Ft. Collins economy (Denver, Fort Collins, Boulder: job market, neighborhood, school)

[nkomlanc]

Hi,

My hubby and I are recent empty nesters and are thinking about relocating to the Ft. Collins area. Can someone tell us about the economic growth of this area? We visited recently and really like the area though we will both need jobs--his in IT, mine in the education management level. We are making serious life changing decisions and appreciate your input or direction to information that can help us decide.

Thanks ahead of time.

[StealthRabbit]

Do a search in this forum, lots of information on jobs, as mentioned yesterday there are plenty of capable workers with folks hanging around after they attended CSU or worked and got 'outsourced' at (previously) great local companies... HP, Kodak, (Ball Ind & IBM of Boulder / Niwot) just to name a few. HP went from the 2nd largest employer in Colorado in the 80's nearly with nearly 15,000 in NO CO alone ! to less then 2000 currently. It is a nice area (Ft C / Loveland, and nearby) and folks stay around hoping to get employed. Many engineers and other professionals are into lesser jobs and pay. But, the economy is pretty diverse and stable, + growing. It is not gonna be someplace where you can get top $ for your skills, as competition is stiff, and experience vast. If you need top $ you will have to go to urban (less desirable) areas where you will be competing with the younger set +/-.

Just visit and check it out, spend some serious time attending hobby clubs of interest, recreation, libraries and activities and transportation emulating your future lifestyle. Be sure to commute and go to these spots during your proposed time frame. FC traffic drives me crazy, as I don't do stoplights... several miles of the N-S routes are ALL stoplights ! But if you can be centrally located you can avoid some of that. During commute hours it is often blocked from light to light. Bicycle is much faster much of the year. I'm a Loveland kid tho, so prefer its pace and lack of the SUV 'upward mobility' crowd. I need a close-by lap pool & Loveland has 3-4 choices. I might even look to Berthoud as it is central if you have to commute for work (den, boulder, greeley, fc) and is quiet and friendly and only a couple stoplights. or... IF you can find a job... get a place close enough to walk (preferred at current and future energy prices). The EDU options are good as quality private, public, jr colleges, U's, and trade school are abundant.

[nkomlanc]

Hi Janb,

Thanks so much for your comments and insight! We'll do more research on the areas you suggested.

[tfox]

For IT, Fort Collins has several large employers (HP, Agilent, Intel, AMD, National Semi, LSI Logic), but the choices are not all that vast, so your luck will be largely as to whether the previously mentioned big companies are hiring or not. They also tend to all run in the same cycle, so they are either all hiring or none of them are.

As mentioned, salaries tend to be noticably lower than the Denver/Boulder area, basically due to supply and demand. Cost of living is lower than Denver/Boulder but it doesn't offset the lower salaries. That sometimes leaves you the difficult choice between working locally for less money or driving an hour south for more money. Dollars and cents, you'll make out better in Denver area, but you may be willing to trade off to live in FC because the area does have a lot to offer.

I don't want to sound all negative. Many towns FC's size would kill to have the variety of IT related companies set up shop in their neighborhood. You're not going to find those opportunities in most other towns of FC's size around the mountain west. But FC is only an hour away from Denver/Boulder, a major regional IT and communications hub with 2.5M people in population. It's hard for FC to compete with THAT in terms of opportunities.

[BGF]

Originally Posted by janb

Do a search in this forum, lots of information on jobs, as mentioned yesterday there are plenty of capable workers with folks hanging around after they attended CSU or worked and got 'outsourced' at (previously) great local companies... HP, Kodak, (Ball Ind & IBM of Boulder / Niwot) just to name a few. HP went from the 2nd largest employer in Colorado in the 80's nearly with nearly 15,000 in NO CO alone ! to less then 2000 currently. It is a nice area (Ft C / Loveland, and nearby) and folks stay around hoping to get employed. Many engineers and other professionals are into lesser jobs and pay. But, the economy is pretty diverse and stable, + growing. It is not gonna be someplace where you can get top $ for your skills, as competition is stiff, and experience vast. If you need top $ you will have to go to urban (less desirable) areas where you will be competing with the younger set +/-.

Just visit and check it out, spend some serious time attending hobby clubs of interest, recreation, libraries and activities and transportation emulating your future lifestyle. Be sure to commute and go to these spots during your proposed time frame. FC traffic drives me crazy, as I don't do stoplights... several miles of the N-S routes are ALL stoplights ! But if you can be centrally located you can avoid some of that. During commute hours it is often blocked from light to light. Bicycle is much faster much of the year. I'm a Loveland kid tho, so prefer its pace and lack of the SUV 'upward mobility' crowd. I need a close-by lap pool & Loveland has 3-4 choices. I might even look to Berthoud as it is central if you have to commute for work (den, boulder, greeley, fc) and is quiet and friendly and only a couple stoplights. or... IF you can find a job... get a place close enough to walk (preferred at current and future energy prices). The EDU options are good as quality private, public, jr colleges, U's, and trade school are abundant.

Yes, I made the decision to leave the area after the 2001 tech crash. It was a very, very difficult decision because I loved the outdoorsy culture, the great scenery, and the small town feel of Fort Collins, but I could tell that the tech job market just wasn't that deep. Some of my co-workers ended up taking jobs that paid $25-$30k a year. I ended up moving to a place that had neither the scenery, the outdoorsy culture, nor the town feel of Fort Collins, but the job and money was great. I guess the pay is compensation for the boring living.