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Press Release
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) (“Virgin Galactic” or “the Company”), a vertically integrated aerospace company, has successfully completed another vital step on its path to commercial service, relocating SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, to its commercial headquarters at Spaceport America’s Gateway to Space building.
VSS Unity, attached to the carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, made the journey from Mojave, California, where the Company’s manufacturing facilities are based. The vehicle landed at 15:49 MT, where it was greeted by an enthusiastic group of teammates who will operate the spaceship in New Mexico.
This captive carry flight provided an opportunity for engineers to evaluate VSS Unity for over three hours at high altitude and cold temperatures, a longer period of time than is experienced during missions to space. These environmental evaluations of system performance are difficult to replicate at ground level, making captive carry missions a vital component of VSS Unity’s flight test plan.
The flight also provided a valuable opportunity to conduct pilot training and familiarization, with veteran Italian Air Force Test Pilot Nicola ‘Stick’ Pecile joining Chief Pilot Dave ‘Mac’ Mackay in the cockpit of the spaceship for the first time. Nicola is the fifth pilot to complete a flight in VSS Unity. VMS Eve was piloted by Mike ‘Sooch’ Masucci and Frederick ‘CJ’ Sturckow.
The move of the spaceship to Spaceport America marks a key step in the relocation of Virgin Galactic’s to the state of New Mexico. In May 2019, Virgin Galactic announced that as part of this move, approximately 100 teammates would move to New Mexico from Mojave, California, Spaceport America would become operational and the vehicles would be transferred to the Gateway to Space. Today, nearly all of those team members have relocated, the spaceport is operationally ready, and both VMS Eve and VSS Unity have now arrived. Of Virgin Galactic’s total current New Mexico work force, more than 70 team members have been hired locally, the result of a conscious effort to attract New Mexico-based talent.
“New Mexico is going to be the world’s launchpad for commercial spaceflight,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said. “Today marks another step closer: We will have a genuine Space Valley in Southern New Mexico, a hotbed of innovation and achievement and space tourism development. I congratulate Virgin Galactic’s workers, George Whitesides and Sir Richard Branson on today’s successful flight – and once again I say to them: Welcome to New Mexico, we’re very glad to have you!”
“When Virgin Galactic started moving to New Mexico last year, everyone felt the sheer magnitude of the task ahead, but we were encouraged and excited by the team’s confidence and strong vision for the future,” said George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic. “Today we realized the next step in that dream by bringing our beautiful spaceship to New Mexico. We still have significant work ahead, but we are grateful to all our teammates who have made this day a reality.”
The relocation of VSS Unity to Spaceport America enables the Company to engage in the final stages of its flight test program. This will begin with a number of initial captive carry and glide flights from the new operating base in New Mexico, allowing the spaceflight operations team to familiarize themselves with the airspace and ground control. Once these tests are complete, the team will carry out a number of rocket-powered test flights from Spaceport America to continue the evaluation of VSS Unity’s performance. During this phase, the final spaceship cabin and customer experience evaluations will also be concluded in preparation for the start of commercial spaceflight operations.
The Spaceship Company, Virgin Galactic’s design, testing and manufacturing arm, remains firmly rooted in Mojave, California. While VMS Eve and VSS Unity are now based in New Mexico, they will make periodic journeys back to Mojave to support ground and flight tests of new spaceships, as well as for vehicle maintenance and upgrade activities. There is significant progress being made on the next two spaceships, including achieving the Weight on Wheels milestone for the second spaceship and completing over 50% of the structural and system part fabrication for the third spaceship, which were announced in January.
Dan Hicks, Spaceport America’s Executive Director, congratulated the Virgin Galactic team, saying, “This truly is the dawn of a new era for the commercial space sector. We are tremendously proud of our foundational partner Virgin Galactic - as we see and support their historic progress in making human space flight a reality for our beautiful world. The New Mexico and Spaceport America leadership will continue our strong support for our visionary Virgin Galactic teammates; and we are looking forward to an exciting 2020!”
About Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is a vertically-integrated aerospace company, pioneering human spaceflight for private individuals and researchers, as well as a manufacturer of advanced air and space vehicles. Using its proprietary and reusable technologies and supported by a distinctive, Virgin-branded customer experience, it is developing a spaceflight system designed to offer customers a unique, multi-day, transformative experience. This culminates in a spaceflight that includes views of Earth from space and several minutes of weightlessness that will launch from Spaceport America, New Mexico. Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company believe that one of the most exciting and significant opportunities of our time lies in the commercial exploration of space and the development of technology that will change the way we travel across the globe in the future. Together we are opening access to space to change the world for good.
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Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold Releases Economic Indicators Report for Fourth Quarter 2019
Today, the Colorado Secretary of State, in partnership with the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business Research Division, released the quarterly indicators report for the fourth quarter of 2019. The report shows that Colorado’s economy continues to outperform the nation in many economic indicators and employment growth will continue into 2020, but at a more modest pace.
“While growth has slowed the last two quarters, Colorado’s economy is still strong,” said Secretary Jena Griswold. "With business leaders’ confidence improving, indications point to Colorado’s economy staying strong in 2020."
The Business Research Division at the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business compiles the report using data from the Secretary of State’s central business registry. The report looks at a variety of factors, such as energy costs, the labor market, and inflation.
The report shows the relationship between new business filings, new business formation, and employment growth. New business filings are typically linked to job growth, but total new business filings declined 0.4% year-over-year, which may point to employment growth occurring at a slower rate in 2020. Colorado saw an increase in jobs of 2.1% from November 2018 to 2019, and the state’s unemployment rate dipped to 2.5%, an historic low that is the fifth lowest in the United States.
After slipping in the final quarter of 2019, confidence of business leaders is up heading into the first quarter of 2020, according to the Leeds Business Confidence Index. Expectations for the state’s economy, industry sales, hiring, and capital expenditures have all increased entering the new year.
Colorado personal income increased 5.3% in Q3 of 2019, well ahead of the national personal income growth rate of 4.4% over the same time period. Colorado annual average wages, currently at $60,340, also continue to outpace the nation by around $2,100.
Colorado’s overall economy grew 3.3% year-over-year in Q3 2019. The Mining industry recorded the largest year-over-year gains.
The full report is available here and previous reports can be found here.
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Amazon announces big expansion plans in Colorado Springs
Press Release (Amazon.com)
Amazon currently employs more than 4,000 people in Colorado;
new facility will employ more than 1,000 associates
Amazon today announced plans to open a new fulfillment center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, creating more than 1,000 full-time jobs starting at $15 an hour with comprehensive benefits starting on day one. Amazon currently employs more than 4,000 full-time associates throughout the State of Colorado.
"We're excited to open a new, state-of-the-art fulfillment center in Colorado Springs. Colorado has a talented workforce, and we are very excited to grow employment beyond the more than 4,000 associates already serving customers in the state," said Alicia Boler Davis, Amazon's Vice President of Global Customer Fulfillment.
“The City of Colorado Springs is thrilled to welcome this new Amazon facility to our community,” said Mayor John Suthers. “The arrival of this incredibly successful and innovative company brings with it a wealth of good-paying jobs in our Southeast quadrant and continued positive growth at the Colorado Springs Airport. I commend the Colorado Springs Airport, the city’s economic development division and our partners at the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC for yet another very positive development for the City of Colorado Springs.”
Amazon will fulfill customer orders such as books, electronics, and toys from this 800,000-square-foot fulfillment center. All associates will go through safety training and have access to continuing education opportunities through Amazon's upskilling programs such as Career Choice. In the Career Choice program, the company will pre-pay up to 95 percent of tuition for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. Since the program's launch, over 25,000 employees have pursued degrees in game design and visual communications, nursing, IT programming and radiology, to name a few.
On top of Amazon's $15 minimum wage, the company offers full-time employees comprehensive benefits including full medical, vision, and dental insurance as well as a 401(k) with 50 percent match starting on day one. The company also offers up to 20 weeks of maternal and parental paid leave and innovative benefits such as Leave Share and Ramp Back, which give new parents flexibility with their growing families. In addition, Amazon has pledged to invest over $700 million to provide upskilling training for 100,000 U.S. employees for in-demand jobs. Programs will help Amazonians from all backgrounds access training to move into highly skilled roles across the company's corporate offices, tech hubs, fulfilment centers, retail stores, and transportation network, or to pursue career paths outside of Amazon.
Amazon's fulfillment network supports businesses of all sizes worldwide through its Fulfillment By Amazon offering, and many of those local organizations are based right here in Colorado. There are more than 45,000 authors, small and medium-sized businesses, and developers in Colorado growing their companies and reaching new customers on Amazon products and services. Amazon has invested $1.5 billion in Colorado including customer fulfillment and cloud infrastructure, research facilities, and compensation to our employees. A result of Amazon’s investments in Colorado, more than $1 billion has been added into the state GDP.
In 2019, Amazon released a report that revealed the top 10 states with the fastest-growing small and medium-sized businesses. The State of Colorado was sixth on the list. The report examined year-over-year sales growth of businesses selling in Amazon’s stores across all 50 states. Amazon helps facilitate online selling and provides the logistics behind-the-scenes that help enable businesses, particularly those located in rural areas, to reach customers around the globe.
The project is being developed by Trammell Crow.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
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Press release
Red Energy Public Relations in Colorado Springs has recently been awarded three public relations and marketing contracts with organizations to include: ViewHouse Colorado Springs, Melody Living Lake in the Hills and Peak Military Care Network.
The full-service firm offers a wide range of services and will support ViewHouse Colorado Springs with their Grand Opening in the Pikes Peak Region by assisting with media outreach and digital marketing, and supporting the restaurant with its long-term community outreach strategy.
Supporting Illinois-based Melody Living Lake in the Hills, a Cedarwood Development project, Red Energy will extend the assisted living and memory care community's digital footprint through SEO content development, social media management, media relations, special event planning, community outreach and advertising.
Peak Military Care Network has contracted Red Energy to assist with the nonprofit organization's brand redevelopment and merger with The Home Front Cares of which Red Energy will incorporate strategic market research, conduct focus groups, develop a brand identity, create key messaging and design the organization's marketing materials.
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An enjoyable new cooking school and workshop venue
Press Release
Crafted Colorado announces that it has opened a second location in
the heart of Old Colorado City to house a larger workspace area to host new and invigorating
cooking classes and activities. Nominated as one of the Best Cooking Classes in the
Springs - Crafted Colorado has partnered with Sweet Addict Bakery to offer fun and
memorable classes that are entertaining for all ages!
Class topics currently scheduled include Harry Potter Desserts, Cooking with Cannabis,
Chocolate & Wine pairing, Cannolis, Boozy Baking and even chunky knit blankets!
To celebrate, Crafted Colorado is hosting a giveaway: one lucky winner will receive a
complimentary class for four people - topic of their choice (up to a $320 value!) To enter,
please visit facebook.com/CraftedColorado
Many of the classes are taught by Sweet Addict Bakery owner, Deidre Peak. In ten short
years, Sweet Addict Bakery has become a top 1% business on Etsy and has even been
featured by the Food Network! Mrs. Peak is “delighted to offer easy, enjoyable and
entertaining cooking sessions” that she has “achieved through lots and LOTS of failures” and
her own “ingenuity and creativity.” Mrs. Peak is a “stress-eater” and her passion for baking
has become one of the most recognizable gourmet candy companies in our community and
beyond.
Crafted Colorado is a veteran and woman owned business that offers a variety of giftable
goods supporting 70+ local, small businesses - all handmade and crafted in our community.
Crafted Colorado’s kitchen space is available to rent for private parties, food trucks, catering,
etc. - please inquire!
From kids to seniors and sweet to savory, there's a class for everyone!
You can register for classes at their website - www.craftedcoloradoltd.com/events
