Posts tagged business
Boulder grabs the gold ring on energy merry-go-round
Apr 26th
SmartRegs/EnergySmart programs win national award for innovation
The City of Boulder’s SmartRegs ordinance and the EnergySmart service were presented with the J. Robert Havlick award for Innovation in Government by the Alliance for Innovation at its annual conference in Kansas City, MO, on April 18.
Innovation Awards are chosen from the 70+ applications received by a multi-member selection committee consisting of city and county managers from across the United States and Alliance staff. The selection committee looks for local governments that have shown a dedication to stretching and improving the boundaries of day-to-day government operations and practices, implementing creative business processes, and improving the civic health of the community.
These programs “won the 2012 J. Robert Havlick Award for Innovation in Local Government for demonstrating a pragmatic and progressive approach for long-lasting energy savings in their community,” said Karen Thoreson, president of the Alliance for Innovation. “The work combined the successful and innovative approach of utilizing a regulatory platform, financial incentives and technical assistance tools for homeowners and renters in order to achieve measurable and meaningful results.”
In September 2010, Boulder City Council adopted three ordinances requiring all of Boulder’s rental housing – approximately half of the city’s housing stock – to meet energy efficiency standards by 2019. The new “SmartRegs” requirements went into effect in January 2011, and are part of the Climate Action Plan’s (CAP) “Reduce Use” strategy area, which was established to promote energy-conserving behavior in homes and businesses throughout Boulder.
To help homeowners, landlords and tenants navigate the new SmartRegs ordinance, the city and Boulder County created a SmartRegs path through EnergySmart. EnergySmart services provide efficiency solutions for homes, whether rental or owner-occupied, commercial businesses, and property owners in all Boulder County communities, resulting in permanent improvements to the existing building stock. The EnergySmart service provides people with an energy assessment, as well as an expert Energy Advisor who recommends upgrades specific to each property, helps with rebate and financing applications, and even helps collect bids from contractors to perform energy upgrades.
Some of the key results in the City of Boulder from 2011’s SmartRegs and EnergySmart efforts include:
- 678 owner-occupied units participated in the EnergySmart services, with 67% completing upgrades.
- 2,081 renter-occupied units participated in the EnergySmart service as a result of the SmartRegs policy, with 33% completing upgrades.
- Owner-occupied units that participated saw an average annual energy savings of 714 kWh of electricity and 226 therms of natural gas (equivalent to $219 per year).
- Renter-occupied units that participated saw an average annual energy savings of 217 kWh of electricity and 72 therms of natural gas (equivalent to $63 per year).
- 1,687 services were provided to 960 individual businesses.
- Commercial property owners and businesses receiving quick installs saw an average annual energy savings of 421 kWh of electricity (equivalent to $52 per year), and 14,930 kWh of electricity for businesses receiving upgrades (equivalent to $1,318 per year).
The results achieved through both EnergySmart and SmartRegs demonstrate an innovative approach to complementing a policy requirement with assistance and funding to ease the burden of compliance.
EnergySmart aims to reach at least 10,000 homes and 3,000 businesses throughout Boulder County by June 2013. It is designed to stimulate local economic growth; increase energy efficiency investment in Colorado; and advance the state’s energy independence through energy upgrades. EnergySmart is a collaborative partnership throughout Boulder County, funded by a $25 million grant from the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Program, combined with contributions from the City of Boulder’s Climate Action Plan tax and the City of Longmont.
The Alliance for Innovation is an international network of progressive governments and partners committed to transforming local government by accelerating the development and dissemination of innovations. They seek out innovative practices, challenge existing business models, exchange knowledge, and provide products and services that help members perform at their best.
For more information on EnergySmart programs and services, visit www.EnergySmartYes.com, or call 303-544-1000 for residential information and 303-441-1300 for commercial information. More information about the Alliance for Innovation can be found at www.transformgov.org.
