Diversity softens downturn.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Rschwab@cobizmag.com

COLORADO'S MID - 1980S ECONOMIC CRASH PUT THE STATE'S CORPS of architects through a brutal consolidation that closed down firms, forced rivals to link up as partners, and drove dozens of professionals out of state looking for work.

How's the current economic downturn treating the profession?

"It's a little nervous-making," said Elizabeth Wright-Ingraham, a Colorado Springs architect who is president of the Colorado chapter of the American Institute of Architects. She said firms have been forced to lay off a limited number of employees, but so far have avoided a 1980s-style bloodbath.

This month, for the first time, ColoradoBiz is publishing a set of Top 10 lists of firms that lead the professional-services industries in the state (pages 26-28). To accompany the lists, Managing Editor Mike Taylor has written about a pair of accountants whose firm, rooted in a boyhood friendship, has become one of those top 10 accounting firms.

The set also ranks engineering firms, construction contractors, public relations/advertising firms, lawyers and architects by the number of employees working for them, including nonprofessionals.

Those numbers show that, despite the telecom implosion, Colorado's workforce still contains a diversity of traditional high-end jobs.

Economic diversity...