FORECAST 2001.

• Author: SCHWAB, ROBERT
• Position: Colorado's economy

SCOTT FLORES EXPECTS TO LOSE ONE OF HIS CORPORATE CUSTOMERS NEXT YEAR, EVEN AS HIS Die Cut Technologies, a North Denver manufacturer, moves to a new, $1.5 million plant this spring. "It'll be a tough year, but I'm optimistic," Flores said. "I'm feeling tremendous price pressure to reduce costs. And it's pretty much not there to give." The pressure is coming from his largest, national customers. "Most of their forecasts are down," he said, so he's projecting a 20 percent drop in sales, which lately have been around $5 million annually Yet Flores is looking around for new customers, too. Working with a University of Colorado business development program, he's trying to drum up more sales among small and medium-sized Colorado companies. Those firms, he hopes, may place a higher value on the close-to-home product and services Die Cut's 42 employees can provide. Maybe, he muses, Die Cut could even tap into the state's still booming high-technology market.

Local newspaper headlines keep shouting out good news. "Colorado ranks 5th in growth," blasts a front-page column-topper in The Denver Post. "Median income tops $40,000," says the Denver Rocky Mountain News. Tucker Hart Adams, chief economist for U.S. Bank in the Rocky Mountain region, did them even better early in September when she predicted Colorado's economy in 2001 would continue to punch up positive numbers. "Everything has gone right at once," Adams told a business breakfast hosted by the University of Colorado at Denver. And it may not only be next year, Adams said. Colorado might continue to pump out those numbers for another couple of years. "We are enjoying the longest economic expansion in our history," Adams said of the U.S. economy. "Because it has been so long, everybody thinks we must be at the end of it."

That's the rub. If Scott Flores' business strategy for the year 2001 sounds cautiously optimistic, you might accuse him of ripping off the forecasts of the state's leading economists:

* "It's a strong growth economy," said Nancy McCallin, director of the state's planning and budget office. "I see continued healthy growth."

* "We're in really good shape, still," said Mike Rose, an economist with the state Department of Labor and Employment. Rose calculates Colorado's monthly unemployment rate. "We'll continue to have low unemployment rates," he said. "I wouldn't expect any major changes from where we are now."

* "We probably will have a pretty high level of job growth," said...