Micah True (El Caballo Blanco’s) spirit is finally free
Apr 15th
by Ron Baird
When I first crossed paths in the early ‘80s with the man who eventually became known as Caballo Blanco, I was running down the Mount Sanitas trail and he was running up. We didn’t speak, maybe nodded.He was wearing thin nylon jogging shorts, running shoes and had a water bottle in his hand. He was tanned and lean and had unruly, long, dirty-blond hair.
In those days I was running 4-5 miles at a time and I would later learn that he was running 15-20. He had a nice-looking, tan, young woman with him. Every time I saw him in the passing years he was dressed the same. Forgive me if it gets fuzzy here because he always seemed a little ghost-like: he was there and then gone like he was barely tethered to the earth. Of course his hero and spirit guide was Geronimo of the Bedonkohe Apache tribe, who was thought to be able to appear and disappear at will. And of course, I wasn’t taking notes.
Micah True, who became known as Caballo Blanco for his running fears, as he appeared in Boulder in the 1990s.
In 1989, I had been evicted from a mine cabin in James Canyon—the one with only a wood stove for utilities. The small creek passing by was my source of water and kerosene lamps were my only light. I typed my first news story for the Colorado Daily in that cabin under the ever- weakening illumination of those lamps. Micah was moving out of a small room appendaged onto a house on Magnolia Road that was renting for $110 dollars a month. He asked if I was interested. I said I was and rented it. He said he wanted to get out of the winters and was driving to Guatemala.
After that he visited me often when he came back in the summers and told me of running through the mountains and beaches, where camposinos would wave and yell “Caballo Blanco,” due, I guess, to his base skin color and shoulder length blond hair. Micah was a vegetarian and lived frugally by any standard, sleeping in a truck with a camper parked in a north Boulder industrial area. He bought another truck and made money in the summer with an under-the-table moving business—no liability insurance or regulatory approval. Many of his customers were friends. He told me one time he was driving a load of tightly arranged furniture to Colorado Springs but when he got there, a couch that was packed in the open back of the pickup had disappeared; probably popping out somewhere along I-25. He drove back and forth looking but never found it and ultimately had to pay for a replacement.
Each summer, he made enough money to go back to Guatemala. But there was a lot of violence in Guatemala at that time and in the summer of ’93 he met a group of Tarahumara Indios in the Leadville 100 and followed them back to Copper Canyon in the Mexican State of Chihuahua–a canyon larger, deeper and more complex than the U.S.’s Grand Canyon. The Tarahumara, who rejected assimilation with Spanish culture, had migrated thousands of miles from the south over the centuries before reaching that sanctuary. There were no roads, towns or utilities, and little water through much of the canyon so the Tarahumara were spread throughout the canyon.
The rugged, remote Copper Canyon, where Micah True spent nearly 20 winters running with and living amongst the Tarahumara Indios
So a subculture of runners known as Raramuri sprung up, running hundreds of miles in a few days carrying news to the widely spaced villages, or just for fun, and Micah knew he had found his physical if not his spiritual home. He would spend the nights and eat meals in Tarahumara stone huts for as little as two dollars.
He finally built a small adobe home for himself in the canyon. For several years he returned to the U.S. and Colorado particularly. One summer, while racing in the Hardrock 100 near Telluride, he got lost in a snow storm on one of the three passes the race course covered and had to be hauled out on a burro. When found he was wearing two large garbage bags over his shorts and T shirt. One summer, he took up bicycling to give his feet a rest and somehow crashed coming down Left Hand Canyon–knocking himself out. When found, he argued and lost against the ambulance ride, costing him $1,700. At the hospital, they told him he had severely dislocated his shoulder and it would cost $800 to reset it so he checked himself out of the hospital, walked across the parking lot to the office of a chiropractor/friend who set it right there without any sedation.
A Tarahumara man living in Copper Canyon
Micah was more of a philosophical survivalist than political activist but at the request of a Native American girlfriend he went to a large protest at the Nuclear Test Site in Nevada, where he broke through a gap in the security and headed off running into the desert. Seventeen hours later he gave himself up and they escorted him off the site without filing any charges against him.
