Made in Colorado Awards 2023: Best Designed Goods

There’s a common misconception that the United States doesn’t manufacture much anymore. In reality, the country continues to out-manufacture China on a per capita basis, and domestic growth outpaced the global average for the first time in years in late 2022.

Colorado is a case in point. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows that employment in Colorado’s manufacturing sector peaked in 1998 at 192,200 workers. That plummeted to 122,200 employees in 2010, but the state’s manufacturing workforce has steadily grown to surpass 150,000 as of late 2023.

With these dynamics front and center, this year’s “Made in Colorado” profiles illuminate 10 of the state’s pioneering manufacturers, makers of whiskey, satellites and just about everything in between.

READ: Inside the Colorado Semiconductor Industry Renaissance — CHIPS Act Sparks Manufacturing Revival

BEST DESIGNED GOODS

WINNER — Vortic Watch Company

Fort Collins, Colorado

Website: www.vorticwatches.com

R.T. Custer co-founded Vortic Watch Company with Tyler Wolfe in 2014 with a question in mind. “How do we make a 100 percent American-made watch, a truly made-in-USA wristwatch?” Custer says. “Pretty much everyone we talked to said, ‘Watches are made in Switzerland or China. No one makes watches in America.’”

Nearly a decade later, Custer and Wolfe have proven those doubters wrong with a novel manufacturing approach. “The only way to make a truly American-made watch was to upcycle old pocket watches and use the movement — or all of the gears and springs inside, basically all the inside of the pocket watch — and then we would make the bigger stuff that was easier to make in the U.S.,” Custer says.

With six CNC machines and 10 employees in an 8,500-square-foot shop in Fort Collins, Vortic handles the vast majority of the restoration and manufacturing in-house. “The biggest Achilles’ heel is watchmakers and the skilled trade gap,” Custer says. “There are just not very many people to work on them and restore them. The average age of a watchmaker in the United States is approaching 70.”

As Vortic Watches start at $2,000, the company is targeting a broader market with Colorado Watch Company, a new brand with a price tag around $1,000. Metal components are made in Fort Collins, with the movements and final products assembled in Arizona.

“We have hundreds of people that backed us on Kickstarter; we’ve raised over $300,000 on our campaign, so with Colorado Watch Company, our new brand, we’re making watches in America at scale now,” Custer says. “That’s exactly where the growth will come from, from those other brands, but Vortic and our pocket watches turned into wrist watches aren’t going anywhere, because that’s what people know us for, and we just love doing it.”

FINALIST — Alpine High Performance Products

Louisville, Colorado

Website — www.thinkalpen.com

The longstanding manufacturer of custom fiberglass windows and doors emphasizes energy efficiency and durability in its product line. The company has grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade, from about 30 employees in 2015 to more than 140 employees today.

FINALIST — Tiny Building Experts

Greeley, Colorado

Website — www.tinybuildingexperts.com

Founded by Austin Baker and Tracy Manchego-Baker in 2018, Tiny Building Experts manufactures custom RV-certified tiny homes on wheels. The company offers a try-before-you-buy option at the Tiny Urban Overlook near downtown Denver as it builds units for a tiny home village for at-risk young adults in Colorado Springs.

Denver-based writer Eric Peterson is the author of Frommer’s Colorado, Frommer’s Montana & Wyoming, Frommer’s Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks and the Ramble series of guidebooks, featuring first-person travelogues covering everything from atomic landmarks in New Mexico to celebrity gone wrong in Hollywood. Peterson has also recently written about backpacking in Yosemite, cross-country skiing in Yellowstone and downhill skiing in Colorado for such publications as Denver’s Westword and The New York Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected].