Outlook up-tempo: ColoradoBiz Top Company panelists look for good year as long as high interest rates and fuel prices don't act as drag on economy.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Panel Discussion

CLIFF BROWN AND RUSS FARMER OWN and run ADA Technologies Inc., a Littleton company with 35 employees. ADA has grown steadily at a 30 percent per-year clip since 2000--straight through the national recession of 2001 and through the Colorado recession that has lingered through 2002, 2003, 2004 and into 2005. The firm uses federal business-development grants to turn technology research into commercial products, and its growth rate is as much a testimony to its success as any other indicator could be.

Both Brown and Farmer anticipate that 2006 will be an even better year for their small business. ADA opened a Wyoming office in November, and Farmer said ADA's revenues in 2006 could grow by more than 50 percent next year.

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Over the life of the 20-year-old company, ADA has generated almost $47 million in revenues; it has been granted 17 patents for its technology; and, in September, had six to 12 more patents in development.

Brown and Farmer, winners of a ColoradoBiz Top Company award in 2005, were among almost a dozen executives of Colorado firms who participated in the magazine's annual economic-forecast roundtable, a discussion of firms' past financial performance and current outlook undertaken in hopes of gaining a perspective on what the Colorado business community might anticipate economically for the coming year.

"The general feeling of the advisors of the senior management at ADA is that next year is going to be an incredible year for us," Farmer told the roundtable, referring to the company's advisory board. "I think it could very easily well exceed 30 percent; (and) given a few things we're looking at, it could push upward of 50 percent ....

"Overall, we see the economy as being very, very strong. I think we're well positioned to grow in our sector, and make a lot of money and have a lot of fun."

That's not to say that some of the executives did not have concerns for the Colorado economy, as a recovery finally seems to be taking hold in the state. No one was as optimistic for the state's economy as Farmer and Brown were for their own company.

Mariner Kemper, chairman and CEO of Kansas City, Mo.-based UMB Bank, which has extensive Colorado operations, said his publicly traded institution's first six months of 2005 broke records for financial performance, yet he remains wary of an economic slowdown that might result from rising interest rates--a concern of several members of the roundtable.

Kemper, who was for several...