By early 2000, his moving business was waning under the threats of regulation and sanctions so Micah began to envision—as a way of making a living–guiding “gringos” into Copper Canyon for running vacations. It started slowly but somehow he hung on and more and more people came down. In 2003 Micah organized the first Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon to aid the Raramuri, and invited world-class ultramarathoners to compete. The prizes were generally large amounts of corn. With that race, Micah become somewhat a legend in the distance running community, and Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run brought Micah and the Tarahumara to the world’s attention. No longer was Micah True such a ghostly figure; connected as he was to the world by a best selling book and the internet. And the Tarahumara, their culture, their style of running and their dispossessed status in Mexico–had become a well-known topic internationally.
Given this new-found notoriety, Micah became much in demand as a speaker. He took only expenses and talked mainly about the Tarahumara. On his seasonal migration back to the U.S. this year he stopped in the Gila National Forest in SW New Mexico on his way to Phoenix and took off on a planned 12-mile run. He never returned and was found dead four days later in a ravine. No cause has been determined for his death as of this writing.
But I think it was just his time. He came to Earth as an unwilling Angel and found his cause with the people of Copper Canyon. He died doing what he loved and left a legacy: The ultramarathoner world has vowed to continue the races in Copper Canyon and keep the light shining on the people there. I think Micah’s work was done and his soul is now free from the bonds of gravity.
Boulder Chamber Awards dinner March 15 2012 New video and story
Apr 12th
The Virginia Patterson Businessperson of the Year
The recipient of this award has consistently contributed business expertise and experiences to connect the Boulder business world to city, charitable, or other public-spirited causes and is a leader in making Boulder a better place to do business.
Brad Feld
Foundry Group
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars.
Brad currently serves on the board of directors of BigDoor Media, Cheezburger Networks, Fitbit, Gnip, MakerBot Oblong, Orbotix, and Standing Cloud for Foundry Group. Previously, Brad served as chief technology officer of AmeriData Technologies. AmeriData acquired Feld Technologies, a firm he founded in 1987 that specialized in custom software applications. Brad had grown Feld Technologies into one of Boston’s leading software consulting firms prior to the acquisition. He also directed the diversification into software consulting at AmeriData, a $1.5 billion publicly-traded company which was acquired by GE Capital in 1995.
The recipient of this award has consistently contributed business expertise and experiences to connect the Boulder business world to city, charitable, or other public-spirited causes and is a leader in making Boulder a better place to do business. Brad Feld
Foundry Group
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars.
Brad currently serves on the board of directors of BigDoor Media, Cheezburger Networks, Fitbit, Gnip, MakerBot Oblong, Orbotix, and Standing Cloud for Foundry Group. Previously, Brad served as chief technology officer of AmeriData Technologies. AmeriData acquired Feld Technologies, a firm he founded in 1987 that specialized in custom software applications. Brad had grown Feld Technologies into one of Boston’s leading software consulting firms prior to the acquisition. He also directed the diversification into software consulting at AmeriData, a $1.5 billion publicly-traded company which was acquired by GE Capital in 1995.
In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, co-chair of Startup Colorado, and on the board of Startup Weekend. Brad is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship and writes the widely read blogs Feld Thoughts and Ask the VC.
Key Contributor of the Year
This award recognizes an individual who has made a positive impact on the community through leadership and a significant contribution of time, talent and expertise. Bob Noun
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Robert J. Noun formerly directed the government affairs, media relations, communications and community outreach activities for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) located in Golden, CO. He was the chief spokesman for NREL, the nation’s principal research center for renewable fuels and electricity. Mr. Noun has been involved with renewable energy for over 30 years. During his career he has made significant contributions to the advancement of renewable energy technologies.
Noun managed the NREL Wind Energy Research Program. He is the author of 24 technical publications on the subjects of renewable energy law and regulation, wind energy development, and renewable energy in developing countries. From 2010-2012 Noun served as Chair of CO-LABS, the confederation of national labs and research universities in Colorado doing federally sponsored science and technology innovation.
