Education--a business-development issue.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: On Colorado - Tom Clark made Web publisher of Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

LET'S HOPE LEGISLATORS GOT THE MESSAGE.

Last month, the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., the corporate recruitment arm of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, made a Web publisher of its vice president, Tom Clark.

That means Clark is in charge of the region-wide EDC's electronic and other efforts to create more than 100,000 new jobs and to generate $25 billion in business over the next five years, as well as the fund-raising chore of gathering $12.5 million to pay for the effort.

Clark has already raised $8.1 million of that money mostly from private companies but also about $300,000 from the region's public sector, including more than 50 cities, counties and economic-development agencies in the region as well as Greeley and Weld County.

You can only hope that he'll be as successful spending it in ways that create the new jobs and new business that are the goal for the region.

Clark announced his money-raising progress as he unveiled a Web site operated by the non-profit Metro Denver EDC, www.metrodenveredc.org, intended to be the best corporate site-selection tool in the nation and the first Web site ever to promote an entire region. It will promote Denver and the Front Range as the nation's premier spot for corporations to expand or relocate--bringing all those jobs with them.

And after the announcement, a group of businesspeople who attended the event went from there to the state Capitol to try to convince legislators that higher-education funding in Colorado was just as important an economic-development tool for the state as Web sites and corporate recruitment programs.

Gov. Bill Owens joined the pitch, stating he would veto a proposed 40 percent increase in tuition at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado State University if...