{"id":590991,"date":"2026-04-18T03:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/590991\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T03:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:35:08","slug":"work-to-grow-aerospace-industry-ongoing-in-denver-south-and-colorados-arapahoe-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/590991\/","title":{"rendered":"Work to grow aerospace industry ongoing in Denver South and Colorado’s Arapahoe County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artemis II is putting a spotlight on the aerospace industry<\/a> in the United States, and Colorado is certainly one of the epicenters of that growing sector. There are more than 250 aerospace companies that have a presence in Colorado that collaborated with NASA on this month’s moon mission<\/a>. But those businesses only make up about 13% of Colorado’s overall aerospace presence. Colorado currently has about 2,000 aerospace companies based in the state. <\/p>\n

In the past five years, more than 1,600 jobs in aerospace and aviation have been added in the Denver South area, which includes Arapahoe County businesses in the I-25 corridor south of Denver’s city limits. Business leaders in that area are hoping to grow the industry even more in upcoming years. <\/p>\n

The company Step One 2 Launch recently opened a facility on the 7000 block of South Tucson Way in Centennial. <\/p>\n

“We wanted to create a place to help the small entrepreneur, the small company, the maker, the inventor,” said Kenneth Geyer, one of the Step One 2 Launch founders. <\/p>\n

Geyer says their hub gives startup companies a place to grow, and provides infrastructure that can help take their idea from concept to product. <\/p>\n

“We have hot desks and things like that. We also have anti-static flooring, assembly benches, tool kits, tool sets,” he said. <\/p>\n

The 22,000 square foot command center aims to support developing the next generation of technology in industries like aerospace<\/a>, defense<\/a> and advanced manufacturing. <\/p>\n

“The Front Range has always been a big part of the space industry,” Geyer said. <\/p>\n

“(There are) humongous manufacturers that are located down in this region. Lockheed Martin is here, Northrop Grumman is here,” said Christine Shapard, Senior Director of Economic Development for Denver South. <\/p>\n

The area also sits between defense installations, research institutions and also near the Centennial Airport and Denver International Airport. <\/p>\n

Shapard said the aviation and aerospace industry is Denver South’s fastest growing sector. <\/p>\n

“Over the past five years, it’s definitely been growing about 18%,” she said. <\/p>\n

With flexible workspace options and engineering-ready infrastructure, the command center will support Colorado’s growing tech economy<\/a>. <\/p>\n

“And this helps encourage that same startup community in this aerospace industry,” Shapard said. <\/p>\n

For small startups, it also means big exposure. <\/p>\n

“(We can) bring them into a place where there is a lot of different opinions to help a lot of people, not only to learn from our successes, but to also to learn from a lot of our failures,” Geyer said. <\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artemis II is putting a spotlight on the aerospace industry in the United States, and Colorado is certainly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-590991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}