Noun has received numerous awards and recognition, including the 2005 Van Morris Award recognizing his leadership in the growth and development of NREL, the 2002 Pioneer Award for Contributions to the Development of Renewable Energy from the World Renewable Energy Network in London, and the 1996 Gold Medallion Award for the Advancement of Renewable Energy, presented by His Highness, the Emir of Bahrain. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law and has been a guest lecturer in the Iowa State University Science and Technology Lecture Series. In 1973 he was awarded the Reginald Hebersmith Fellow in Law from Howard University.
Community Sustainability Leader
This award recognizes an organization that demonstrates success at managing an integrated triple bottom line – economic success, commitment to social equity and concern for environmental footprint.
Boulder Community Hospital
Boulder Community Hospital is a coordinated network of facilities and skilled personnel providing an expansive range of medical services to people and businesses in Boulder and Broomfield Counties.
As a locally owned and operated non-profit hospital system, Boulder Community is dedicated to meeting the constantly evolving health care needs of local citizens. Boulder Community is known across Colorado for its clinical excellence in heart care, neurosurgery, stroke care, orthopedics and cancer care. Some 600 physicians in 54 medical specialties have privileges at BCH.
Best Place to Work
Awarded to a company that demonstrates proficiency in leadership, communication, respect and alignment.
Gnip
Gnip is a local social media data startup that believes that no single company alone can realize the full potential of social media data. It works to align itself with others to more effectively harness and channel the power of this information. From its corporate values to the accomplishments of its employees, the company embodies the qualities of leadership, communication, respect, and alignment. Well-regarded by their professional colleagues, company executives regularly deliver keynote addresses to national and international audiences, just as Gnip’s software engineers share their knowledge with the local community. Committed to diversity, the company is a member of the National Center for Women & Information Technology’s Entrepreneurial Alliance program, an effort to increase the participation of women in technological innovation. In these ways, Gnip both provides leadership to the industry and shares its collective expertise in the area of social media data.
Gnip is a company built on respect, and all of its corporate policies are aligned with its values. The company is an employer that seeks out the brightest lights in the field and then supports their continued growth. The respect, trust, and support invested by Gnip in its employees, along with its spirit of collaboration and innovation, have earned it this year’s Chamber award for Boulder’s best place to work.
Boulder 2140 Young Business Person of the Year
This award recognizes a member under the age of forty who has an impact on his/her organization, demonstrated significant contribution of time or talent to the Boulder area and shows potential for future leadership.
Lee Shainis
Intercambio: Uniting Communities
Lee is co-founder of Intercambio and author of “What Every Immigrant Needs to Know“, a publication that is being used by 35,000 people from 350 organizations nationwide. Lee has helped Intercambio spread its model to 12 states, raise $4,000,000, train 3,500 volunteer teachers, and provide English classes to 8,000 immigrant adults since its inception in 2001. Lee’s prior experience includes the development of a volunteer program at a psychiatric treatment center, supervising of an afterschool program, mentoring developmentally challenged individuals and facilitating writing workshops for prison inmates.
Lee also has an impressive collection of interesting outfits, he loves choreographing crazy shows, and since 2008 he has been volunteering twice a week to teach multicultural dance exercise classes to encourage fun and health.
Members of Distinction
This award recognizes members who have demonstrated a passion for and made a significant contribution to one or more Boulder Chamber councils, programs or projects; put in two or more years of significant volunteerism with the Boulder Chamber; and have the ability to motivate others.
John Regur Dutch Creek Financial
John is founder and Principal of Dutch Creek Financial Services, a financial planning and investment advisory practice. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma, after serving overseas with the US Army, his career in financial risk management started with the Travelers Insurance Companies. With a subsequent 25 year career with the Marsh McLennan Companies which included several US and international postings, he moved to Boulder, opening Dutch Creek in 2002, the year he joined the Chamber.
John Regur Dutch Creek Financial
John is founder and Principal of Dutch Creek Financial Services, a financial planning and investment advisory practice. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma, after serving overseas with the US Army, his career in financial risk management started with the Travelers Insurance Companies. With a subsequent 25 year career with the Marsh McLennan Companies which included several US and international postings, he moved to Boulder, opening Dutch Creek in 2002, the year he joined the Chamber.
