Julie Yack knows there are a variety of state and local programs geared to help technology companies, but she’s not waiting for them to catch up with her

Colorado is the eighth fastest-growing state in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Tax Foundation ranks it 14 out of 50 based on the competitiveness of its tax system. The 2007 State New Economy Index, a project that benchmarks economic transformation among the states, rates Colorado;s success in attracting and incubating Information Age businesses ninth in the nation.

All in all, it sounds like the powers that be in the Centennial State must be very supportive of the business community, but that’s not what Julie Yack, COO of Colorado Technology Consultants, Inc. (CTC), hears when she talks to other business leaders. “To be perfectly honest, I have never heard a single compliment from a business owner about state government’s interaction with business,” she says.

Yack feels that from a big-picture perspective, Colorado, like most states, has good intentions. “However, with so many diverse businesses operating in the economy, there is no way to please them all,” she notes. “You have to please the people with the most influence. Hopefully, in turn, their influence trickles down and reaches more people.”

Colorado Springs-based CTC is a global provider of information technology consulting and training services. It specializes in helping medium to large businesses leverage technology to reach a sustained competitive advantage. In the normal course of business, Yack and her associates have little contact or interaction with local government agencies because the company’s client base is geographically diverse.

Yack suspects there may be programs sponsored by her state and /or local government designed to help companies like hers, but her philosophy is more one of self-sufficiency --something she says is not uncommon in the IT world.

Keeping ahead of the curve
“I am sure there are zillions of programs available, but we just don’t know about them,” she says. “We [technical professionals] have worked at helping each other for some time now, through collaborative efforts such as user groups. We don’t wait for a government program to come along.”

Indeed, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade does offer a variety of resources designed to attract new businesses to the state and help existing ones grow. Programs include tax credits, enterprise zones, job training assistance, local infrastructure assistance and manufacturing revenue bonds.

At the local level, the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corporation is focused on attracting, creating and retaining jobs and resolving problems faced by local businesses. Its five-year plan calls for the creation of 14,000 new primary jobs and an additional 16,800 secondary jobs by 2011, primarily through companies with strong growth potential and higher-than-average wages. Its enterprise development infrastructure includes the Colorado Springs Technology Incubator and the Peak Venture Group, and it works with other state and local government agencies to promote business development.

Still, even if Yack was inclined to seek out government programs intended to help her business, she has doubts about how effective such an effort might be. “The biggest issues we’ve faced are in that gray area between small and big business,” she explains. “CTC is not a huge company, but we’re certainly more than just ‘mom and pop.’ It is a tough place to be. We will have to move toward more strategically planned growth and keep tabs on what may be available to us, or enforced upon us, as we grow.”

If there were one area Yack would like to see government doing more, it is in health care. “This is a huge cost for us,” she says. “I have a legal obligation to provide basic benefits to my employees; I have an ethical obligation to provide good benefits to my employees. This has an effect on my bottom line--to a much greater degree than it does for, say, Coors or Wal-Mart.”

Yack believes that government needs to take a stand to stabilize health care costs, adding that while she expects to pay her fair share, “I should not have to go broke because I’m doing the right thing.”

She acknowledges that there is no easy answer and she is unsure whether state and local governments or the federal government is in the best position to solve the problem. “I think there are ways that either entity could succeed, but it is a state-level problem,” she says. “On the other hand, there is no continuity from state to state, so maybe this is something best handled at the federal level.”