordinary and extraordinarily new feature in the marketplace that provides, the, the business owner to not only gain that resilience but gain, cost reduction and savings.

Yeah, I agree, I think we're going to see amazing innovations in the battery and, Solid-State kind of batteries coming in.

We've got some cool work being done in, Fort Collins area on, on solid state.

So you've been in this job for a year.

You're settling in as a Colorado resident looking down the in two of the road in five years, what would you consider big success?

How much time do we have this interview?

I in brief, let me, I see so much opportunity for success, and I see it across that framework that I mentioned before.

When it comes to research, when it comes to education, operations, community engagement, the ability for this university and the state to not only continue to shine, which it has when it comes to climate sustainability, but further lead and accelerate that work is is manifest.

And so I think when it comes to those those components that I mentioned, it is a matter of, graduating.

Yes.

Those students who show up and they want are they want to, graduate with our new masters in sustainable business or our new masters in sustainable engineering, which are starting this fall or there's others who want to be in marketing, want to run a small business, and their ability as an, as a, as somebody who might not spend 100% of their time in sustainability, but to be big but to become well educated, to be, an empowered citizen has a really critical part of the work that we're doing here.

So I think we have benefits for the student body as a whole across those who are dedicated and deeply focused on climate sustainability and those who choose other paths.

So that's one, 1.1 pathway.

I mentioned the vibrant startup ecosystem and this university's ability to connect more and better.

Entrepreneur in the lab who doesn't know she's an entrepreneur right now that she's cracking away at a climate solution that has the opportunity through the university's tools and helping her, take that, invention from the lab and out into the marketplace, the communities that's showing up today, founders, investors, nonprofits at Colorado Climate Week to help her go birthed that idea.

Get that product out into the marketplace is manifest opportunity for us.

We're doing a great job at it already, and we can do so much more.

There's a couple of ways that I think that we're going to do.

You're going to see concrete action, building on the strong foundation that we have that's going to, not only make C.U.

Boulder and, and Boulder and Colorado, stronger than it is today, but also, more of that model that we talked about.

Well, Andrew, thank you very much for your time today.

I look forward to your success.

And we'll, check back before five years from now to see how things are going.

I appreciate it.

I'd love to talk anytime.

Thank you.

Be sure to look for more of our stories from Colorado Climate Week on Studio 12.

In the coming weeks, we've seen throughout tonight's business of Colorado Special.

Colorado's economy is being shaped by people who are willing to think differently.

From innovation communities to new approaches to housing, to entrepreneurs and makers building businesses with purpose, it all comes back to how ideas turn into impact.

Thank you for joining me for this special edition of The Business of Colorado.

I'm Franny Matthews.

We'll see you next time.

Funding for the Business of Colorado on PBS.

12 is provided in part by Collegiate Peaks Bank and from the generous support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

But.

You.