"Is it Ogden?" Luis Benitez asks Big Agnes owner Bill Gamber while the two stand near the banks of the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs. Benitez is the chief of Colorado's brand new Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry, and Gamber is the leader of a cadre of outdoor companies that, for now, still calls Steamboat home despite trying for years to find a larger space but being repeatedly stymied by the intractable problem of ski town governance. In the Denver Post's profile of Benitez and the office of one he's charged with running, Ogden, Utah, comes up a lot. How the once-sleepy railway town turned into a hub of outdoor industry activity is both a test case and a source of unease, as brands have decamped for its foggy pastures, low freight costs and abundant warehouse space. Benitez has plans to keep Colorado businesses at home and maybe even woo some from outside, but that could entail a company named for a Steamboat-area peak with its workforce in Pueblo.
Read more about Colorado's efforts to stop the rush to Utah >>
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