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Quick links: Colorado loses more jobs | Denver-area inflation up to 4.2% | Gas prices up past $4 again | Another rent report | 2024, a deadly year for workers
The way Dalida Sassoon Bollig, CEO of the Business Incubator Center in Grand Junction, tells it, a contractor, a Lego collector and an aerospace parts manufacturer all came in with similar problems.
SafeSpace Builders installs equipment that helps people with mobility challenges get around, e-Bricks carries millions of new and used Lego parts dating back to 1958, and SG Aerospace built parts of the Artemis II space capsule that recently circled the moon.
And the thing that ties them together is their owners — Shelley Clennin, Kenneth Riskey and Mike Sneddon — wanted to start businesses in a region “where busting is easier than thriving, where, if you want a business you have to create it,” Sassoon Bollig said.
The region, Mesa County, has come a long way since the pocket of time leading up to Western Colorado’s Black Sunday, when big-name oil companies like Exxon and Shell had learned the world’s largest reserves of oil shale were there and came calling with promises of a $500 billion investment in 150 plants and six strip mines creating more than 100,000 jobs.
It could have been the state’s biggest job boom if it had happened. But on May 2, 1982, Exxon pulled out, whiplashing the region into its biggest bust ever.
In the months after, cities and towns that had been bustling and vibrant were on the brink of collapse, Sassoon Bollig said. But instead of giving in, town and county leaders came together, “and in 1985, during the hardest time on the Western Slope, they spent 500 man hours each to set up an organization to consult and coach and mentor businesses, while learning this is a viable model we need in our communities,” she said.
Now 40 years later, BIC has more than 165 startup businesses incubating on its 47-acre campus at any given time and works with more than 1,000 existing small businesses and entrepreneurs in Mesa County annually.
BIC officials say they’ve helped launch 2,284 companies from their bustling warehouse on Legacy Way in Grand Junction, 86% of which are still in business after five years.
They’ve generated more than $357 million in direct revenues, created or retained more than 14,00 jobs, deployed 676 loans and leveraged more than $80 million in capital as administrators of the Mesa County Enterprise Zone that was created through the state’s Office of Economic Trade and International Development and examined every decade to make sure they’re still needed based on economic factors of the area such as unemployment, wage growth and population data.
BIC says it has issued more than 15,000 certifications resulting in millions of dollars in tax credits and tens of millions in capital investments, as well as averaging nearly $20 million in contribution projects for charitable organizations annually.
Some businesses that started at BIC include Pronto Bronto restaurant, “serving far-out fast food with intentionally radical vegetarian options”; The Boring Bookkeeper, which does monthly bookkeeping, payments management and software consultation; Imondi Wake Zone family-friendly water park for wakeboarding and paddleboarding; and the three businesses Sassoon Bollig holds up as examples of what’s possible when someone brings an idea to the incubator even if that’s all they have: SafeSpace, E-Bricks, SG Aerospace.
Anyone can cook their idea using BIC’s hub model, where mentorship, coaching, classes and workshops are an intricate part of development, Sassoon Bollig said.
“We talk about pillars because it’s hard to get your head around everything BIC does,” added Andrew Golike, a BIC board member.
The folks behind Safe Space Builders, E-bricks and SG Aerospace already knew they wanted to be entrepreneurs when they showed up, but they had different needs as they were at different places “in the cycle of entrepreneurship,” Sassoon Bollig said.
You can walk in with an idea, and BIC employees will take you through a “discovery.”
If they deem your idea doable, they’ll start guiding you through the steps to creating it. When you and they have identified your “entry point,” you’re paired with one of the 50 to 80 subject matter experts “in every area you can imagine” confidentially and free of charge, Sassoon Bollig added.
That includes securing funding.
“Now say you need prototyping, or a virtual kitchen, or a manufacturing space, or metal fabrication, printers, lasers, or a wood shop,” Sassoon Bollig added. You’ve got it, “at a very incentivized price.” Didn’t know you needed an intellectual property lawyer? BIC does. Need help brainstorming how to bring your idea to market? They’re on it. Ready for an employee? You bet.
OK, that’s easy for them to say, but what happens in real life?
Riskey loves sharing the story of a regular guy (himself) who loved building Lego sets but one day received a set that was missing key elements.
He was dying to build this Lego set, so he ended up buying 30,000 individual pieces until he had what he needed to complete it. But what to do with all of the surplus? He listed the various pieces on Craigslist. The bits started selling immediately. And before he knew it, as he went deeper with the sourcing and selling, he needed a building. BIC helped him sketch out a business plan on a napkin and get the bank loan he needed. Today, his business housed in a brick-and-mortar store and several warehouses in Grand Junction boasts 8 million catalogued pieces and 30 million unprocessed.
