Publicly traded technology and media company The Active Network has acquired Avon’s Resort Technology Partners, a decade-old pioneer of technological innovations in resort ticketing and sales.

RTP makes software and technology that helps resorts manage ticket sales and gear rentals. The company’s latest innovation, RTP One, processes transactions at the resort, online or with smartphones while harvesting transaction data for analysis and marketing. Since the company formed in 1998 as a point-of-sale commerce engine for Vail Resorts, resorts across North America, Europe and Australia have adopted RTP technology. The company now includes Aspen Skiing, Intrawest, Vail Resorts and Powdr Corp. as customers.

Active Network, while based in San Diego, has offices in Boulder and Englewood with about 80 employees. The acquisition of RTP’s software and interactive groups will boost Active’s employee headcount to about 160.
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Dave Jilk

Boulder-based Standing Cloud, one of a growing number of Colorado startups specializing in cloud computing, says it has raised $3 million in new financing, bringing its total funding to $8 million.

The new funds came from existing Standing Cloud investors Foundry Group of Boulder and Avalon Ventures, which operates out of La Jolla, Calif., and Cambridge, Mass.

Brad Feld

Standing Cloud offers application-management services to cloud service providers. The company was founded in 2009 and is headed by Dave Jilk, founder of several Boulder companies and co-founder of Feld Technologies with Foundry Group managing partner Brad Feld.
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The Denver Post

Wind famr near Lamar, Colorado

Wind can be a tricky thing – especially when you are depending upon it to generate electricity. It can blow too hard or not at all. And yet when the wall switch is flicked we expect the lights to turn on.

It also became clear the poor understanding of wind shear and turbulence was wreaking havoc – reducing energy output by as much as 20 percent and wearing out turbines that were supposed to have a 20-year life in just five years.

When there is no wind a utility has to suddenly ramp-up either coal-fired or gas-fired units, a potentially expensive exercise, and when there is too much wind a turbines may have to be taken off line.

The problem led to a partnership in 2009 between the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and Xcel Energy to see if with better data wind farms could be more effectively managed.
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The Urban Land Conservancy paid $1.7 million for a 1.4-acre parcel at East 38th Avenue and Walnut Street on the future light-rail line to Denver International Airport.

Blake TOD (transit-oriented development) will be developed as a mixed-use site with an emphasis on affordable housing. It will have easy acccess to the Blake Street Station, scheduled to be completed in 2015.

The purchase is the sixth property the conservancy has purchased using Denver’s Transit-Oriented Development Fund established to acquire and preserve land for workforce housing near light-rail stops and high-frequency bus routes.

The new St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood nabbed overall  Project of the Year honors from the University of Denver Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management.

The $430 million hospital on 50 acres at the Denver Federal Center is expected to deliver $280 million in annual impact to the local economy.

Other projects honored include:

* TwoNineNorth Apartments in Boulder in the multi-family category

* Fitzsimons 100 at Fitzsimons Village/Corporex for office

* Ikea in Centennial for retail project

* The Ale House at Amato’s in the Highland neighborhood for restaurant

* The Ritz-Carlton Residences in Vail for hospitality

Joe Amon, Denver Post file

The Denver Big Air competition January 26, 2011 at Civic Center Park

Denver’s Big Air event in Civic Center Park is not coming back.

Fitting the January contest in the International Ski Federation’s international Big Air calendar — which runs from October through December across Europe and Asia — proved too difficult, said the Metro Denver Sports Commission’s Sue Baldwin, the principal organizer of last January’s $1.2 million festive spectacle of live music and flying snowboarders.

“If we wanted to do it again, they (the FIS) were looking at October through December, which doesn’t work because we could easily have a day like this,” Baldwin said Thursday, with temperatures hovering in the mid 50s.

The FIS made an exception last year when it had an opening in its calendar and it meshed with the Colorado gathering of snowy athletes and industry players for Denver’s SnowSports Industries America annual Snow Show trade show and Aspen’s Winter X Games. This year proved too difficult to schedule, so Denver Sports is taking a year off.

But watch for something snowy in Civic Center Park in January 2013. An urban biathlon maybe, or an urban half-pipe contest or even a curling competition, Baldwin said.

“With an Olympic bid potentially in the future, we are looking for opportunities to do something different and big every year,” she said, noting Colorado’s interest in a possible bid for the 2022 Winter Games.

The Denver Post

Gov. Bill Ritter

Politics and the financial markets are creating a rough patch for the clean energy industry says Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and Don Reicher, the former director of climate change and energy initatives at Google.

Ritter and Reicher, who is now director of an energy and finance policy center at Stanford University, outlined the challenges during a panel discussion at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s 24th Industry Growth Forum in Denver.

The forum is a place that start-up companies – ranging from Denver-based Ravenbrick, a maker of energy efficient “smart” windows to Algal Scientific, a Plymouth, Michigan company using algal to clean waste water and make fuel – get to rub shoulders with venture capital financiers.

The clean energy field, however, is facing some strong head winds. Gov. Ritter said the debate over climate change has made promoting clean energy tougher.
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Taryn Edwards now is hanging her hard hat at Saunders Constsruction Inc.

Edwards, who spent 24 years at Greeley-Based Hensel Phelps Construction Co.,  made the move to Saunders in October, where she’s serving senior vice president.

Edwards also has served as president of the Associated General Contractors and was director of former Gov. Bill Ritter’s Jobs Cabinet.

Lyn Alweis

Harry Mosgrove, pictured here in 1999 as Copper Mountain's village was under construction, served 18 years as president of the Summit County ski area.

Harry Mosgrove was president of Copper Mountain for 18 years, captaining the Summit County hill through Intrawest’s $192 million acquisition of Copper and British Columbia’s Whistler in 1997 as well as the inception of the area’s sprawling base village.

Before retiring in 1999, the well-respected industry chieftain secured a deal with Intrawest that gave his CMR Realty group partial ownership of any development on several parcels near the base area.
“We had a future value in the development of those sites, whether they were built out as condos or a hotel or whatever,” he said.

Part of that deal, Mosgrove said, required Intrawest to secure CMR Realty’s consent before selling the property, which was never developed.
When Intrawest sold Copper to Utah’s Powdr Corp. in late 2009 for $107 million, Mosgrove said: “They never asked our consent.”

Last week, a Summit County jury said Intrawest breached its agreement with Mosgrove’s team when it sold to Powdr and awarded CMR Realty $7.9 million in damages.
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The federal Bureau of Land Management is offering six parcels covering nearly 5,000 acres for oil and gas development at its next lease sale, Feb. 9, 2012, the agency announced today.

Three of the parcels are in Routt County and three are in Moffat County. The BLM is also offering two geothermal parcels located within the Gunnison Field Office, in Gunnison County. The first geothermal parcel includes 4,588 acres of BLM land. The second geothermal parcel includes about 3,765 acres of U.S. Forest Service land.

The geothermal parcels are being put up for auction after stipulations were added to the lease offers, including protective measures for geological hazards, Gunnison sage-grouse seasonal mating areas, and senior water rights.

The deadline for submitting protests is 4 p.m., Dec. 12. All protests must be received by the BLM Colorado State Office, located at 2850 Youngfield St., Lakewood, CO 80215.