The Boulder Area Manufacturing Sector Partnership convened for its final meeting of 2024 at BI Incorporated, the largest and most complete provider of compliance monitoring technologies and services in community corrections. The meeting consisted of two guest speakers, industry-led discussion around partnership planning for 2025, and a tour of BI’s facility.
This meeting’s speakers included:
Jeff Anderson, Anderson Leadership Coaching and Consulting
New Leader Transition Coaching
- With over 25 years in manufacturing operations and multiple leadership roles, Jeff is looking to share his leadership knowledge and expertise with other growing organizations. Approaching leadership development through the perspective of “Why?” helps accelerate integration, foster strong relationships, mitigate transition risks, and enhance decision-making, among other benefits.
- After analyzing key opportunities and risks, early win projects like team building and gatherings, identifying a monthly “action” stand-up, and attending a capital acumen bootcamp drives initial success. Through this process a company will define their team, move on top-priority projects with speed and decisiveness, and foster fundamental financial knowledge across the organization.
Steve Bates, BPI Charity
Providing financial support for skills-based and technical education
- BPI Charity is a Colorado 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in February 2024, focused on providing funding and scholarships to under-resourced students entering skills-based and career technical education pathways. Since June, BPI has awarded $30,000 in scholarships and grants and raised over $100k in the last nine months.
- During the presentation, Steve shared the story of 2024 BPI Scholarship Recipient Christian Crockett. Christian entered Colorado foster care at the age of 11 and after graduating from Niwot High School in 2024, is now studying to become a Certified Network Technician at Front Range Community College, a role with an average starting salary of $82k. BPI is looking to continue to support students like Christian by partnering with industry, nonprofit, and education partners to promote awareness, create a network of services, and sponsor or donate to scholarship and grant funds.
2025 Partnership Roadmap
During the industry-led discussion, partners shared these insights:
- Sustainability has become increasingly more important in manufacturer’s operations and supply chain, particularly with Boulder County’s energy transition regulations and goals.
- Challenges in talent pipeline development persist but not in the same way they did at the launch of the partnership. Manufacturers are looking for specific, highly technical skillsets to backfill an aging workforce and adjust to technology upgrades/automation.
- Employers rely heavily on their referral networks but are concerned for the future of their workforce and finding other talent sources. They are beginning to explore cross training and tiered programming for employees to help alleviate some of this concern.
- Some partners identified their biggest challenge as finding new clients and the difficulty of securing sales during economic downturns, political cycles, etc. They are looking for ways to shorten client development cycles create a more consistent client base.
Thank you to BI for hosting this meeting and providing a tour of their facility.
Established in 1978, BI Incorporated offers government agencies a complete continuum of electronic monitoring technologies and services for reliable community supervision of parolees, probationers, pretrial defendants, and individuals involved in the U.S. immigration court process. Electronic monitoring is a reliable, safe, and cost-effective way to monitor individuals as they live and work in the community.
Boulder Area Manufacturing meetings will be transitioning to quarterly, 2-hour meetings for 2025. Please keep an eye out for your invitation to our next meeting in Q1.