“You can imagine him trying to sell Legos to a banker,” said Sassoon Bollig. At BIC “that story is repeated over and over.”
Section by Tracy Ross | Reporter
Sun economy stories you may have missed
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➔ Colorado lost more public lands jobs than any other state in 2025. The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency cut 1,753 land management jobs last year, or 26% of the jobs managing 24 million public acres. >> Read story
➔ Colorado legislature sends $46.8B state budget to governor’s desk after final round of tweaks. The Joint Budget Committee — the six-member, bipartisan panel that drafts the budget — tweaked the spending package after debate in the full legislature earlier in the month >> Read story
➔ Across Colorado, people are fighting for the right to repair their stuff. Where can they go to learn how to do it? >> Read story
➔ Colorado farmers tighten their belts ahead of summer drought. Almost all of Colorado is experiencing drought after a record-dry winter and the impacts are already starting to show in agricultural communities >> Read story
➔ Migrant workers who receive housing can be paid $2-$3 less per hour under new federal rule. Some Western Slope growers are taking advantage of the “downward compensation adjustment.” Others say they’ll be profitable without it. >> Read story
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Other working bits
➔ Colorado lost jobs in February, unemployment rate unchanged. Private sector employers continued to cull jobs this year, leaving the state with 7,200 fewer payroll jobs in February than in January. Additionally, January’s job growth was revised downward so employers added just 1,300 net new jobs instead of 6,600.
This also comes after other revisions were made for 2025 that turned a very slow-growth year into a negative one, with Colorado losing 11,700 jobs last year, according to the state Department of Labor and Employment. Since February 2025, the state has lost 9,100 jobs.
Some industries did add more jobs in February, with construction adding the most, at about 1,000 jobs. The industry that lost the most jobs was other services, a catchall for roles like machine repair, grantmaking, dry cleaning and laundry jobs, and religious activities administrators. It lost 2,200 jobs during the month.
Colorado’s labor force continued to shrink in February, losing 10,300 workers who left the state, stopped working or gave up looking for employment. The participation of working-age Coloradans fell to 66.6%, down two-tenths of a point from January and the state’s lowest labor force participation rate since September 2020, according to the labor department. Economists have pointed to slowing population growth due to more people leaving than moving to Colorado.
Fewer Coloradans were unemployed in February from a year ago, though up from January. The state’s unemployment rate stayed at 3.9% for the month, and was lower than a year ago’s rate of 4.3%. The U.S. unemployment rate in February was 4.4%.
Meanwhile, average earnings in Colorado added 7-cents an hour from a year ago to $39.79, which is nearly 10% higher than the U.S. average of $37.29. >> See February jobs report
➔ Denver inflation up again. Blame energy prices. The cost of living in the Denver area rose 4.2% from a year ago in March, according to the regional Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the highest one-year increase since November 2023 when inflation was on its way down, growing 4.5% from a year earlier.
Local prices, much like the U.S. trends, saw energy costs increase by double-digit rates. For the Denver area, the energy index was up 25.4% since January, and up 13.2% from a year ago. The ongoing war with Iran has caused gas and oil prices to increase. Nationwide, the energy index rose 10.9% in March from February. The oil index was up 30.7% in a month.
Coming in lower in Denver than a year ago, though, were the prices for fruits and vegetables, down 1%; nonalcoholic beverages, down 2%; and used cars and trucks, down 3.7%. Household furnishings were up 10.8%. >> See Denver inflation report
➔ Rents up in past month, down for past year in Denver metro. The May ApartmentList report published this week to show what’s changed in 20 Denver-area cities in April. Compared with March, rents in most cities are higher by up to 2.1% in Highlands Ranch. But compared with April 2025, rents are mostly down. Glendale had the worst decline of 10.2%. Compare the data with last week’s report from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver, which tallied up asking rents in the metro fell 3.4% decline in average rents. >> See report
➔ Deadly year for Colorado workers. In 2024, the state had the second-highest number of worker fatalities since the pandemic in 2021, tying with the 92 deaths in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At a rate of 3.2 fatalities for every 100,000 full-time workers in 2024, Colorado’s worker fatality rate was 10.8% higher than the prior year of 2023. Nationwide, worker fatalities fell 4% to 5,070 in the same period.
The construction and extraction industry had the highest number of deaths, up 13 in 2023 to 27 in 2024. Fatalities among Hispanic or Latino workers also increased by 13 in one year to 35 people.
About 37% of fatalities in Colorado were related to transportation incidences, followed by falls, slips and trips, at 23%. Violent acts at the workplace fell to nine in 2024, from 14 in 2023. >> See report
Section by Tamara Chuang | Business/Technology Reporter
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